Rachael Dease

Dease’s artistic practice encompasses art music, film and theatre scoring, installation and songwriting. Graduating from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, she won the inaugural Martin Sims Award at Fringe World, the Melbourne Fringe Music Award and received critical acclaim at New York Fringe Festival for her contemporary song cycle City of Shadows. Her composition and sound design for theatre include the Helpmann Award-nominated It’s Dark Outside (The Last Great Hunt), Sunset (Strut Dance/Maxine Doyle) The Bleeding Tree (Blue Room Theatre) and Rest (WAYTCO). Installation includes Black Mass (PICA) Winter Feast 2018 & 2019 (Dark Mofo), Museum of Water (Perth Festival), and Like Embracing Ice (Fremantle Arts Centre). Dease was awarded the 2017 Department of Culture and The Arts Performing Arts Fellowship, won the Performing Arts WA Award for Best Music for Let The Right One In (BSSTC) and has been a Besen Fellow at Malthouse Theatre. Residencies include PICA, Proximity Festival, Lumen Studios Italy and The Arctic Circle. In 2020 Dease was Prelude Composer In Residence at Gallop House, Western Australia where she wrote her first solo album Hymns for End Times which was performed with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra in February 2021 for Perth Festival. Dease has recently returned to Perth after collaborating with Maxine Doyle and Es Devlin on Here Not Here for Gothenburg Opera Dance Company

Awards

2021 APRA/AMCOS Export Grant to work with Es Devlin/Maxine Doyle & Gothenburg Opera      Dance Company

2021 Best Experimental Artist - West Australian Music Awards

2021 Best Composition and Sound Design for The Bleeding Tree  Blue Room Theatre Awards 

2020 Mindaroo Artist Fund Commission

2018 Outstanding Music for Theatre for Let the Right One In , WA Performing Arts Awards  

2017 Performing Arts Fellowship Western Australian Department of Culture and The Arts

2014 Melbourne Fringe Awards  Best Music Award (for City of Shadows)

2014 The Besen Artist Program, Malthouse Theatre - Associate Artist in Composition/Sound Design

2012 Best Performance (for City of Shadows) Fringe World Martin Sims Award 

2010 WAM Song of the Year - Experimental and Pop Categories

Theatre

2022 City of Gold by Meyne Wyatt (dir. Shari Sebbans / Sydney Theatre Company - Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2022 Mary Stuart by Kate Mulvany (dir. Mel Cantwell / Perth Festival - Performing Lines)

2021 The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini (dir. Ian Michael / Blue Room Theatre)

2021 House by Dan Giovannoni (dir. Luke Kerridge / Barking Gecko - Perth Festival)

2021 Animal Farm by Van Badham (dir. Emily Maclean / Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2021 Beside  (dir. James Berlyn WAYTCO / Perth Festival)

2019 The Wolves by Sarah De Lappe (dir. Emily Maclean / Blue Room Theatre)

2019 Rest  (dir. James Berlyn WAYTCO / Fringe World)

2018 You Know We Belong Together by Julia Hales (dir. Clare Watson Perth Festival / BSSTC / DADAA)

2018 Ghost In My Suitcase (dir. Matthew Edgerton / Barking Gecko Theatre Company)

2017 Let The Right One In  (dir. Clare Watson / Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2018 Comaland by Will O'Mahony  (Black Swan State Theatre Company / Performing Lines)

2014 8Gb of H*rdcore Pornography by Declan Greene (dir. Lee Lewis / Griffin Theatre Company)

2012 It’s Dark Outside - The Last Great Hunt (still touring)

Live Performance

2021 Hymns for End Times with West Australian Symphony Orchestra for Perth Festival

2017 This Little Light of Mine - Proximity Festival 

2018 HOWL Aphids / Perth Institute of Contemporary Art

2015 From A Small, Distant World Fringe World / Art Gallery of Western Australia

2012 City of Shadows Fringe World / Melbourne Fringe / New York Fringe Festival

Dance

2022 Here Not Here (created by Maxine Doyle and Es Devlin / Goteburg Opera Dance Company)

2019 Sunset  (dir/chor. Maxine Doyle /Strut Dance Perth Festival)

Commercial

2018 Water For Life Water Corporation Campaign  - 303 MullenLowe / Siamese

2017 Get The Touch TAB Campaign (dir. Michael Matthews) - 303 MullenLowe / Beautiful Pictures

Installation

2021 Vespers  Fremantle Biennale

2018 Dark Mofo Winter Feast Forecourt Installation (2018 - 2022)

2018 Like Embracing Ice - Fremantle Arts Centre 

2018 Museum of Water - Perth Festival / Fremantle Arts Centre

2017 Immemorial - The Crypt Gallery London / Lumen Studios

2015 Black Mass for Dead Ringer - Perth Institute of Contemporary Art

Residencies

2020 Bundanon Trust Prelude Residency at Gallop House, Western Australia

2018 The Arctic Circle Artist and Science Research Vessel

2017 Atina, Italy for Lumen Studios

2017 Artist in Residence - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts

2013 Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne 

Education

2007 Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Bachelor of Music Composition (Honours)