When we all came out of hibernation in Melbourne at the end of 2020, slightly dazed and squinting at the sun, we at ANAM (the Australian National Academy of Music) wanted to make a loud noise to celebrate the return of live music, and to say thank you to our young musicians who had done such an extraordinary job of continuing their training via computer screens and lounge room videos.

ANAM Set

The ANAM Set Liza Lim – Professor of Composition and Sculthorpe Chair of Australian Music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, James Morley – Cellist at the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM) Photo by Pia Johnson

And so The ANAM Set was born. The ANAM Set is many things – a commissioning project, an anthology, an exploration of contemporary Australian art music – but, at its heart it is about collaboration. In short, 67 Australian composers were commissioned to write a six- to eight-minute piece of music for each of the 67 musicians training at ANAM in 2021.

Fifteen of these composers were initially approached by ANAM, in order to lend their...