Listen to Cassie’s original composition submitted with her entry.
Listen to Cassie’s composition performed by the Australian Youth Orchestra.
Cassie Parke is an emerging composer, arranger and music director from Sydney, Australia. She is a current fourth year student at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, studying a Bachelor of Music – Composition for Creative Industries, with a focus on music for film, theatre, advertising and games. Cassie has composed for short films with AFTRS, as well as independent film and theatre companies. Recently, she was an orchestrator for the Elton John Orchestrated concert at the State Theatre Sydney, which will tour later in the year to Melbourne and Canberra. Cassie grew up studying classical piano, and in 2017 she completed her AMusA Diploma in Piano Performance. These days she uses her skills as an accompanist and music director for musical theatre. Recent projects include music directing and music supervising the new Australian musical ‘Alice’s Adventures’, composing her own new musical ‘Everything I’ve Known’ and the original score for new indie film ‘Beast’. Cassie’s composition style is unique as it combines her passions in both theatre and film. She enjoys being challenged by briefs and composing for a wide variety of styles and instruments, but in particular loves to write for string ensembles, atmospheric soundscapes, jazz small ensembles and big bands.
Composition Inspiration
My original ideas for my fanfare ‘Flare’ stemmed from a simple rhythmic figure, which turned into an ostinato that is consistent throughout the piece in different instrumental colours. In the lead up to the fanfare submission, I was listening to some more traditional fanfares to gain inspiration, however I felt that I didn’t want my composition to become too generic. I wanted my piece to be a journey through both intrigue and excitement, and I chose to create this through interesting polyrhythms, textures and motifs. The inspiration for my piece came from the brewing feeling of excitement yet uncertainty that one can have when a big moment or event is about to take place. I layered the original rhythmic figure with a contrasting rhythm to create interesting textures and polyrhythms, and derived my more melodic material from these motifs. Together, these musical ideas created this building sense of urgency and energy, a burst of excitement, which brought me to the title ‘Flare’.
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