Biography

Elizabeth Younan (b. 1994) is widely recognised as one of Australia’s finest young composers. Her violin solo, …your heart dreams of spring is featured on Jennifer Koh’s 2022 GRAMMY award-winning album, Alone Together. A composer for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra’s 50 Fanfares Project, Elizabeth has also written music for the acclaimed podcast Lost Women of Science, produced in partnership with PRX and Scientific American. Her work has been showcased by Musica Viva Australia during its 2018 and 2020 International Concert Seasons, and she has composed for principal players of the Philadelphia Orchestra as part of their Our City, Your Orchestra series.

Elizabeth has been privileged to collaborate with many eminent soloists and ensembles such as Joyce Yang, Anna da Silva Chen, Baron Fenwick, Arcadia Winds, Ensemble Offspring, The Merian Ensemble, Croissants & Whiskey, and the Goldner String Quartet, among others. Her accolades include a Daniel W. Dietrich II Young Alumni Fund Award from the Curtis Institute of Music, an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, the Layton Emerging Composer Fellowship, the Watermark Composition Prize from the Kendall National Violin Competition, two Willgoss Prize Commissions (in association with USYD and UNSW), the Fine Music 102.5 / Willoughby Symphony Young Composer Award, and the Jean Bogan Youth Prize.

Elizabeth is currently pursuing her Doctor of Musical Arts at New York’s Juilliard School on a full-tuition scholarship as a C.V. Starr Doctoral Fellow, studying with Dr. Amy Beth Kirsten. In 2024, she was awarded an Australian Universities’ John Monash Scholarship from the General Sir John Monash Foundation, which supports outstanding Australians undertaking postgraduate study overseas.

She holds a Bachelor of Music in Composition with First Class Honours (2015) and a Master of Music (2018) from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, where she studied with Carl Vine AO. During this time, Elizabeth received the Ignaz Friedman Memorial Prize and the Australian Postgraduate Award. Elizabeth graduated from the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia in 2021, where all students attend on full-tuition scholarships. She held the Jimmy Brent Fellowship and was featured in a PBS/WHYY On Stage at Curtis episode. Upon graduation, she received the Charles Miller “Alfredo Casella” Award for excellence in composition and was selected by faculty and staff as the female graduating speaker for the Class of 2021. She studied with Dr. Jennifer Higdon, Dr. David Serkin Ludwig, and Dr. Richard Danielpour—becoming the first Australian composer ever admitted to Curtis in its then nearly 100-year history.