SNAPSHOT BIO
Drawing on nature, important causes, society and the personal, Robert McIntyre (he/him) is an Australian composer who finds, collects and brings awareness to moments, holding space for them in order to achieve a multi-faceted sense of visibility. McIntyre holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) in Composition with First Class Honours from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, supervised primarily by Prof. Stuart Greenbaum and Dr. Katy Abbott, a Juris Doctor from the Melbourne Law School, and is an Associate Artist represented by the Australian Music Centre.
Described as 'strikingly contemporary' (Limelight), accolades and awards include selection to represent Australia at the 2025 ISCM World New Music Days Festival in Portugal (with assistance by the Australian Government through Creative Australia), the 2023 Dorian Le Gallienne Composition Award for his cross-disciplinary song-cycle 'Our Duty to Care' (words by Savanna Wegman), a 2023 Wattle Fellowship, winning the 2022-23 Leslie Barklamb Flute Composition Competition, a featured commissioned work on Divisi’s 'Spectrum' (Australia's first fully-LGBTQIA+ classical music album), winning the 2022 No Divide KC International Art Song Competition, 2nd Prize in the 2022 Luna Nova International Composition Contest, and the 2022 David Henkels Composition Award. McIntyre has strong national and increasing international presence (US, EU and Canada), working with various leading ensembles/collaborators, such as Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Flinders Quartet, 3MBS Melbourne 103.5FM, Collide, Syzygy Ensemble, and has undertaken noteworthy programs to date including MSO Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program (2024), Composing in the Wilderness (2022), AYO National Composition Program (2021) and ICEBERG New Music Institute (2021). Notably, in 2024 McIntyre was invited back as the Alumni Speaker for the University of Melbourne's Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (FFAM) to deliver a 10-minute commencement speech to the incoming 1st-year cohort across all disciplines.
McIntyre also leads Changing Wilds Ensemble, with his ‘Our Duty to Care’ climate-change curation series continually receiving acclaim following its premiere and co-presentation with the FFAM and Melbourne Law School in 2023, co-presentation with Tempo Rubato and the National Sustainability Festival in 2024, and next with the Melbourne Recital Centre featured as part of its 2025 Classical Season.
photography by: Rudi Lo (they/them)
Changing Wilds Ensemble
MEDIUM BIO
Drawing on nature, important causes and the personal, Robert McIntyre b.1998 (he/him) is an Australian Naarm/Melbourne-based, award-winning composer whose music focuses on, discusses and reflects on moments, holding space for them in order to achieve a multi-faceted sense of visibility. McIntyre holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) in Composition with First Class Honours from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, supervised primarily by Prof. Stuart Greenbaum and Dr. Katy Abbott, a Juris Doctor from the Melbourne Law School and is an Associate Artist represented by the Australian Music Centre.
Described as 'strikingly contemporary' with an 'exciting voice' (Limelight), career highlights include selection for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program, being the recipient of the 2023 Dorian Le Gallienne Composition Award for his cross-disciplinary song cycle ‘Our Duty to Care’ about the Sharma litigation (with commissioned text by regular collaborator Savanna Wegman), having ‘A Sea Spray of Ash’ selected by the Australian Music Centre as one of six submissions to the Australian Section of the 2025 ISCM World New Music Days Festival (Portugal) with subsequent selection by the international ISCM jury and Miso Music Portugal to represent Australia in 2025 (with assistance by the Australian Government through Creative Australia and its Export Development Fund), receiving a Wattle Fellowship, winning the 2022-23 Leslie Barklamb Flute Composition Competition, undertaking Composing in the Wilderness 2022 (Alaska, USA), winning the 2022 No Divide KC International Art Song Competition, receiving 2nd Prize in the 2022 Luna Nova Composition Contest, being awarded the 2022 David Henkels Composition Award, and undertaking the AYO National Composition Program and ICEBERG New Music Institute both in 2021.
McIntyre has strong local ties and growing international presence, having worked with Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, Flinders Quartet, Australian Youth Orchestra, 3MBS Melbourne 103.5FM, Solstice Trio, Divisi Chamber Singers, Corvus Ensemble, Trio Immersio, Australian Flute Festival, National Sustainability Festival, Collide Trio, Syzygy Ensemble, Jasper Ly, Leigh Harrold, Coady Green, ChamberFest RIAM, Guitar Perspectives, Melbourne International Saxophone Festival, University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Homophonic! and Midsumma Festival, Australian Global Health Alliance, Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra, Victorian Flute Guild, and more.
