Composers & WorksMay Lyon

ANAM Set 2025 Composer: Work Title and Instrumentation to be announced.

This ANAM Set commission was generously supported by the Anthony and Sharon Lee Foundation


About the composer:

May Lyon’s stylistically eclectic music explores humanistic themes from nature and lore to mathematics, with narrative dualities and rhythmic precision being strong recurring elements. Recently a finalist for Work of the Year: Dramatic for the ballet Precious Bedeviller, Lyon has been commissioned and performed by the Australian Ballet, Musica Viva, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Ensemble Offspring, Sydney Dance Company, National Capital Orchestra, Forest Collective, and Syzygy Ensemble. In 2024 new 97min opera, Pieces of Margery, will have a concert premiere produced by More Than Opera in mid-year.

In August, Ensemble Offspring and soprano Jane Sheldon will premiere a short semi-theatrical work, Do Na Chaill,  as part of the Noisy Women Commission. Lyon is currently undertaking a PhD at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as part of the 2020-21 Composing Women Program, supervised by Liza Lim.

Lyon was a finalist for the Beleura Emerging Composer Award as part of 2019 The Melbourne Prize, participant in the 2017 Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers Program, and winner of the 2009 Adolf Spivakovsky Scholarship for Composition. Their work has been featured on ABC Classic, 3MS Radio, and radio shows such as ABC Classics New Waves and Making Waves.

Back to top