About
AMANDA
Amanda Lee Falkenberg is an internationally award-winning Australian composer and pianist whose work spans orchestral, choral, film and television, ballet, chamber and interdisciplinary music, with a particular fascination for the meeting point between music, the natural world, science and exploration.
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She earned her piano performance degree from the Elder Conservatorium in Adelaide and began her professional career as a ballet accompanist with The Australian Ballet. Her career subsequently expanded into composition for the concert stage, film and television, including the orchestral soundtrack for the feature film Arabian Sands.
Her enduring relationship with music and movement has also led to an extensive catalogue of more than 120 original compositions, including her Moving with Music series of ballet recordings and the orchestral ballet EDGE of the WORLD, created for the 2003 Barossa Music Festival and performed with Leigh Warren and Dancers.
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Her concert catalogue includes Sea Trilogy, a three-movement orchestral and choral work inspired by the beauty, mystery and movement of Earth’s oceans, and the piano concerto Crossing of the Crescent Moon, recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra under Marin Alsop with acclaimed pianist Anna Tsybuleva.
As Ravinia Music Magazine wrote:
“Sometimes an idea is so inspired, so perfect, you have to wonder: How did this not exist before?... Now there’s a new work of genius to elevate into this class:
The Moons Symphony, composed by Amanda Lee Falkenberg”
Placing her alongside the revolutionary artistry of Mozart’s Don Giovanni and the cinematic impact of The Wizard of Oz.
Falkenberg’s landmark work, THE MOONS SYMPHONY™, was recorded by the London Symphony Orchestra and London Voices under the baton of Marin Alsop. Inspired by seven extraordinary moons of our Solar System, the symphony was created in collaboration with leading planetary scientists and NASA mission experts, bringing together orchestral and choral music, poetry and planetary science in an exploration of some of the most remarkable worlds beyond Earth.
In February 2024, THE MOONS SYMPHONY became connected with the very world that inspired its final movement when its score data travelled to the lunar surface aboard Intuitive Machines’ Odysseus lander as part of the historic IM-1 mission, which achieved the first U.S. soft lunar landing since Apollo 17.In July 2024, the orchestral Symphonic Suite from THE MOONS SYMPHONY was performed by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at the Ravinia Festival, conducted by Marin Alsop.
In May 2026, THE MOONS Choral Suite received its first performance with the Northeastern Pennsylvania Philharmonic under conductor Mélisse Brunet.The complete seven-movement THE MOONS SYMPHONY will receive its world premiere in April 2027 with the Reno Philharmonic and Chorus, conducted by Laura Jackson, at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in Nevada.Extending the symphony beyond the concert hall, Falkenberg is also the creator of LUNAR, an interdisciplinary educational experience developed from THE MOONS SYMPHONY that brings together Music, Art, Poetry and Science.
First piloted at Imperial College London, LUNAR invites students and lifelong learners to journey through the Solar System by encountering planetary science through creativity, curiosity and wonder.
Across more than two decades of composing, Falkenberg’s work has journeyed from ballet and the landscapes of Earth to its oceans, the Moon and the distant worlds of our Solar System. At the heart of her creative practice is a desire to use music as a bridge between art and science, transforming discovery into an emotional encounter with the natural world and the cosmos.
★★★★★
“This is a real one-off… it succeeds because [Falkenberg’s] a very experienced composer of film music, and the extraordinary quality of the performance”
Choir and Organ Magazine.
