I don’t usually do selfies here or elsewhere, but here goes! This is a working selfie: this month I’m doing some orchestrations as well as my usual typesetting.  It’s exciting to be putting some creative touches to some of the music that comes through my office.  At some stage when I’m ready to look over the whole work, the manuscript ends up on the floor, or a long bench if available. As previously discussed, I annotate with pens and textas. The headphones are hooked up to the computer, on the desk just behind me, so I can listen back to the original version of the music I’m orchestrating, and sometimes also the software playback.

Often, a steaming cup of tea is at hand.  The Sydney weather is starting to cool, and with the niggling feeling of possibly coming down with a cold, I’ve donned my husband’s trackies – somehow cosier than my own!

I was inspired to post this by female:pressure as well as an online conversation I’ve noticed recently about visibility and recognition of women working in music, centred around a recent interview with Bjork. Both of these resonate with me as a composer; while my last thought deep in the working process would be to take a photograph, the idea of a continuous stream of images showing women “doing their craft” is quite striking and powerful, count me in.