Matt Laing on the 2024 Commission and His New Work Streams
“I’ve always thought quite pictorially about music, of creating a scene, and a big part of my compositional thinking at the moment is how to frame a scene with the right amount of motion.” – Matt Laing
by Matt Laing, 2024 Continuo Composer on 26 March, 2025
Picture: Courtesy of Matt Laing
Matt Laing has been awarded the 2024 Continuo Commission, joining a growing list of composers creating new chamber works through this initiative. Laing’s latest project, Streams, expands on ideas explored in his earlier string quartet Shapes, this time for wind quintet. The piece examines shifting textures and the fluidity between movements, drawing inspiration from natural elements like water, light, and smoke.
In this interview, Laing discusses his approach to composition, his excitement about working with the Australian Wind Quintet, and his advice for emerging composers.
“It’ll be a piece with short-ish movements that explore textures inspired by the central theme of “streams”; of thought, of light, of water, of smoke, of electricity.”
Q1: What does receiving the 2024 Continuo Commission mean to you?
This commission means a lot to me; it means I can write a new chamber work for instruments I have never been able to really deep dive with, for a really amazing ensemble.
I think also having something like the Continuo Commission is so critical, of making commissioning work more affordable and democratised, and giving independent artists and ensembles an opportunity to collaborate and make new work. It’s an honour to be selected for it, and I’m looking forward to see what’s in store for it in the future!
Q2: Streams is a companion piece to your string quartet Shapes. How do the two works connect?
The pieces are connected in the sense that they are based on explorations of texture. Shapes was my first ensemble work, setting 7 short atmospheres depicting and interpreting shapes as a way of learning to write for string quartet.
I really wanted to make a work for wind quintet with the same textural focus to learn about how these instruments can best work together or in opposition, but unlike Shapes this piece will have movements that are interconnected. It adds an extra compositional challenge, and compared to shapes which are inherently more static, I suspect a collection of streams is more interesting at the points of their commonality than difference so blurring the lines between one and the next makes more sense to me.
Q3: The piece explores textures inspired by thought, light, water, smoke, and electricity. How do these ideas translate into sound?
That’s the challenge really! I think it’s about finding textures and creating atmosphere, and in the case of each stream finding the right amount of motion and air amongst those textures to spark the imagination of the audience. I’ve always thought quite pictorially about music, of creating a scene, and a big part of my compositional thinking at the moment is how to frame a scene with the right amount of motion. The first phase of writing this work is in an A3 sketchbook with shapes, pictures and arrows instead of musical material, and that’s the North Star for the process of making and notating the piece itself.
Q4: What excites you most about composing for the Australian Wind Quintet?
They’re all wonderful musicians and instrumentalists, and even though they’re a young as an ensemble they come with a wealth of experience, and already as a group have played a wide stylistic variety of quintets. It gives me confidence to just experiment and break personal ground.
Q5: What do you hope audiences will take away from this piece?
A showcase of what a wind quintet can do, but I hope the pieces engage an audience with their imagination in a way that allows them to put themselves in the scene.
Q6: Can you share any influences – musical or non-musical?
Something I’ve always been really inspired by is the textures found in nature, and the way the light and water in nature changes the colours. All of the possibilities and combinations are so subtle and limitless, and I find parallels with the possibilities of composition, from the blank page to putting the final touches on the work.
Q7: Are there any upcoming projects you’re excited about?
Absolutely, especially the premiere of this work later this year! We have a tentative date that will hopefully be locked in soon, so watch this space for that. There are also a number of smaller instrumental pieces in the works at the moment, as well as collaborative projects in the videography and dance spaces so there’s a lot of planning and work ahead to make it happen, but a lot to be excited about too.
Q8: Any advice for emerging composers looking to make their mark?
Go to gigs, meet people, be open to musical influence, push yourself in how you play with ideas and just try lots of different things. I think early it’s about building your palate, trying stuff out and running with ideas. You’ll get a lot out of experimentation, especially when it doesn’t work out, and writing for the sake of play is more fun and usually more interesting than writing for the expectations of others.
And “networking” for your career can feel icky and cynical, but I find it really helpful to think of it as simply building genuine relationships and finding your people. This naturally takes time, so you’ll need patience, but keep showing up, feed your creative practice as best you can and you’ll find it keeps you creatively alive between opportunities.
Matt Laing – “Shapes” | Flinders Quartet’s 2017 Composer Development Program
ABOUT MATT
Matt Laing (1988-) is an Australian composer and viola player who writes orchestral music, works for dance, solo and chamber music. He studied viola and economics at the University of Melbourne, and studied viola at the Australian National Academy of Music.
He’s received commissions from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, the Australian String Quartet, Affinity Quartet, the Australian National Academy of Music and Musica Viva Australia, amongst many others.
He has been in residence at the Bermagui Four Winds Festival, All that we are in Hobart, awarded the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer House Trust residency in the Barossa Valley in 2021, and was 2021 Young Composer in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. His work has been performed in Australia and the UK, and was featured at the International Double Reed Society Conference in 2023.
As a collaborator, he has worked with choreographer Lilian Steiner and trumpet player Callum G’Froerer, and as a performer has freelanced as a viola player since graduating from the Australian National Academy of Music in 2013. His composition mentors have included Brett Dean and Elliot Gyger.
