A new modern classical work shaped by memory, place and 26 years of unfinished musical history
Award-winning Australian composer Dale Cornelius is preparing to release What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind?, an intimate six-track album created with Melbourne-based string collective Eclective Strings.
Arriving in October 2026, the project sees Cornelius step away from the world of screen scoring and place his own experiences at the centre of the music. Combining string quartet, synthesizers and found sound, the album moves through themes of memory, fragility, grief and renewal, with the complete work available in both stereo and Dolby Atmos Spatial Audio.
The album’s unusual starting point came during a late-night walk through Montalcino, Italy. Outside the Concattedrale di San Salvatore, Cornelius recorded the sound of a metal door being caught by the wind. What initially appeared to be an incidental recording became the sonic seed for the title track, inspiring an album where architecture, weather and memory become part of the musical landscape.
The found sound has been recreated within the Dolby Atmos mix, allowing listeners to experience the recording spatially while the quartet and synthesizers surround them.
Perhaps the album’s most personal moment, however, comes from a piece that has been waiting more than two decades to be heard.
‘A Whispered Dawn (Spencer’s Lullaby)’ was written by Cornelius in 1999 while his first-born son, Spencer, was critically ill. After undergoing an operation in utero, Spencer was born at just 27 weeks and spent three months in neonatal intensive care.
Cornelius wrote the string quartet composition during this period, but it remained unrecorded and existed only as a manuscript for 26 years.
Returning to the piece now has given it an entirely different meaning. The composer who wrote it was trying to process an experience of fear and uncertainty; the composer recording it today can look back with the perspective of everything that followed.
Cornelius describes the decision to finally record it as “an act of reclamation” — a way of bringing his past and present into the same musical space.
That sense of reflection continues with the album’s opening track, ‘In This Moment, What Matters Most?’ The title came from advice Cornelius received while dealing with anxiety during a difficult period of caring for his mother: when everything becomes overwhelming, focus on what matters most in that moment.
The phrase became important enough to be tattooed on his forearm before ultimately becoming the opening track of the album.
With a career spanning more than two decades, Cornelius is no stranger to creating music around powerful stories. His screen credits include Mary & Max, Backtrack, Till Human Voices Wake Us and The Doctor Blake Mysteries, alongside major IMAX documentaries and immersive projects. His work has earned 18 major international awards and nominations.
What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind? represents something different: music created without a screen, script or external narrative to follow.
The album will also be developed into a 55-minute continuous live performance, combining string quartet, live keyboards and samples, spoken word, lighting and video projection. Designed for festivals and curated concert series, the performance will transform the six-track album into one uninterrupted experience.
What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind?
— Tracklist
- In This Moment, What Matters Most?
- What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind?
- Innocence
- A Whispered Dawn (Spencer’s Lullaby)
- Under an Impersonal Sky There Is Hope
- Bloom
