Victorian-based composer and violist Matt Laing has been selected as the recipient of the 2024 Continuo Commission. With the award, Laing will compose a new work, entitled Streams. for the Australian Wind Quintet, to be premiered in 2025.

Streams will be a companion work to his string quartet Shapes, first premiered by the Flinders Quartet in 2017.

Matt Laing, the 2024 Continuo Commission composer. Photo supplied

Writing across orchestral, solo, chamber and dance music, Laing has composed for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, Affinity Quartet and the Australian String Quartet, among others.

In 2021, he was the MSO’s Young Composer in Residence and was awarded the Prelude residency from the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer House Trust. He has also served in residence at the Four Winds Festival.

“Each year, we receive an increasing number of applications for the Continuo Commissioning Circle, and this year was no exception. It reaffirms the critical need for initiatives like ours that foster the creation and performance of new work. By offering these opportunities, we not only contribute to the vibrancy of the arts in Victoria, but...