In May 2025, the Soundstream Emerging Composers Forum brought together five early-career composers for a week of intensive site-responsive music-making on South Australia’s Fleurieu Peninsula. Co-mentored by Inarma Womens Choir (NT), and site-specific composers Jesse Budel (SA) and Cheryl Leonard (USA), the ECF fostered deep listening, ecological awareness, and collaborative composition along the striking coastline of Aldinga Beach.

Among the participating composers was Vicki Hallett (VIC), Frankie Dyson-Reilly (QLD), Oscar Lush (VIC), Isabella Rahme (NSW), and Georgia Oatley (SA).

Participants collaborated with the Inarma Choir—an all-women’s choir from Central Australia—and Soundstream Artistic Director Gabriella Smart, whose powerful presence helped shape creative responses across the week.

The ECF emphasized field recording practice using local materials and environments, with Cheryl Leonard guiding sessions in working with found natural objects, and Jesse Budel leading workshops in soundscape composition utilising a mobile octophonic speaker array.

The forum included two memorable excursions: a guided walk through the Aldinga Scrub Conservation Park with John Edmeades from Friends of the Aldinga Scrub, and a bicultural ecological tour of Lot 50 (McLaren Vale) at with environmental artist and cross-cultural facilitator Gavin Malone. These encounters enriched the composers’ engagement with place, ecology, and Indigenous knowledges.