NARRATIVE ARCHITECTURE.
PHILOSOPHICAL STRUCTURE.
GLOBAL SOUND.
About _
Robbie Slaney is an Australian composer creating globally collaborative works, contemporary vocal music, and creative audio projects. His work draws on narrative architecture and philosophical structure to explore themes of human experience in a rapidly changing world.
His projects include the Global Climate Change Music Project, Shakespeare’s Sonnets, and Experience.
Projects
01
The Global Climate Change Music Project
A world-sized composition built from musical statements contributed by all 195 UN-recognised countries performable live as a unified global voice.
02
Shakespeare’s Sonnets — A Music Cycle
Original melodic settings of selected Shakespeare sonnets, written for voice and instrumental ensemble. A contemporary exploration of timeless emotional landscapes.
03
Experience — A Creative Audio Project
A multi-part creative audio work built around original sound, emotion, and narrative structure.
04
The Five-Track Suite
A new instrumental project exploring rhythm, focus, and emotional clarity — written for live ensemble and studio recording.
THE DIALECTICAL ARCHITECTURE OF THE GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE MUSIC PROJECT
My composition is built as a three-part dialectic — a philosophical structure first articulated by Hegel, where thesis, antithesis, and synthesis collide to produce a new form of understanding.
In my work, this dialectic becomes a musical argument for humanity’s future:
Part A
Thesis
01
Humanity recognises the problem.
This section is constructed from the voices of all 195 countries, each contributing a four-bar musical fragment.
Independently they are unique, culturally distinct, and sometimes contradictory.
Together, they form a vast global tapestry — the world in agreement about a shared climate crisis.
Musical character:
Dense
Global
A sonic map of the planet’s collective anxiety
Multi-layered
Diverse
This is the statement of reality.
Part B
ANTITHESIS
02
Humanity unites around action.
Where Part A is multiplicity, Part B is convergence.
A single sustaining drone note — the “earth tone” — holds the space.
From it, solo voices emerge, representing individuals, nations, movements, activists, and communities.
Over time, these solos stop competing and begin to harmonise.
Opposition becomes cooperation.
This is the movement toward unity.
Musical character:
Sparse
Voices negotiating space
Introspective
Slowly building common purpose
Part C
SYNTHESIS
03
The superior outcome: an agreed solution.
Leaving all remaining fossil fuels in the ground — the only logically consistent outcome of the dialectic.
Where Part A expresses recognition
and Part B expresses unification,
Part C expresses resolution.
A new melodic theme emerges - born not from any single country,
but from their collective will.
This section is both a celebration and a commiseration:
celebration of what humanity can achieve
commiseration for what was lost, endangered, or nearly destroyed
Musical character:
Warm
Spacious
A global exhale
Unified
Hopeful but honest
MY DIALECTIC IN ONE SENTENCE
The world acknowledges the crisis (Thesis),
unites in purpose (Antithesis),
and chooses the only viable future (Synthesis).
This is the architecture of the piece.
Press
Context
Robbie Slaney’s work sits within the contemporary classical and modern-minimalist tradition shaped by composers such as Max Richter, Ólafur Arnalds, and Jóhann Jóhannsson, whose music blends emotional clarity with conceptual and narrative depth. His projects also resonate with the experimental approaches of Hildur Guðnadóttir and the atmospheric restraint found in the work of Nils Frahm and Ryuichi Sakamoto.
Like these artists, Slaney’s practice combines structure, philosophy, and sound to explore global themes through a clean, understated aesthetic.
Contact
For inquiries, previews and collaborations: