VANESSA PERICA
String Quartet No.1, No Feeling is Final
I.Maestoso adagietto
II. Allegro
II. Adagio
IV. Prestissimo
CREDITS
Recorded at the Iwaki Studio, ABC Melbourne, Kulin Nation, in 2025
Australian String Quartet (2025)
Dale Barltrop – Violin I
Francesca Hiew – Violin II
Chris Cartlidge – Viola
Michael Dahlenburg – Cello
Composed by Vanessa Perica
Commissioned by the Australian String Quartet Richard Divall Australian Music Fund
Produced by Stephen Snelleman
Engineered, mixed and mastered by Alexander Stinson
Artwork by Jim Tsinganos Illustration
Art Direction by Cul-de-Sac Creative
PROGRAM NOTES
This piece is somewhat of an autobiographical of what was a tumultuous period of my life.
Whilst writing the first movement, I was contemplating the state of the world (- and still am). I found inspiration in Leonard Bernstein’s response to the assassination of John. F Kennedy:
“This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.”
The second and third movements depict the rollercoaster ride of my husband Carl (partner in life and music for 22 years), having unexpected open heart surgery. Although a terrifying ordeal, paradoxically a beautifully galvanising one for us.
The final movement sees me in New York, reconnecting with a scene I felt so geographically removed from. This trip was everything I was yearning for. The music, the architecture, catch ups with old friends, meeting new friends, the food…walking around Greenwich Village and Washington Square Park everyday. It was a joy to be there, and reinvigorating after the months leading up to it. The underlying angst in this movement is fed by the fast pace of the big city, and the internal battles that arise in one in such a creatively fertile environment.
The piece’s title is from a poem by Rainer Maria Rilke:
“Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final” (excerpt)
Vanessa Perica, 2025.
BIOGRAPHY
Vanessa Perica is a multi award-winning Australian composer and conductor, celebrated for her bold and emotionally charged writing. Based in Melbourne, she has emerged as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary jazz and classical composition.
A graduate of the West Australian Academy of Performing Arts, Vanessa completed her Bachelor degree in 2003 and was awarded the prestigious Bob Wyllie Scholarship for Most Outstanding Graduating Jazz Student, joining an esteemed cohort of past recipients including Linda May Han Oh, Mat Jodrell, Ben Vanderwal and Troy Roberts.
In 2019, she received an Australia Council grant to record her debut album Love is a Temporary Madness with an all-star ensemble featuring Andrea Keller, Julien Wilson, Sam Anning, Mat Jodrell, Ben Vanderwal, Jordan Murray, Carl Mackey, Paul Williamson and Jamie Oehlers. Released in February 2020, the album garnered critical acclaim, reaching No. 1 on the AIR Independent charts and No. 3 on the ARIA Jazz & Blues charts. It was nominated for both the Australian Music Prize and the AIR Awards, and won Best Jazz Album at the 2020 Music Victoria Awards.
Her orchestral profile expanded in 2021 when the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra commissioned the Love is a Temporary Madness Symphonic Suite. Premiered by the MSO and the Vanessa Perica Orchestra, and conducted by Benjamin Northey at the Sidney Myer Music Bowl, the project was followed later that year by the Melbourne International Jazz Festival Opening Night Gala at Hamer Hall. This high-profile collaboration featured vocalists Kate Ceberano, Michelle Nicolle, Thando, Eddie Perfect and others, performing works by Vanessa and Jazz at Lincoln Center’s Chris Crenshaw.
Vanessa has since received numerous honours, including wins at the 2021 APRA Art Music Awards and the Australian Jazz Bell Awards, as well as a 2022 finalist in the Australian Women in Music Awards. Her work with the MSO was a 2022 APRA finalist for Jazz Performance of the Year. Internationally, the Society of Composers Inc. awarded her the 2022 and 2023 Jazz Composition Awards for Woody’s Lament and The Eye is the First Circle.
In 2023, the Vanessa Perica Orchestra released its second studio album, The Eye is the First Circle, launched at the Melbourne International Jazz Festival to widespread acclaim. The album was nominated for Best Jazz Album at the 2024 ARIA Awards, while her composition from the album Hill of Grace, became a finalist for the APRA Art Music Awards’ Work of the Year.
Further recognition came in 2024 with the APRA Professional Development Award for Jazz/Improvised Music. In 2025, her major commission No Feeling is Final for the Australian String Quartet toured nationally and was hailed by critics as “stunning”, “a magnificent addition to quartet literature”, and “a revelation.”
Also in 2025, the International Society of Jazz Composers and Arrangers (ISJAC) awarded Vanessa the Fundamental Freedoms Commission Prize. Her resulting work was premiered in New York City by John Beasley’s Grammy-winning MONK’estra, featuring John Patitucci, Kendrick Scott, John Ellis, Scott Robinson and Dave Pietro. She was further honoured as a winner of the prestigious 2025 Melbourne Prize through the Beleura Emerging Composers Award.
Vanessa is the conductor for the Australian Ministry of Sound Classical national tour and is proudly a Yamaha artist.
Website: https://www.vanessaperica.com/
