Rachael Dease

Rachael Dease is one of Australia’s preeminent composers and sound designers, based in Boorloo/Perth, Western Australia. Her artistic practice encompasses art music, dance and theatre scoring, installation and songwriting. Her own music projects have garnered critical acclaim and multiple awards, and she is a quintessential and in-demand collaborator - creating large and small scale works across many genres. Classically trained, with an intrinsic knowledge of sound design and production, Dease creates music and sound that has made her one of the most sought after composers in Australia. A prominent and innovative voice in Australian contemporary music and culture, she continues to explore and expand the boundaries of musical experience, with audience engagement a core focus.

Dease has mentored over thirty emerging composers and sound designers in her home city, and she is actively dedicated to seeing her chosen field becoming richer with the voices of women, gender-diverse and Indigenous artists.

Graduating with Honours 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.

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. In 2022 Dease travelled to Sweden, fulfilling a two year, two part collaboration with Maxine Doyle and Es Devlin on Here Not Here for Gothenburg Opera Dance Company and in 2023 presented Salamander - her third collaboration with Doyle and Devlin for Brisbane Festival.

Rachael Dease is an Australian Music Centre Associate Artist and is represented by Aurora Artists Management

Awards

2024 Outstanding Composition and Sound Design for Dirty Birds, WA Performing Arts Awards

2022 Performance of The Year (Finalist) Hymns for End Times APRA/AMCOS Art Music Awards

2022 Outstanding Composition and Sound Design for The Bleeding Tree, WA Performing Arts Awards

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

2021 Best Experimental Sound Artist - West Australian Music Awards

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

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

Residencies

2020 Bundanon Trust Prelude Residency at Gallop House, Western Australia 2018 The Arctic Circle Artist and Science Research Vessel

2017 Artist in Residence - Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts

2013 Malthouse Theatre, Melbourne

Theatre

2025 Never Have I Ever by Deborah Francis-White (dir. Kate Champion - Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2025 August Osage County by Tracey Letts (dir. Eamon Flack - Belvoir Theatre/BSSTC)

2024 The Children by Lucy Kirkwood (dir. Mel Cantwell - Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2023 Dirty Birds by Hayley and Mandy McElhinney (dir. Kate Champion - Black Swan State Theatre Company)

2023 The Bleeding Tree by Angus Cerini (dir. Ian Michael - Black Swan State Theatre Company)

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

Live Performance

2023 Salamander created by Maxine Doyle, Es Devlin, Rachael Dease - Australasian Dance Collective / Brisbane Festival

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

2018 HOWL Aphids / Perth Institute of Contemporary Art

2017 This Little Light of Mine - Proximity Festival

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 / Dance Theatre

2025 Echogreen - LINK Dance Company

2025 Eisenhower Dance Company - New Work

2025 Dueling by Paul Zivkovich

2023 Salamander created by Maxine Doyle, Es Devlin, Rachael Dease - Australasian Dance Collective / Brisbane Festival

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)

Installation

2021/2025 Vespers Fremantle Biennale

2018-2025 Dark Mofo Winter Feast Forecourt Score

2018 Like Embracing Ice - Fremantle Arts Centre

2018 Museum of Water - Perth Festival / Fremantle Arts Centre 2015 Black Mass for Dead Ringer - Perth Institute of Contemporary Art

Education

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