28 September 2025, 3:00 PM
Verbrugghen Hall, Gadigal (Sydney), Australia
Sydney Chamber Choir, cond. Sam Allchurch, Nicholas Routley and Paul Stanhope

Role: Composer
Piece: Meteora
Tickets

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 Meteora and Evening Star, and Nigel Butterley proves that there is nothing as joyful as a choir in Surrexit Dominus from The True Samaritan.

Travel with us across centuries and continents, guided by the musical directors who have shaped the Choir from its beginning to the present day – and beyond!

5 July 2025, 3:00 PM
City Recital Hall Angel Place, Gadigal (Sydney), Australia
Sydney Chamber Choir, cond. Sam Allchurch

Role: Composer
Piece: Meteora (World Premiere)
Tickets

Celebrate the beauty and the thrill of new music, as we give the world premiere performances of five pieces specially commissioned by Sydney Chamber Choir from five of the most exciting compositional talents in the country, each exploring a different facet of what love can mean. 

Sydney Chamber Choir, celebrating its 50th year of championing the creation and performance of new Australian music, is joined for this gala concert by soprano and tenor soloists and an ensemble featuring some of Australia’s finest chamber musicians.

24 May 2025 - St Paul’s Cathedral, Bendigo, Australia
22 June 2025 - James Tatoulis Auditorium, Naarm (Melbourne), Australia
Exaudi Choir

Role: Composer
Piece: a love is a love is a love (IV: ‘we’)
Tickets

Hear Melbourne's most exciting young adult choir as they bring their energy to the stage. Join Exaudi for a program of hope, struggle and defiance as they bring to the stage selections from European classics to Australian queer power anthems.

14 May 2025, 7:30 PM
fortyfivedownstairs, Naarm (Melbourne), Australia
Lyric Opera of Melbourne
fortyfivedownstairs Chamber Music Festival

Role: Composer
Piece: Kiss My Sword: Sword Songs (World Premiere)
Tickets

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.

With an internationally renowned cast bringing their talents to three exciting song cycles – mezzo-soprano Jessica Aszodi, soprano Breanna Stuart, soprano Livia Brash, tenor Alexander Gorbatov and pianist Coady Green, and hosted by Lyric Opera Artistic Director Patrick Burns, this is an unmissable night where music ignites the stage and queer voices break boundaries.

10 November 2024, 3:00 PM
Shepparton Brewery, Shepparton, Australia
Homophonic and The Consort of Melbourne | OUTintheOPEN Festival

Role: Composer
Piece: Swerve
Tickets

Homophonic! The RESPECT Project is a musical celebration of our queer history. Emotive and powerful storytelling through works for voices and strings, drawing inspiration from intergenerational conversations between queer Victorian composers and seniors. This performance is emotional and powerful, preserving our shared cultural queer history through the mediums of music, humour, and a generous dose of collective outrage. Presented and performed by Miranda Hill, The Consort of Melbourne, and the Homophonic! String Quintet.

Homophonic! is supported by the Victorian Government through Creative Victoria. Homophonic! is assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.

27 October 2024, 5:00 PM
West End Uniting Church, Meanjin (Brisbane), Australia
The Australian Voices
Melt Festival

Role: Composer
Piece: (i)dentity

The Question of Love promises to be a moving tribute to love, diversity, and inclusion, showcasing songs that highlight the beauty and strength of the LGBTQ+ community.

Come and experience the magic of choral harmony as we honour the spirit of equality and pride.

14 June 2024, 5:30 PM
MITU580, New York, USA
Coady Green and Elizabeth Van Os

Role: Composer
Piece: Delphi Songs (US Premiere)

Internationally-award-winning concert pianist Coady Green presents a kaleidoscopic and joyous exploration of works by a diverse group of queer living composers. Aside from the evocative, nuanced etudes of Nico Muhly, this program is a celebration and promotion of music from Green’s native Australia, with nearly all the works on the program being US premieres. Featuring Elizabeth van Os on Meta Cohen’s Delphi Songs, the concert also includes premieres by James Rushford and Bryn Renard, along with other repertoire from Green’s years-long history of commissioning new works.

This event will be livestreamed.

18 April 2024, 7 pm
Victorian College of the Arts, VIC, Australia

Role: Dramaturg/Panelist

In December 2023 a special edition of the international IATC journal Critical Stages/ Scenes was published on Australian and Aotearoa / New Zealand dramaturgy co-edited by Kathryn Kelly, Julian Meyrick, Fiona Graham, Moana Nepia and Emily Coleman.

This seminar brings the editors and selected contributors together in person for the first time to analyse their findings and to suggest possibilities for development.

8 March 2024, 7 pm
The Ballroom, Trades Hall, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer/Sound Designer

A one-night-only event for International Women’s Day.

What is an archive? Who is in it? Who decides? Who is it for?
Drawing on research for the ‘Staging Australian Women’s Lives’ Project, this performance re-enacts and repurposes artefacts, testimonies and stories as a living archive of women’s theatre.

A night of unboxing, raging and remembering, song and celebration, as we honour how we got here and speculate on where we’re headed next.

