COMPOSER PROFILE
SALLY WHITWELL
Award winning musician Sally Whitwell maintains a busy freelance career as pianist, performer, conductor, composer and educator from her base in Sydney, Australia.
Recent solo concert appearances for Sally have included the world premiere of the Philip Glass Complete Piano Etudes for Perth International Arts Festival and Ten Tiny Dancers, an all-singing-all-playing-all-dancing cabaret piano recital for the Famous Spiegeltent season at Arts Centre Melbourne. In 2014 Sally travelled to Los Angeles and New York City to perform again with Philip Glass, his complete piano Etudes, in addition to performances for the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney Australia as part of their recent exhibition of portraits by American artist Chuck Close.
As a solo recording artist, Sally has four albums to her name. Her debut album Mad Rush: solo piano music of Philip Glass, won her the 2011 ARIA for Best Classical Album. Her sophomore album The Good, the Bad and the Awkward, is a truly unique compilation of film music where she played not only piano but toy piano, harpsichord, recorder and melodica. All Imperfect Things; solo piano music of Michael Nyman, won the 2013 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album as well as Best Engineer for ABC Classics very own tonmeister Virginia Read, the first time that a woman has ever won this award. Her most recent release I Was Flying, is a collection of her own compositions in the art song, choral and chamber music genres, which enjoyed five weeks in the top ten of the ARIA Core Classical Charts and was nominated for the 2015 ARIA Award for Best Classical Album.
Sally is very active as a conductor, composer and accompanist in choral music. In 2015 she has enjoyed an extensive tour of China, Hong Kong and Inner Mongolia with Sydney Children's Choir, with whom she regularly works. She also presented at the International Federation of Choral Music World Choral Expo in Macau in November and is currently enjoying her first subscription season as Music Director of Sydney based community chamber choir Coro Innominata. Her choral and vocal ensemble compositions have been performed by Juice vocal ensemble, Gondwana Choirs, VOX (Sydney Philharmonia Choirs' youth ensemble), Moorambilla Voices, Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, Luminescence, Hunter Singers and the Woden Valley Youth Choir.
Currently, Sally is concentrating on a number of composition projects, with several commissioned works soon to be premiered by Acacia Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, Gondwana Voices and Hunter Singers.
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