The Australia Ensemble UNSW aims to foster greater engagement in and recognition of composition and chamber music activities at UNSW. Support from Emeritus Professor Roger Layton AM (pictured below) and Merrilyn Layton has facilitated a UNSW composition fellowship to again be offered valued at $10,000 for one year, for an Emerging Composer to write chamber music works as part of the Australia Ensemble’s artistic development program.

About the Fellowship

The Fellowship will engage an emerging composer to write two works across a 12-month period, including one piece for small ensemble and one for large ensemble, selected through a competitive process determined by UNSW. The $10,000 Fellowship will be paid as a stipend to the winning applicant.

The Emerging Composer will be eligible for mentoring sessions with members of the Australia Ensemble and Artistic Chair and external composition mentors. The Emerging Composer’s works will feature in at least one workshop that may be made available to current UNSW students, UNSW staff and members of the public.

2024 Layton Fellow

Alex Turley is the 2024 Layton Emerging Composer Fellow.

Composer and collaborative artist Alex Turley is one of Australia’s busiest young stars. Lauded as “bold and virtuosic, taking compositional corners with ease” (Limelight) and “brilliantly accessible” (Atlanta Journal-Constitution), his music treads along the fine line between the experimental and the familiar, weaving old and new styles together in a way that is satisfying for performers and listeners alike. Alex was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's 2022 Young Composer-in-Residence and in 2023 he was awarded a highly competitive Creative and Performance Leadership Fellowship from the Forrest Research Foundation.

Known for projects that cross genre boundaries, Alex recently co-composed Barra-roddjiba with members of all-woman rock band Ripple Effect and Kunibídji elders (lauded by Limelight as an "innovative cross-cultural performance") as well as Agam, a 50-minute orchestral suite with Carnatic music collective Sangam which premiered with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl. He is a frequent and prolific arranger for the major Australian orchestras and has recently worked in this capacity with a diverse group of artists including Ali McGregor, Ben Folds, Electric Fields, Emma Donovan, Eskimo Joe, Genesis Owusu, the Hoodoo Gurus, Ngaiire, Paul Grabowsky and Rüfüs Du Sol. 

Alex holds a Master of Music from the Sydney Conservatorium, where he received the Henderson Postgraduate Award. He has also recently been shortlisted for the APRA AMCOS Professional Development Awards, and in 2021 won the Arcadia Winds Composition Prize.