Isabella Rahme is an emerging composer, harpist and vocalist living and making music on Bedigal land (Sydney, Australia). Her practice as a musician includes writing for choirs and ensembles, creating sound art and installations, and improvising on her electroacoustic harp.

Recent ensembles she has worked with include Ensemble Offspring (Hatched Academy 2023), Trio Immersio (ICEBERG Institute 2023), and JACK Quartet (JACK Studio 2021). Her electroacoustic works have been broadcast as part of radio and sound art festival Radiophrenia (2020 & 2022), and her music and sound design for animation short “After Hours” was shown at the Annecy Film Festival (2021).

She was commissioned to create her first interactive installation in 2022 for Backstage Music’s “Clarity Engine”, and recently presented a new installation for The Music Box Project’s festival “CUT PASTE PLAY” in March of 2024.

Isabella graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2023 with a Bachelor of Music (Composition), where she studied under many esteemed Australian composers including Gerard Brophy, Liza Lim, & Damian Barbeler. She also developed her electroacoustic composition practice by studying with Daniel Blinkhorn, Alexis Weaver, and Ben Carey.

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As a harpist, Isabella has performed chamber music, in orchestras, as a session musician, and for private functions. She has also played in contemporary artists’ bands, and in cross-cultural bands, with her electroacoustic harp. Isabella explores ways of extending the harp’s sound with electronic elements in many of her electroacoustic works, and in 2021 she performed an improvised livestream experiment on electroacoustic harp with live-processing for hiberNATION festival of the low-fi.

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As a vocalist (soprano voice), Isabella has performed music across many genres and styles, and is especially experienced in performing choral music. She is a member of SPC’s VOX, and performs regularly in the Sydney Opera House with them. Through VOX she has worked with many distinguished musicians and conductors including Simone Young, Sir Simon Rattle, Eric Whitacre, Stephen Layton, and more. She has toured as a chorister in Australia, New Zealand, and Italy. In 2023 she was the soprano soloist in VOX’s performance of David Lang’s The Little Match Girl Passion, and has performed as part of the opera chorus for productions by Concordia Ensemble and Gente, Gente!

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Isabella is also an experienced composition and music theory teacher. She has experience tutoring students privately and as a facilitator of educational workshops – including for The House that Dan Built and CuriousWorks.