Award-winning Composer
If you would like a copy of her Bio for publication, please go to the contact page.
Please get in touch if you would like to commission a new work, request a composition lesson, invite Katy to present or adjudicate, or discuss licensing her music for film and media.
“Katy Abbott has a gift in that she listens to people and then responds to them…. it is a quality that informs her music, which is characterised by an emotional honesty that connects people from diverse backgrounds.”
Coady Green, Concert Pianist
Audience feedback from Katy Abbott’s presentation as Keynote Speaker at ACCET Choral Training Summer School, Melbourne, January 2023. The title of the two Keynotes were: Text as Inspiration & Writing for Voice.
“Katy was an excellent presenter – very engaging and inspiring.”
“Katy was lovely and I loved her passion and vision. Even though I’m not a composer, I was very moved and inspired by her presentations.”
“Katy is such an engaging and interesting presenter. Her composition and craft is inspirational.”
“Katy is inspiring! She challenges perspectives and sparks new ideas.”
“AMAZING!!! GREAT TEACHER. Easy to understand and listen to – engaging – clear, passionate.”
Dr Katy Abbott
B.Ed (Sec), GradDip(Comp), MMus, PhD
University of Melbourne
Dr Katy Abbott is an award-winning Australian composer whose orchestral, chamber, choral and vocal works have been performed, published and recorded around the world.
Dr Katy Abbott is an award-winning Australian composer whose orchestral, chamber, choral and vocal works have been performed, published and recorded around the world. She has a deep curiosity in understanding human nature and what drives us. This is reflected and embedded in her work.
Katy possesses a remarkable ability to capture and convey the essence of various subjects through music which adeptly narrates stories, explores the intangible and captures fleeting moments.
As a gifted storyteller, Katy Abbott brings to light the profound in the ordinary – exploring connection, grief, humour and awe at meta and micro levels and in a way that connects the shared human experience between performers and audience. Her music frequently exhibits a cheeky humour and cleverly juxtaposes contemporary textures on traditional settings.
Katy Abbott’s compositions have been brought to life by many leading ensembles and orchestras including Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Queensland and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, Halcyon, The Song Company, Syzygy Ensemble, Flinders Quartet, Ensemble Three, and Ensemble Offspring. She has collaborated closely with artists including soprano Greta Bradman, conductor Benjamin Northey, narrator Pamela Rabe, percussionist Claire Edwardes, cellist Zoe Knighton, vocalist Sunny Kim, and Ensemble Three’s Don Immel and Joel Brennan. Her works have been featured in many Australian and international music festivals.
Internationally, The Peasant Prince has been programmed by the Seattle Symphony Orchestra, Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, and Plano Symphony Orchestra (with Texas Ballet Theatre), and her brass and chamber works have been performed at Music Academy of the West (USA) and by university brass faculties across North America.
A versatile creative talent, Katy Abbott’s catalogue of work incorporates music for orchestra, chamber and voice, an area where she exhibits particular flair. Her PhD (2007) at Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne, included a guide to writing for the solo voice.
Her compositional process for Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter? is documented in her chapter in The Composer, Herself: Contemporary Snapshots of the Creative Process (Palgrave Macmillan, 2024), edited by Linda Kouvaras, Natalie Williams, and Maria Grenfell.
Prizes and Awards (Select)
Katy Abbott has won many Composition Prizes and Awards including:
– 2024 Composer-In-Residence, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
– 2019 Paul Lowin Prize (song-cycle) for Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter?
– 2018 Australia Council for the Arts Fellowship (Music)
– 2016 International Rostrum of Composers (Australian Entry)
– 2013 Boston Metro Opera ‘Gold Medal for Art-Song’ for The Domestic Sublime
– Finalist in the APRA AMC Art Music Awards (2013, 2021)
– 2011 Albert H. Maggs Award for Composition
– 2001 Dorian Le Gallienne Prize for Composition
Sponsor, Katy Abbott Prize for Composition, International Alliance for Women in Music (IAWM) Search for New Music (for large chamber and orchestral works)
(Select) Major Works:
Glacial Thunder (2024) for string orchestra, commissioned by Melbourne Chamber Orchestra to open their 2024 season at Melbourne Recital Centre.
Hidden Thoughts: Stories of Awe (2024) premiered by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in August 2024. The piece for narrator, voices and orchestra has a focus on stories from the public.
Hidden Thoughts: Do I Matter? (2017) is a festival piece based on the ‘hidden thoughts’ of women collected in an anonymous survey. More details…
Hidden Thoughts: Return To Sender (2020) was premiered to great acclaim on Melbourne Digital Concert Hall in July 2020. The piece uses text from returned letters of support and encouragement written by Australians to asylum seekers on Nauru that were never delivered and returned to sender. More details…
The Peasant Prince: A Symphonic Tale (2009), for narrator and orchestra, commissioned by Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. It tells the powerful story of Mao’s Last Dancer: Li Cunxin, with a TSO/ABC Classics recording. The Peasant Prince continues to be a popular work for family and education orchestral settings. More details…
Introduced Species: Symphony No. 2 (2014), commissioned by Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, is regularly programmed. An exploration of paintings by Australian artist Matthew Quick related to the North Pacific Ocean’s Garbage Patch/Trash Vortex. More details…
Midnight Songs (2014) for brass duo + guitar has been performed around the world. Recorded by Ensemble Three it appears on Punch: The Brass Music of Katy Abbott and also on Ensemble Three’s 2016 album: Midnight Songs.
The Domestic Sublime (2011) song cycle for soprano and piano is recorded by Greta Bradman and Leigh Harrold on The Domestic Sublime: The Vocal Music of Katy Abbott and is one of 5 major song-cycles in Abbott’s catalogue.
> Full list of Katy Abbott Compositions
Solo Albums + Recordings
- Sunburnt Aftertones: The Chamber Music of Katy Abbott (Move Records)
- The Domestic Sublime: The Vocal Music of Katy Abbott (ABC Classics)
- Famous: The Choral Music of Katy Abbott (ABC Classics)
- Punch: The Brass Music of Katy Abbott (ABC Classics)
- The Peasant Prince: A Symphonic Tale (ABC Classics/Universal Music).
Katy’s music is also included on many albums of other artists.
> Further Information
Residencies
Residencies include Banff Centre for the Arts, Bundanon Trust, Tyrone Gutherie Centre for the Arts, All That We Are and UKARIA Cultural Centre.
Katy joined the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Artistic Family in 2024 as Composer-In-Residence, during which she premiered Hidden Thoughts: Stories of Awe and presented The Peasant Prince and earlier works from the Hidden Thoughts Series.
Educator/Academia
Katy has been teaching, lecturing and mentoring for 30+ years in Secondary and Tertiary settings as well as within the Arts Industry. She was on staff for over a decade as Senior Lecturer in Composition and is now Honorary Senior Fellow at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, University of Melbourne.
Through Katy Abbott Studio, she also mentors established artists and creative leaders through CATAPULT and Catapult Conversations.
