Student Composer in Residence 2025 – Damien McCluskey
The grant money allowed me to pay my quartet for their tireless work in the short time frame we had to complete the project. Without the grant, this project would not have been realised.
I am Damien McCluskey, a classical guitarist/composer currently studying a Bachelor of Music majoring in Performance at the University of Melbourne. Alongside my studies, I have an interest in guitar ensembles, so I applied for the Grainger Museum to provide a performance opportunity for my newly formed guitar quartet.
I learned about Percy Grainger through the writings of Christopher Lawrence in his book Swooning and my interest deepened on a class field trip to the museum lead by my teacher Ken Murray. Upon receiving this grant, I studied many of Percy’s scores and composed an imaginative 30 minute continuous suite for classical guitar quartet, inspired by the inner world of Percy Grainger, featuring melodic and harmonic fragments from 15 of his most popular works.
The grant money allowed me to pay my quartet for their tireless work in the short time frame we had to complete the project. Without the grant, this project would not have been realised.
Special thanks to the museum staff, especially Heather Gaunt and Sarah Kirby, and Isabella Mazzarolo from IgniteLAB for their support in my residency.