In September 2025 Lisa Illean's music makes its debut on the dance stage, with a choreography of her Chansons from Raewyn Hill. It appears as part of IN THE SHADOW OF TIME, a collaboration with Australian Chamber Orchestra and Co3 contemporary dance company at Perth’s Liberty Theatre, receiving five performances before a regional tour.
The piece for five dancers, who move on a rotating stage pushed by a single figure below, is inspired by the precision of a Japanese tea ceremony, channelling the exchange of energy and fleeting truths between people. In a work that reflects on the experience of aging and the ebb-and-flow of time, Illean’s music is complemented by works from Arvo Pärt, Philip Glass and Pēteris Vasks. It features costumes by Australian fashion designer Akira Isogawa.
Chansons are Illean's reworking of two songs by Gilles Binchois for 12 strings: Amours merchi and Adieu, adieu, mon joileux souvenir. Her arrangement of the second in particular diffracts and collages Binchois’ exquisite descending lines in cascades, creating a sonorous recollection (a literal ‘re-membering’) of the songs, with the various string lines augmenting and illuminating each other.
In June 2025 Scottish Ensemble toured the Chansons as part of their ‘Music for a Summer Night’ series. At their premiere, alongside UK debut of Illean’s arcing, stilling, bending, gathering from Britten Sinfonia at Milton Court in May 2024, The Times called them “beguiling”, with The Arts Desk hailing them as “an exquisite miniature”.