Composer/Producer/Educator
I have composed and produced acoustic, electroacoustic and electronic music for live performance, contemporary dance and short film. I played woodwinds in the pre-punk/satire band ‘The Fathers of Modern Medicine’, before studying music composition, synthesis and sound engineering at La Trobe University (1989 – 1995)
My compositions have been performed at Victoria College of the Arts, Festival Gippsland, Melbourne Uni’s Guild Dance, La Trobe Uni’s Moat Fest, TheatreWorks and in eXstatic for Melbourne’s Next Wave Festival and at PICA, Dance House and Laneways for the Melbourne Fringe Festival, Horsham Arts Festival ‘Shopfronts’ Exhibition, ‘Sonic Residues’ at Linden Gallery, ‘Mosaics’ at Richmond Town Hall with the ‘Melbourne Composers’ League’ (MCL), The Australian Gallery at National Gallery Victoria and Chapel off Chapel with the ‘Contemporary Composers’ Collective’, at Melba Hall for ‘Federation Music Week’ (MCL), in multiple Elbow Room Concerts (MCL) at Budinski’s, Cafe Bohemio, Upstairs Cafe, Wesley-Anne, Montsalvat and at St Peter’s Church Box Hill (1996 to 2021), TropScore/TropFest (2012) and at the Australian Computer Music Association ACMA Conference ’60×60 (2014).
My compositions have been played on radio 3CR, ‘Delivery’ on 3RRR, ‘Other Worlds’ on Radio National and on the ‘Australian Music Show’ on ABC FM. My music can be heard on CD Compilations – ‘Rear Vision’ (2008) & ‘Celebrating Twenty Years’ (2017), both with the Melbourne Composers League. Some of my compositions are also available at the Australian Music Centre. I performed in the Bolte Millennium Chorus choir in ‘One Africa’ at Hamer Hall with Lamine Sonka, Andrea Khoza and diverse African artists (2015).
I have taught music and directed student bands and choirs for the past 22 years (1998 – 2020), including ten years teaching Instrumental Music at Rainbow, Hopetoun and Warracknabeal Secondary Colleges in the Wimmera/Mallee. I completed a Grad Dip Ed at La Trobe University (2008), then taught Classroom and Instrumental Music for twelve years at various Primary Schools around Melbourne, including at The Lakes South Morang P-4, Lower Plenty PS, Panton Hills PS, St Andrews PS, Brunswick North West PS, Oak Park PS and at Moomba Park PS. In 2019, I created ‘Seascapes’ with artist in residence, Fern Smith and prep and grade 1 and 2 students at Moomba Park Primary School, as the soundtrack for ‘The Sea is Sinking’ exhibition in Coburg. In 2021, I am Artistic Director/Composer for ‘The Whittlesea Sound Project’, supported by a grant from the Whittlesea Creative Communities Fund.
Link to: The Whittlesea Sound Project
BANDCAMP
SILONICS aka Gary McKie is a composer/producer who has notated scores for instrumental performance, but prefers to work directly with sound, experimenting with instrumental timbres, field recordings, improvisation, synthesis and effects, to create original soundscapes, producing soundtracks for contemporary art-dance performances and generating new musical moods to take us somewhere else.
Contact Details
silonics@yahoo.com.au