For composer Miriama Young, dusk is the ideal time for listening. As the sun dips and shadows lengthen, the boundaries between the natural and human worlds seem to soften. Familiar sounds take on a different quality.

It is an idea that has already inspired Young to one work, DuskLit, written for clarinet, piano and string quartet and performed by Sydney’s Omega Ensemble in 2025.

Now she is about to return to the concept with DuskLit Meditations, a new work commissioned for Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, supported by the University of Melbourne’s Biodiversity Institute and Melbourne Climate Futures, and shaped by the sounds of a new generation of listeners.

Miriama Young. Photo © Ishna Jacobs

Aotearoa/New Zealand-born and Melbourne-based, Young has long been interested in the meeting point between acoustic and electronic sound, as well as music’s capacity to engage with ecology and place. Her original DuskLit grew from an ABC Victoria rural network callout inviting young people in climate-affected communities to submit field recordings of their environments and places that were special to them. The response became part of the musical fabric of the work.

In DuskLit Meditations, Young has taken the...