FELICITY WILCOX

Dr Felicity Wilcox is an Australian composer and academic who has worked extensively in the areas of music for theatre, the screen, and the concert hall for over three decades. In 2021, she won the Pythia Prize, selected from an international field to compose the quartet Sound Fields for Rubiks Collective, which received its world premiere in 2022 at Melbourne Recital Centre and was shortlisted for the 2023 Australian Art Music Award for Work of the Year (chamber). Her septet Tipping Point earned Ensemble Offspring and guitarist Andrew Blanch a nomination for the 2022 Australian Art Music Award for Performance of the Year. Her compositions have been commissioned and performed by many leading Australian ensembles and organisations including: The Australia Ensemble, Ensemble Offspring, Ironwood, The Song Company, Decibel New Music Ensemble, The Australia Piano Quartet, Belvoir St Theatre, Kantanka Theatre, PACT Theatre, The Cooperative, and the Sydney Symphony Fellows. Internationally, her music has been programmed by arts organisations such as: Philadelphia Orchestra, New Music Network (USA), TurnUP Festival (USA), Sadari Theatre (Seoul), Claire Merviel Productions (Paris), Royal College of Music (London), Royal Northern College of Music (Manchester), and Pantopia Festival (Berlin).

In 2021 Felicity was one of 65 Australian composers selected for the ANAM Set (2022), a defining event in Australian new music. Her compositions have been selected for major festivals including Sydney Festival, Canberra International Music Festival, Mardi Gras Festival, and Vivid Sydney, and performed in iconic venues in Australia such as Sydney Opera House and Melbourne Recital Centre. Her acclaimed solo bass clarinet work People of this Place has been performed widely across Europe, USA and UK. Her soundtrack to the Tracey Moffat short film, Heaven (1997) appeared in shows at MCA (Sydney), ACMI (Melbourne), NGV(Melbourne), AGSA (Adelaide), Roslyn Oxley Gallery (Sydney), MoMA (NYC), Il Ponte Projects (Rome), and elsewhere.

Felicity’s oratorio, Threading the Light (Move 2022) received a 5-star review from Paul Cooke (Fine Music Sydney) and Michael Hannan (Loudmouth) called the work a ‘tour de force of composition and performance.’ Her album of collected chamber works, Uncovered Ground (Move 2021) was named ‘Pick of the Week’ by Sydney Morning Herald and received high praise, including two 5-star reviews: Jessie Cuniffe (Sydney Morning Herald) wrote: ‘‘Felicity Wilcox’s blend of Baroque sensibilities and dissonant textures adds up to a historically-informed modernity…her creative vision reigns supreme’; and Paul Cooke (Fine Music Sydney) wrote, ‘The music is startling in its originality and use of instrumental techniques and electronic treatments.’

Felicity has long been a prominent multimedia and events composer/music director, with a highlight being her role as Assistant Music Director and Composer for the Paralympic Games Opening Ceremony in Sydney 2000. She was the first woman to be nominated for Australia’s major national screen awards (AACTA/AFI) for her score for the feature Redheads in 1992. As Felicity Fox, she composed the soundtracks to over 60 screen productions, for which she has received international recognition - winning the FIFREC Film Award (France) for best music, several APRA/AGSC Screen Music Awards (Australia), receiving nominations for three AACTA/AFI nominations, and an Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA). Her soundtracks are broadcast internationally on major television networks and in film festivals.

Felicity received her Doctorate in Composition from Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2013, and is Senior Lecturer in Music and Sound Design at the University of Technology Sydney. She is a current recipient of a prestigious Discovery Early Career Research Award (AUD $457,350) from the Australian Research Council to lead research examining gender equity in music via the creation of a new contemporary opera and related research. Her scholarly publications are in the areas of music for multimedia and gender in music; she edited the first book on the screen music of female composers, Women’s Music for the Screen-Diverse Narratives in Sound, published in 2022 with Routledge, New York. In 2023 she co-authored the Women and Minority Genders in Music report on gender representation in the music industries of Australia and Aotearoa/New Zealand.

As a passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion, Felicity was Chair and co-founder of the Gender Equity Committee of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers (2016-2020); served on the Gender Equity and Diversity Working Group of the International Council of Music Creators - CIAM (2019-20); spoke on panels for the International Society of Composers and Authors - CISAC (2019), and was an Advisory Committee member of the Australian Women in Music Mentorship initiative (2019-21).