A B O U T

Meta Cohen is a composer, sound designer and dramaturg with work spanning music, theatre and interdisciplinary art. Their work has been commissioned and performed in diverse venues across Australia, the UK and the US, and has been described as ‘meteoric’ (ClassikON); ‘fiendishly virtuosic’ (Classic Melbourne); ‘a captivating odyssey beyond the ordinary’ (What’s On Sydney) and ‘bristling with a rich tapestry of evocative music-making’ (Australian Arts Review). Meta’s music features on album releases from the ABC, Chandos (UK) and independent labels.

Meta’s current creative focus is the creation of Kiss My Sword, a new queer opera about 17th Century bisexual sword-fighting opera singer Julie d’Aubigny.

  • Meta Cohen is a composer, sound designer and dramaturg with work spanning music, theatre and interdisciplinary art. Their work has been commissioned and performed in diverse venues across Australia, the UK and the US and included in album releases from the ABC and Chandos (UK).

    Notable works include the queer song cycle a love is a love is a love (commissioned by ABC Classic and featured on the ABC’s Women of Note, Volume 6 album); Delphi Songs (recently featured in the 2024 ChamberQUEER Festival in New York); Caedo (awarded in the Leonardo Da Vinci International Composition Competition in Florence); Sim Shalom (featured on an album released by Chandos); Meteora (commissioned for the Sydney Chamber Choir’s 50th Anniversary); and Swerve (finalist in the 2023 APRA AMCOS/AMC Art Music Awards for Work of the Year, Choral).

    Meta has applied their compositional training to their work as a theatre maker, sound designer and dramaturg. Recent credits include the UK/European premiere of promiscuous/cities (dir. Alyson Campbell) as part of the British Council’s UK/Australia Season in London.

    Meta is passionate about bringing queer, interdisciplinary and sound-driven work to the stage.

  • Meta Cohen is a composer, sound designer and dramaturg with work spanning music, theatre and interdisciplinary art. Their work has been commissioned and performed in diverse venues across Australia, the UK and the US, and has been described as ‘meteoric’ (ClassikON); ‘fiendishly virtuosic’ (Classic Melbourne); ‘a captivating odyssey beyond the ordinary’ (What’s On Sydney) and ‘bristling with a rich tapestry of evocative music-making’ (Australian Arts Review). Meta’s music features on album releases from the ABC, Chandos (UK) and independent labels.

    In their composition work, Meta often prioritises LGBTQIA+ work where possible. In 2022, Meta was a commissioned composer on the first queer classical album in Australia's history (Spectrum: Divisi Chamber Singers) and composed a new work in partnership with Homophonic, documenting Australia's LGBTQIA+ histories in music. Meta's queer song cycle a love is a love is a love, commissioned by ABC Classic, was released in June 2023 and features on the ABC’s Women of Note, Volume 6 album. Their Delphi Songs were recently featured as part of the 2024 ChamberQUEER Festival in New York.

    Other notable works include Caedo, which was awarded in the Leonardo Da Vinci International Composition Competition in Florence; Sim Shalom, which features on an album released by Chandos; and Swerve, which was a finalist in the 2023 APRA AMCOS/Australian Music Centre Art Music Awards for Work of the Year (Choral). Their piece Meteora recently premiered as part of the Sydney Chamber Choir’s 50th Anniversary program.

    Meta has applied their compositional training to their work as a theatre maker, sound designer and dramaturg. Recent credits include the UK/European premiere of promiscuous/cities (dir. Alyson Campbell) as part of the British Council’s UK/Australia Season in London, and The Selkie Project (Liminal Theatre, dir. Draf Draffin, Theatre Works). Meta holds a Master of Dramaturgy from the Victorian College of the Arts (Naarm) and a Bachelor of Music Studies from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. They are especially passionate about bringing queer, interdisciplinary and sound-driven work to the stage, and welcome collaborations in these areas. Please get in touch.

    Meta is currently based in Naarm (Melbourne), Australia, on unceded Yaluk-ut Weelam land. They are an associate artist at the Australian Music Centre, where their scores are available for purchase. Meta’s current creative focus is the creation of Kiss My Sword, a new queer opera about 17th Century bisexual sword-fighting opera singer Julie d’Aubigny, for which they were recently awarded the Visby International Composers Centre Residency (Sweden).

‘Meta Cohen deserves recognition as an artist of the highest order, with a strikingly original voice, who is working consistently to tell stories they genuinely connect with, and which we all need to have told’

- STEVEN HODGSON, ARTISTIC DIRECTOR - THE CONSORT OF MELBOURNE

L A T E S T N E W S

  • Residency at Visby International Centre For Composers, Sweden

    Recently, Meta undertook the Visby International Centre for Composers residency in Visby, Sweden. Meta was granted the residency to work on their new opera, Kiss My Sword.