3 February 2024, 7 pm
Divisi Chamber Singers and Coady Green
Melbourne Recital Centre, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: a love is a love is a love

‘A love letter to queerness and the LGBTQIA+ community.’ – Meta Cohen

As part of Midsumma Festival 2024, Divisi continue to amplify the voices of local LGBTQIA+ artists as they present a vibrant program of works by acclaimed Australian queer composers Meta Cohen, Sally Whitwell, and Connor D’Netto. Winner of the 2021 ABC Composer Commissioning Award, Cohen’s ‘a love is a love is a love’, is a poignant cycle of queer love songs based on the poetry of Australian queer writers. Join Divisi Chamber Singers as they continue to break barriers and inspire in this celebration of queer voices and perspectives.

3 February 2024, 3 pm
Homophonic! and the Consort of Melbourne
Fed Square - The Edge, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: Swerve

Singing our stories, loud and proud.
Works for voices and strings inspired by intergenerational conversations between queer Victorian composers and seniors. This is emotional, powerful storytelling; maintaining our shared cultural queer history through music, humour, and a healthy dose of shared outrage.

3 November 2023
Elizabeth Cooper (voice), John Martin (piano)
The Art House Studio, Wyong, NSW, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: White

A presentation of songs by female composers from the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries, including Clara Schuman, Amy Woodforde-Finden, as well as Australian female composers of note.
Starring Cinzia Montresor, Dominic Barry and Elizabeth Cooper; with accompaniment by pianist John Martin; and narration by Kirsty Carr.

While Meta does not necessarily consider themself a female composer, they were delighted to have their piece ‘White’ included in the program.

14 October 2023
Sydney Children’s Choir
Coodye (Walsh Bay), Sydney, NSW, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: Of Motion

Gumura is your chance to explore the sounds and history of the Wharf as you travel through all the different spaces of Pier 2/3 brought to life with the voices of 400 choristers. The music includes new works commissioned from five Sydney Children’s Choir alumni who are now emerging Australian composers and the premiere of a new piece by longstanding collaborator and Gadigal artist, Matthew Doyle.

The evening begins together in the lower level of Pier 2/3 with a welcome to country from Matthew Doyle and Alice Chance’s mystical Aurora Eora. From there, we divide into four separate groups to experience a guided journey through four spaces upstairs – the Neilson, the Belgiorno Room, the Neilson Nutshell and the foyer – and in each one, a new piece by alumni composers of Sydney Children’s Choir. The evening concludes with a significant new work in Gadigal language by Matthew Doyle, ‘Gumura’, in a surround-sound choral experience designed by Lyn Williams and Andrew Walsh. Join us for an unforgettable evening of choral music highlighting the rich history of our home.

25 September 2023
Victorian College of the Arts, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia

Role: Dramaturg/panelist

This panel discusses post-millennial dramaturgy in contemporary Australian practice, and the role of the Victorian College of the Arts in fostering the field. Dramaturgy encompasses a set of practices, ethics and knowledges that can mobilise insight and productive discourse across a wide array of contexts, collaborations, and forms, including community-engaged and pedagogical practices, First Nations theatre, new writing, devising, rehearsal, production, performance, criticism, organisational management, artistic direction, live art, curating, devising, opera, musical theatre, new media, transmedia, branding, film, TV, and dance.

16 September 2023
Sydney Children’s Choir
Sydney Conservatorium of Music, NSW, Australia

Role: Composer
Piece: Of Motion (World premiere)

This programme will feature the world premiere of Meta’s work Of Motion, commissioned by the Sydney Children’s Choir.

9 September 2023
The Consort of Melbourne
Wyselaskie Yuma Auditorium, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: Caedo (World Premiere)

Join Melbourne’s premier vocal ensemble for a wonderful afternoon of sumptuous vocal harmony as The Consort of Melbourne presents 'Songs of Heart and Soul' - a programme of sacred and secular works by some of our favourite composers. Including vocal gems by Cecilia McDowall, Dan Walker, Benjamin Britten, Hubert Parry, Raffaella Aleotti and more, we'll set the wonderful acoustic of Wyselaskie Yuma auditorium ringing with the sound of some of Melbourne's best ensemble singers in perfect harmony.

This programme will feature the world premiere of Meta’s work Caedo.

3 June 2023
Lyric Opera Kansas City, Kansas, USA
Tickets

Role: Composer
Piece: We (a love is a love is a love, Movement IV)

The purpose of Come As You Are is to break down barriers of access in the concert space. Concert music has contributed greatly to performing arts though it has also, at times, stifled vulnerability, maintained privilege and created exclusive expectations of formality. Such steep barriers create separation between creators, performers and audiences. This can lead to the music and its spaces feeling inaccessible to those who may feel they lack the privilege, training and/or formality to be welcomed into an experience. Come As You Are aims to open up these barriers through reimagined musical experiences and storytelling in the concert space.

28 April 2023
Science Gallery, Naarm (Melbourne), VIC, Australia
Tickets

Role: Composer/Performer
Piece: B1nary_

Meta will be performing a live-composed work in response to one of the works from the Science Gallery’s Break the Binaries exhibition.

‘This Friday Night Social is a love letter to live music from queer artists. Expect to be serenaded by a ton of local performers including Huntly, the Melbourne duo who aptly describe themselves as "best friends making electronic music you can cry to." Composer Meta Cohen will transform the gallery into a sensory playground while DJ Gaydad will once again be spinning some tunes. Alongside our music acts on the night, Born In A Taxi are back to entertain us with their weird and wonderful creatures and Peter Waples-Crowe is bringing us some video art.’