McIntyre’s music appears on Divisi Chamber Singers’ debut album 'Spectrum', which is Australia’s first fully-LGBTQIA+ classical music album. Additionally, McIntyre’s ‘Our Duty to Care’ climate change curation series also continues to receive acclaim, with its premiere at Hanson Dyer Hall with the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music (FFAM) and Melbourne Law School in 2023, Tempo Rubato and the National Sustainability Festival in 2024, and notably with its next co-presentation with the Melbourne Recital Centre at the Primrose Potter Salon in 2025. Further, he is co-artistic director and flautist of Aether Duo with pianist/composer Sam Williams, focused on the delivery of new and contemporary Australian flute and piano repertoire. Notably, McIntyre was invited back as the 2024 Alumni Speaker for the University of Melbourne FFAM to deliver a commencement speech to the incoming first-year cohort across all disciplines.
(see below for full biography)
INSIGHT
Music is innate to the human condition, so making something that can resonate so deeply with the internal that also has artistic impetus is one of my continual ambitions.
photography by: Rudi Lo (they/them)
COMPOSITION PROGRAMS & PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
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Two Australian works have been programmed for the 2025 ISCM - International Society for Contemporary Music World New Music Days: Robert McIntyre’s 'A Sea Spray of Ash' (2019) for soprano and piano, and Dan Walker's 'Listen. Are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?' (2022) for youth choir.
Both works were submitted for consideration through the Australian Section selection, announced in April this year alongside 4 others, and from which one work was guaranteed a selection.
The 2025 World New Music Days, hosted by Miso Music Portugal, will take place from 30 May to 7 June in Lisbon and Porto, Portugal. The program will feature approximately 120 works across 20 concerts, performed by some of Portugal's finest musicians across this annual celebration of new music. More info.
***This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through Creative Australia, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
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2024 PARTICIPANTS & NEW MSO COMMISSIONS BY: Andrew Aronowicz, Zinia Chan, Robert McIntyre and Rachel Meyers
Since its commencement in 2003, The Cybec Foundation has generously supported the MSO’s Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program.
Widely regarded as one of the nation’s pioneering and preeminent professional development opportunities for emerging Australian composers, the year-long program selects four participants who are individually mentored by a leading Australian composer and commissioned by the Orchestra to compose a 10-minute piece. The resulting four pieces are performed by the MSO in a public showcase event, following which, one participant is selected as the MSO’s Young Composer in Residence and commissioned to write further works.
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2022 PARTICIPANTS: Christine Pan, Robert McIntyre, Christopher Alan Schmitz, Heather Allis Koehn, Virginia Wan, Leslie Hogan, Iddo Aharony and Joseph C Phillips Jr.
Composing in the Wilderness is offered by the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival in collaboration with Alaska Geographic and the National Park Service. It is led by wilderness-focused composer Stephen Lias.
Working with experienced guides, naturalists, and scientists, we take composers into the backcountry of Alaska's wilderness and provide them with an intense and immersive adventure. With this as their inspiration, the composers then have the opportunity to compose original music that is premiered by top-notch contemporary music performers on staff at the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival (and other ensembles).
Explore the inspiring wilderness of Alaska's backcountry, compose music about it, and have it premiered by top performers.
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2021 PARTICIPANTS: Robert McIntyre, Lewis Ingham, Aaron Pelle, Ben Robinson and Isabella Gerometta.
Energise your craft within a hive of inspiration in this two-week musical immersion. Compositional growth is our goal, and participants will together explore techniques, styles and processes in creating music that demands to be played and heard. Your resulting composition will be rehearsed and performed by the musicians and tutors of the AYO National Music Camp orchestral program with guidance from one of Australia’s leading composers.
As a composition participant you’ll work with a leading Australian composer to create a new work for performance by AYO’s experienced instrumental tutors.
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PARTICIPATED IN 2021 Iteration in Vienna, Austria.