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  • Meta's work featured on ABC's 'Women of Note, vol. 6' Album

    This album includes “Meta Cohen's extraordinary song cycle ‘a love is a love is a love’: an affirmation of sexual desire and romantic love, but also of the myriad other kinds of queer connections”. As a nonbinary composer, Meta is thrilled to be featured in the company of such extraordinary women.

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  • Finalist in Australian Art Music Awards

    Meta’s work ‘Swerve’ is a Finalist for Work of the Year (Choral) at the 2023 APRA AMCOS/Australian Music Centre Art Music Awards.

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  • Meta on ABC's The Music Show

    Meta talks about being a finalist in the 2023 Art Music Awards and their ABC-commissioned song cycle ‘a love is a love is a love’.

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  • 'a love is a love is a love' released by ABC Classic

    Meta’s new queer song cycle, ‘a love is a love is a love’, has been released by ABC Classic. The cycle was commissioned as part of the ABC’s inaugural composer commissioning initiative.

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  • Part of Australian Section submission to World New Music Days

    Meta’s piece ‘we’ is part of the official Australian Section submission to the ISCM 2023 World New Music Days in South Africa, along with Ben Carey, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Angus Davison, Dominic Flynn and Cat Hope.

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  • Third Prize in the 1st Leonardo Da Vinci International Composition Competition

    Meta’s piece ‘Caedo’ has won third prize in the Third Prize in the 1st Leonardo Da Vinci International Composition Competition in Florence, Italy.

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  • Featured Artist for Australian Music Month

    Meta is a featured artist across the ABC and Australian Music Centre for Australian Music Month 2022

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  • Homophonic! RESPECT Project

    Meta was recently featured on ABC news for their work as part of the Homophonic! RESPECT Project. Meta’s piece ‘Swerve’ was created for this project, which forges connections between generations and documents the lives of LGBTQI+ regional Victorians through song.

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  • The intersection of queerness, theatricality and sound

    Meta recently did an interview about their artistic practice with the University of Melbourne

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  • ABC Classic Commission

    Meta has been commissioned as part of the recent ABC Classic initiative to write a new song cycle for Divisi Chamber Singers and pianist Coady Green. Meta will create a new song cycle for vocal consort and piano, in celebration of diversity in Australian LGBTIQ+ experiences.

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  • CutCommon Magazine - Compose Queer

    Meta’s work with Divisi was recently featured in CutCommon Magazine. This article deals particularly with Meta’s involvement in Compose Queer and upcoming ABC Classic Commission

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  • Australian Art Music Playlist

    Meta’s piece ‘(i)dentity’ was recently included in Limelight’s Australian Art Music Playlist.

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  • Bringing queer stories into the mainstream of classical music

    Feature on Compose Queer and Meta’s involvement in University of Melbourne news

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L A T E S T R E V I E W S

  • 'Meta Cohen’s “Kiss my Sword” has much to get excited about. The vocal writing is fiendishly virtuosic at times with a sprawling text by Evan Bryson that appears to construct and then deconstruct the life of queer French contralto, lover and swordswoman, Julie d’Aubigny. [...] This work-in-progress shows a lot of promise, particularly in Cohen’s evident flair for florid vocal writing that compellingly captures the essence of the protagonist – a fearless Queer icon whose life blurs the lines of myth and history. Cohen’s use of post-minimalist devices such as repetition, and sprawling lines that flow continually from the voices of the technically gifted sopranos Jessica Aszodi and Breanna Stuart were a highlight of the night'

    Stephen Marino, Classic Melbourne

  • 'Meta Cohen’s "Meteora" was a shining star-map of longing and cosmic possibility. Inspired by the idea of two people gazing at the same stars from different places, it captured that ache of love across distance. The tenor and bass duet pulsed with intimacy while the choral textures opened like galaxies. At the climax, the sopranos blazed into their highest register and the whole choir rang out with a kind of radiant desperation. Meteoric!'

    Pepe Newton, ClassikON

  • 'Meta Cohen’s "Meteora" was a celestial and elemental work filled with a sense of longing and suspended time. Its shimmering textures evoked the vastness of the sky and the yearning for someone far away, creating a haunting and otherworldly atmosphere, truly a captivating odyssey beyond the ordinary'

    Faith Jessel, What’s On Sydney

  • '["a love is a love is a love"] bristles with a rich tapestry of evocative music-making. Each movement is titled with a single pronoun – you, they, she, and we – insightfully traversing a spectrum of everyday queerness. It received a lovingly embracing performance, each vocalist acting as a precious part of a refined chain with confidence and joy in abundance. That joy was contagious. And comforting.'

    Paul Selar, Australian Arts Review

  • ‘There was a breadth and depth to each movement [of 'a love is a love is a love'] that was very satisfying [...] Meta has a wonderful ability to draw in sounds from beyond the classical western tradition. Done in this work with such a light touch, you listen harder, not wanting to miss anything in the score.’

