Composer and improviser living and working on unceded Gadigal – Eora land (Sydney, Australia)
Josephine’s practice centers the concept of ‘interference’ as both a vibrant compositional tool and an aesthetic framework for articulating her practice. This materialises in her work through mediations of disclosure and secrecy, disturbances unfolding within and across modes of sound production, feedback loops, subversions of agency hierarchies and an unyielding preoccupation with the uncanny.
View full bio here
View a list of works here
Further reading/listening
available here
Thesis: An Aesthetics of Interference in my Composition Practice
MMus (composition) – Doctor of philosophy
Awarded by The University of Sydney, 2021
Read here
Contact at josephinemacken.composer@gmail.com
Score Samples
Still -or- Invitation at Dusk (2019-20)
for soloist; alto flute, alto voice & electronics
Burial (2019)
for mixed quartet;
c trumpet, clarinets, percussion & double bass
Recent & Upcoming Work
Vessel Song
2022-23
for three players;
lines, vessels and membranophone
Premiered by SPEAK Percussion
Melbourne Recital Centre, VIC Australia
Feb 9 2023
Vessel Song explores the temporality of lines, engaging tangible lengths of rope, twine, fabric, chains and objects as both measurements and proponents of musical time. The vessels themselves, cylindrical pillars through which these lines encounter resistance and amplification, highlight the uncanny ways empty spaces are made to speak.
New Work for Ensemble Offspring
NEW WORK (title tbc)
2023
for chamber ensemble
[upcoming]
premiering at Carriageworks, NSW
June 23 2023
Presented by Ensemble Offspring
More to come on the development of this work, including sketches, string maps and possibly even a few guides on how to make string scores and collide weaving/threading with notation.
Still -or-
Invitation at Dusk
2019
New Work
2023
for alto flute & double bass
for performance by Will Hansen & Josephine Macken
late 2023
Sydney, Australia
Josephine Macken 