ICEBERG Institute is a two-week composition intensive led by ICEBERG New Music composers and featuring a variety of guest faculty and performing artists each year. Participants receive rigorous individual instruction from world-class faculty members, hear their music performed in a public concert, and receive high-quality audio and video documentation of their work.
The ten composers of ICEBERG New Music are committed to exploring every boundary of contemporary concert music. They are acclaimed composers and distinguished educators who have collaborated with some of the world's foremost contemporary ensembles and performers, and heard their music performed across five continents. As a collective, ICEBERG has presented concerts across the United States, Canada, and Europe. Their first album, a collaboration with acclaimed pianist Jenny Lin, was released in 2018 by Sono Luminus Records. ICEBERG New Music has produced over 40 concerts of new music since 2016, encompassing more than 200 world premieres.
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Program participants: Robert McIntyre, Meta Cohen, Ariel Bonnell and Lore Burns.
“Compose Queer is an initiative to empower young queer composers. We have sourced four composers, providing them with a paid opportunity to compose for Divisi Chamber Singers and Sally Whitwell. At the heart of this project is the composers themselves. We want to give them the opportunity to write a new piece in a professional context, working with one of Australia’s leading musicians and a live ensemble. The first workshop took place in March 2020, and the first concert was in February 2021. Seeing the success of this program, we have decided to continue the Compose Queer initiative as part of our Ensemble’s core goals. As such, we will launch our debut album in March 2022 of the commissions from the original concert season and an addition work by Caerwen Martin.”
FULL BIOGRAPHY
Described as ‘strikingly contemporary’ (Limelight), Robert McIntyre (he/him) is an award-winning Australian composer & flautist who draws from personal experiences, nature and important causes as potential frameworks, in order to create an atmosphere of discussion and reflection. He is a composer who finds, collects and brings awareness to moments, holding space for them to achieve a multi-faceted sense of visibility.
McIntyre holds a Bachelor of Music (Honours) in Composition with First Class Honours from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music primarily under the supervision of Prof. Stuart Greenbaum and Dr. Katy Abbott, and is an Associate Artist represented by the Australian Music Centre.. McIntyre has strong local ties as well as international presence, working with ensembles, artists and organisations such as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Recital Centre, Flinders Quartet, Australian Youth Orchestra, Solstice Trio, Divisi Chamber Singers, Corvus Ensemble, Trio Immersio, Australian Flute Festival, Collide Trio, 3MBS Melbourne 103.5FM, Syzygy Ensemble, Jasper Ly, Leigh Harrold, Coady Green, Guitar Perspectives, Melbourne International Saxophone Festival, ChamberFest RIAM (Royal Irish Academy of Music), University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Homophonic! and Midsumma Festival, TEMPO QUEER Festival, Australian Global Health Alliance, Victorian Youth Symphony Orchestra, Our Lady of Sion College Wind Band, Victorian Flute Guild, and more. He has showcased his works across the US, EU and Canada, including University of Music and Performing Arts Vienna, University of Alaska, Royal Irish Academy of Music, Washington State University, University of Southern Mississippi.
Recently, McIntyre was selected as one of four composers for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s 2024 Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program, commissioned to write a new 10-minute orchestral work to be performed at Iwaki Auditorium within MSO’s first concert of their 2025 Season. Other current commissions include for Flinders Quartet and Resonance String Orchestra to compose a work based on climate change, youth education and community, and for 3MBS to celebrate the station’s 50th Anniversary composing a new 10-minute solo piano work for regular collaborator Georgina Lewis. Additionally, his work ‘A Sea Spray of Ash’ was selected by the Australian Music Centre as one of six submissions to the Australian Section of the 2025 ISCM World New Music Days Festival in Portugal and subsequently has been selected by the international ISCM jury and Miso Music Portugal to represent Australia in 2025 (with assistance by the Australian Government through Creative Australia and its Export Development Fund). McIntyre was also featured as one of three Australian composers in the 2024 3MBS Marathon at the Melbourne Recital Centre with his work ‘Phoenix’ performed by Collide, commissioned for the 25th birthday of flautist Molly Jenkins and her three-flutes ensemble Magpie Collective, commissioned for 2024 ChamberFest Dublin by flautist Martina Rosaria O’Connell for her soprano, flute and piano trio premiered at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, and composed a new flute and bassoon duo work for Simone Maurer and Lyndon Watts premiered in May as part of the 2024 Hanson Dyer Series. McIntyre also won the 2022-23 Leslie Barklamb Flute Composition Competition for the Intermediate Section (18yrs and younger performers), making his work ‘Feathers Taking Flight’ the respective set piece in the 50th Anniversary of the Leslie Barklamb Scholarship. He was also commissioned by Mentone Grammar School for a violin & vibraphone work for Yr12 Student Avelyn Reynold’s VCE Music Performance 3/4 Violin Recital and has also enjoyed the privilege of a 60th birthday flute and piano commission for Debbie Brady called ‘SKY-STAINED WAVES’, which subsequently was featured in Maurer’s 2024 USA Tour.