    Daniel Brace, ClassikON

  • '["Delphi Songs"] is a powerful rendering of a woman’s power in both quiet moments and total rage'

    Lana Norris, I Care If You Listen

  • 'Swerve is an important work drawn from oral history. The panel noted how the sometimes frenzied sound world of voices and strings appropriately depicted the subject's career as a driver and life on the road.'

    Judging panel, APRA AMCOS/Australian Music Centre Art Music Awards

  • 'Cohen's handling of the ideas in "Swerve" is masterful. The opening sections are frenetic, chaotic - life on the road with no time for self reflection, interrupted by an encounter that transforms the story and Cohen’s music; initial moments of doubt and fear give way to repose, joy ('with all the queer peace and joy you can muster' according to performance directions) and the delightful flittering of butterflies, although the fast-paced freneticism of a driving career remains as a back-drop! I believe this work deserves to be recognised for its multi-dimensional accomplishment'

    Steven Hodgson, Art Music Award Nomination

  • 'Cohen smartly captures both the pain and joy of figuring out one’s identity, turning the text inside out and tangling it up until it becomes hard to follow. “I am I” is a repeated refrain throughout the piece, which Cohen gives different colours from the beautifully bright to the quietly sad and the stressfully dissonant. It is a piece that tangles and untangles itself a thousand times, surging and receding fragments of identity in joy and pain, carried gorgeously by Divisi. This piece showcases Divisi at their best, giving them a chance to shine in extremes. It was a powerful, energetic, well-rounded and perfect end to the concert.’

    Annalyce Wiebenga, Farrago Magazine

  • 'Meta Cohen's (i)dentity [was] perhaps the most ambitious and complex work on the program [...] The rhythmic drive through the piece underpinned an excellent grasp of independent lines anchored by a repeated refrain.'

    Peter Campbell

  • 'Meta Cohen’s “Sim Shalom”, [...] sung by the male voices only, has beautiful introspective passages that were sung with great sensitivity by the singers.'

    Len Power, CityNews

  • 'Meta seemed like the perfect candidate to write the music. The brief is a difficult one to fill, being able to straddle the line between being honest about the transgressive nature of queer experience, and creating a piece of music that is ‘airplay friendly’ which, when talking about queer culture, can sometimes be difficult. We also love the dramatic elements that Meta includes in their writing. [...] Aside from being a multidisciplinary creative dividing her time between musical and theatrical spaces, Meta is also an academic with a keen interest in queer theory and its relationship to creative practice. Because of this, we knew that their exploration of this would be nuanced, interesting, and fun to listen to!'

    Divisi Chamber Singers, CutCommon Magazine

U P C O M I N G P E R F O R M A N C E S

  • Sydney Chamber Choir - Connections

    28 September 2025, Verbrugghen Hall, Gadigal (Sydney), Australia

    Performers: Sydney Chamber Choir, cond. Sam Allchurch, Nicholas Routley and Paul Stanhope

    Celebrate the rich diversity of human wisdom as we explore the great traditions of sacred and secular music, reflected and refracted through time and place. This concert embraces the passionate solemnity of the Renaissance, the transcendent beauty of the Baltic composers, plus intensely dramatic Australian works: Aija Draguns brings her Latvian musical heritage to a First Nations prayer of thanksgiving in Holy Dreaming; Clare Maclean and Joe Twist capture the infinite grandeur of creation in Et misericordia and Sunrise on the Coast; Meta Cohen and Harry Sdraulig encourage us to look to the skies in Meteoraand Evening Star, and Nigel Butterley proves that there is nothing as joyful as a choir in Surrexit Dominus from The True Samaritan.

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  • Lyric Opera presents: Their Voices Will Rise

    14 May 2025, fortyfivedownstairs, Naarm (Melbourne) Australia
    fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival

    Performers: Jessica Aszodi (mezzo-soprano), Breanna Stuart (soprano), Coady Green (piano)

    Prepare for an electrifying evening of world premieres and daring musical narratives. Australian rising star Meta Cohen unveils a thrilling and major new song cycle Kiss My Sword. With a libretto by Evan Bryson, this fiercely queer reimagining of history plunges into the untamed world of Julie d’Aubigny—the 17th-century opera singer, swordswoman, and unapologetic rebel. A lover of women, a defeater of men in duels, and a trailblazing performer, d’Aubigny’s story blazes across the stage – this opera explores her mythologisation and the multiplicity of stories about her. Scored for soprano, mezzo-soprano, and piano, this premiere promises a powerful fusion of drama and desire. Being developed into a forthcoming full-scale opera production by renowned dramaturg/director Alyson Campbell, this daring work is a major new addition to the classical Australian art song repertoire.
    This concert also features works by Sally Whitwell and Kevin March.

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  • See more

    More upcoming events and recent archive

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