for now, it’s best to email me if you would like to see any scores [or hear any recordings that aren’t online]


🎹

SONATA / piano / 8’ / 2018 / ︎/ ︎
^{a sort of microsonata}

SLOW DAY NO. 5 / piano / 2’ / 2020 /︎/ ︎
^{a song without words}

THE DISSOLUTE SOCIETY COMPRISED OF ALL SORTS / piano / 35’ / 2021
^{a suite based on Biber’s Battalia, for Joseph Havlat, premiered at Dartington}

🎤


FALLING UP SONGS / soprano, vln, bcl, pft / 3’ / 2016 
^{these are good fun, secret text, send me a message if you want to find out}

LA LUNE NE GARDE AUCUNE RANCUNE / tenor, fl, cl, bcl, hn, vl, vla, vlc / 16’ / 2018
^{text by T.S. Eliot}

MONTREAL SONGS /medium voice, piano / 14’ / 2021 / ︎
^{three folk song arrangements in French, English and Yiddish}

DEAD HORSES / solo voice  / 12’ / 2021 
^{lots of good words in this, text by me, RAM200 commission}

I WISH I COULD SPEAK TO YOU / medium-high voice, piano / 3’ / 2021
^{sweet and sad, text by Dan Sociu}

HOW TO SING AND PLAY THE HARP / soprano, harp / 11’ / 2022
^{quite theatrical, some text by Dan Sociu in the middle, lots of syllables either side}

 
🎭️


FOR PEACE AND COUNTRY [CHAMBER OPERA] / mezzo-soprano: ebcl, cl, bcl, a-sax, bn, tr, tb, vl, vlc, pft / 16’ / 2018 / ︎/ ︎
^{libretto from a video my sister made when she was 8, the singer plays 11 different characters (all stuffed toys)}


🎺️🎻🪕


AYBROOK STREET / six sight-reading violinists of any ability / 12’ / 2017 
^{a made-to-order piece, premiered at The Ditch, Shoreditch Town Hall}

HOW TO DRAW / string quartet / 6’ / 2018 
^{about lines, written for Dartington International Summer School, premiered there by the Heath Quartet}

SLOW DAY NO. 6 / piano + any other instrument, range Db4-B5 / 2’ / 2020
^{Slow Day No. 5 [see above] but with a bit more going on}

SOMETHING PRETTY / harp, piano / 4’ / 2020
^{brunch music for Olivia Jageurs and Thomas Ang, at the Fidelio Cafe}

THINKPIECE / flute, horn, cello + tape / 11’ / 2021 
^{verses and choruses with some thoughts about Messiaen at the end}

BOWED AND BLOWED / clarinet, violin, cello / 6’ / 2022 
^{quite jaunty, lullaby in the middle, Listenpony commission, written for a trio from Explore Ensemble}

LURID CUPOLA MOSS / violin, viola, cello / 9’ / 2022
^{earthy and airy, all harmonics, Nash Ensemble commission, premiered at Wigmore Hall}

BOWED BLOWED AND HIT / recorder[s], violin, double bass, marimba / 9’ / 2022
^{flexible[ish] scoring, any blowed instrument, any two bowed instruments, and any hit instrument could play this}

STRANGE ISABELLA / wind quintet, piano / 2’ / 2022
^{peeling piano chords and important horn part, Stomping Ground commission, programmed alongside Isabella Leonarda}

AND OTHER THINGS [version 3?] / clarinet [or violin], cello, piano /  10’ / 2022 / ︎
^{thinking about Charles Ives - the middle was written at Dartington in 2018, the movements either side materialised in June 2022}

FRIENDS / kalimba, trumpet / 10-20’ / 2022
^{bathroom music}

VALEDICTIONS / flute, clarinet, horn, cello / 4’30” /2022
^{a little farewell}

🎺️🎺️🎺️🎻🎻🎻🎻🪕🪕🪕🪕


SUBLUNAR / orchestra - no percussion / 8’ / 2019
^{very yearning, + there’s an Ives song somewhere in the middle}


  🛠️


PIANO QUINTET, title tbc, premiere 12/22

orchestration of MONTREAL SONGS, for fun

biography;

Isabella Gellis is a British-Canadian composer of acoustic music. She has a fondness for storytelling, and her music often focuses on the sincerity of the absurd and surreal. Training first as a pianist and violinist, she started composing in 2014, a year which saw her concert debut as a composer: a piece for eight hands on one piano at Wigmore Hall, written for the Junior Jaques Samuel Intercollegiate Piano Competition. Between 2015 and 2022, she studied at the Royal Academy of Music, with Edmund Finnis, Christopher Austin and Morgan Hayes, graduating with a Bicentenary Prize for all-round excellence and the Musicians’ Company Priaulx Rainier Prize. Her work has been performed in numerous settings, such as Dartington [Heath Quartet, Tritium Trio], Tête-à-Tête and Norfolk & Norwich festivals, and has been supported by the Hinrichsen Foundation and the RVW trust. Recent highlights include a substantial cycle for pianist Joseph Havlat premiered at Dartington, a trio for members of Explore Ensemble [Listenpony commission], a solo voice piece for mezzo-soprano Lotte Betts-Dean [RAM200 commission], a string trio premiered at Wigmore Hall [Nash Ensemble commission] and a voice-harp duet for Héloïse Werner and Esther Beyer. Outside of these particular realms, Isabella works as a project leader for Lights Camera Score, generating film scores with school children, and as an orchestrator/arranger. She is currently working on a piano quintet for the Maconchy Quartet as part of RETAKE concert series.