McIntyre is also a University of Melbourne Wattle Fellow and undertook a sustainability action-project composing his award-winning song cycle ‘Our Duty to Care’ for soprano & piano trio about the legal case Sharma v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560, with commissioned text by regular collaborator Savanna Wegman. ‘Our Duty to Care’ was premiered by Bridgette Kelsey and Solstice Trio in April 2023 within his own titular curation in Hanson Dyer Hall (Ian Potter Southbank Centre), co-presenting with the Faculty of Fine Arts and Music and Melbourne Law School to much acclaim. Notably, McIntyre later was the recipient of the prestigious 2023 Dorian Le Gallienne Award for ‘Our Duty to Care’. Further, McIntyre’s ‘Our Duty to Care’ project returned for its second and sold-out curation at Tempo Rubato in February 2024 as an official partner with and featured event of the 2024 National Sustainability Festival in its 25th year. Excitingly, ‘Our Duty to Care’ returns again for its third curation co-presenting with the Melbourne Recital Centre in its 2025 Classical Season at the Primrose Potter Salon, and was one of 30 pre-launched concerts at the MRC’s 2025 Season Launch ‘Ready Your Ears’.
Other accolades and highlights to date include being internationally selected for 2022 ‘Composing in the Wilderness’, where he ventured for inspiration into the Denali National Park and Preserve (Alaska, USA) composed a new work for Corvus Ensemble as part of the Fairbanks Summer Arts Festival. This new work, ‘the distance between’, was also awarded the 2022 David Henkels Composition Award by the Musical Society of Victoria and received its Australian premiere at Abbotsford Convent live broadcasted by 3MBS Music. Additionally, McIntyre internationally won the 2022 No Divide KC Art Song Competition (USA), with his work ‘A Sea Spray of Ash’ and internationally placed 2nd in the 2022 Luna Nova (Belvedere Festival) Composition Contest with ‘See through me’ for piano trio. His work ‘Syrup and Silicone’ (with text by Savanna Wegman) was also recorded and features on Divisi Chamber Singers’ debut album “Spectrum”, which is Australia’s first fully-LGBTQIA+ classical music album. Further, McIntyre was one of two composers selected for both of Kammerklang’s 2021 inaugural ‘Hidden Curiosities’ programs (Melbourne and Sydney), nationally selected for the 2021 Australian Youth Orchestra’s National Composition Program under the mentorship of Anne Cawrse, and internationally selected for Vienna/New York based 2021 ICEBERG New Music Institute writing for Trio Immersio.
McIntyre is influenced by classical-contemporary music, post-minimalism, classical-crossover and film/soundtrack music, and is inspired by the likes of Katy Abbott, Stuart Greenbaum, Thomas Newman, John Adams, Olafur Arnalds, Anne Cawrse and Joe Hisaishi to name a few. He is also published in ‘Take Note: Interviews with Australian Composers’ edited by musicologist Madeline Roycroft, for his co-interview, alongside Laura Abraham, of Professor Stuart Greenbaum. He has interned with Syzygy Ensemble and works for composer Dr. Katy Abbott as a composer’s assistant. McIntyre has also completed his Juris Doctor at the Melbourne Law School in 2024 and has aspirations of a Composition Masters further on in his dual-career. Further, He is co-artistic director and flautist of Aether Duo with pianist-composer Sam Williams, focused on the delivery of new and existing Australian flute and piano repertoire. Notably, McIntyre was also invited back as the 2024 Alumni Speaker for University of Melbourne Faculty of Fine Arts and Music delivering a commencement speech to the incoming first-year cohort across all artistic disciplines.
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