Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

Emma Greenhill (born 1995) is a Sydney based composer, arranger, violinist and teacher. She studied composition under Paul Stanhope, completing a Bachelor of Music (composition) at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2017. Emma's compositions are regularly performed at many schools, universities and venues across Australia. In 2014 she won the Verge Awards 'best composition' prize and in 2017 was the winner of the watermark composition prize where her piece Paper Boats was played by all 4 finalists in the Kendall national violin competition. Paper Boats has since become a regularly performed HSC piece and was also part of Riley Skevington's program in the 2018 young performer awards. Emma regularly arranges and writes music for school ensembles, string quartets, has helped write and produce the music for an original musical by Kate Macdessi (first performed at MLC school) and has composed music for various advertisements and animations. Emma also has a passion for playing the violin and regularly performs with Australian Idol winner Damien Leith, and various other Australian artists. She has also performed her own string arrangements on The Voice Australia, Triple J's Like A Version, with Rai Thistlethwayte (Thirsty Merc) and Steve Balbi (Noiseworks). Emma writes and arranges music in a large range of genres including contemporary-classical, pedagogical, screen music, musical theatre, electronic, pop, folk and country.

Emma is currently working as the string director at Rozelle Public school, teaching violin and conducting, composing and arranging all the music for the string ensembles. In 2018, she taught a year 6 composition class at Barker College where she designed a composition program in which kids learnt about composition through the different concepts of music, and wrote and recorded their own pop songs as a class. Emma has been a proficient violin, composition and piano teacher for over 7 years now, always aiming to make every lesson enjoyable and productive. Emma's thorough understanding of string instruments and the piano forte has allowed her to write very idiomatically for these instruments from beginner to advanced levels. Her experience teaching violin to beginners has also inspired her to write more pedagogical pieces for beginners that are accessible to kids in both a solo and ensemble setting.