Sylvia Lim has been named as the recipient of the 2022 Pythia Prize, an annual commissioning project presented by the Melbourne-based new music ensemble Rubiks Collective.

The Pythia Prize, which was established to address equality and gender representation in contemporary Australian art music, is open to Australian female-identifying and gender diverse composers. The winner receives $4,000 and the opportunity to collaborate with Rubiks on the creation of a new work, which will receive a world premiere performance at Melbourne Recital Centre and a professional recording by Rubiks.

Past winners include Felicity Wilcox, Bianca Gannon, Christine McCombe and Samantha Wolf. The Pythia Prize commissions have been performed internationally by the collective in Berlin, Amsterdam and Manchester, with Gannon’s work Our House is on Fire receiving the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Percy Grainger Award in 2021.

“Rubiks is thrilled to announce Sylvia Lim as the winner of the 2022 Pythia Prize. We were strongly drawn to the intimacy of her works and to her thoughtful approaches to colour and expression. Sylvia’s music highlights the finest details of sound, creating fascinating textural worlds that invite deep listening from both audiences and performers,” said...