Matt Laing named recipient of the Albert H Maggs Composition Award
Composer and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music alumnus Matt Laing is the 2025 recipient of the Albert H Maggs Composition Award for his composition This Waking Moment.
The Albert H Maggs Composition Award is awarded by the University of Melbourne as a commission for Australian composers to create a new musical work of a substantial nature. The award is valued at up to $20,000.
The award selection panel noted Mr Laing’s powerful new work, composed for Melbourne Chamber Orchestra, is a textural portrait of the sunrise, meticulously scored for a delicate palette of string orchestra sonorities. The panel added that the piece explores new musical terrain, while elegantly evoking darkness and light through a kaleidoscope of lyrical and spirited moods.
Mr Laing said: “I am so delighted to be selected as the recipient of the 2025 Albert H Maggs Composition Prize. My big thanks to University of Melbourne for the award of this significant prize, to Sophie Rowell and the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra for commissioning the selected work This Waking Moment and performing it so beautifully, and to ABC Classic for the great recording. I’m really looking forward to making the new work as part of this prize and sharing it in 2027.”
The previous recipient of the Albert H Maggs Composition Award was Padma Newsome for the composition The French Violin.