Liza Lim is one of Australia’s leading composers, with an international reputation. In a monograph called The Music of Liza Lim, Tim Rutherford-Johnson describes her sound as “lyrical and dramatic, contemplative and vigorous, intimate and wild”.

“Composition really is trying to attune to the situation and people; that’s where I get inspiration from, really,” Lim tells Limelight.

Liza Lim

Liza Lim. Photo © Maria Sturm

“I don’t know everything about my music when it starts; it unfolds as I go, as I discover more things about it. Even when it’s finished, I don’t know everything about it – which, I think, is a good thing.”

A highly accomplished composer, Lim is in huge demand at home and abroad. She has three world premieres in Australia this year, while her existing works also feature on several 2024 programs. 

In February, cellist James Morley played her gorgeously eerie work an ocean beyond earth at Phoenix Central Park in Sydney, a cotton thread connecting his instrument to the strings of a nearby violin. The New York-based JACK Quartet gave the Australian premiere of String Creatures while touring here in April. Lim wrote the...