Women Composing

a celebration through the centuries to the present


Liza Lim (born 1966)

Liza Lim was born in Perth, Western Australia, to Chinese parents. She has degrees from the Victoria College of the Arts, the University of Melbourne, and a PhD from the University of Queensland. She currently lives in Melbourne.

Her website says that her

music focuses on collaborative and transcultural practices. The roots of beauty (in noise), time effects in the Antropocene and the sensoria of ecological connection are ongoing concerns in her compositional work.

Liza Lim’s stage works include installations and five operas. She has written music for orchestras, chamber ensembles, voice with accompaniment, and solo instruments.

It is not unusual for the instrumentalists in Liza Lim compositions to vocalise. This is true of her 2021 piano concerto World as Lover, World as Self, which takes as its title a 1991 book by Buddhist and environmental activist Joanna Macy. The four movements are titled “Gratitude"; “Heirlooms (of sorrow and protest)"; “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star"; and “The Great Turning".

More information about this composition can be found on Liza Lim’s website

This is a 2019 composition Bioluminescence for solo flute: