As we arrive at the half-way point of our heats episodes, we are excited to present our second Composer Feature episode as we welcome three emerging composers to 3MBS.
Kyla Matsuura-Miller and Kevin Tamanini will be joined by guest mentor – composer Robert McIntyre as we hear from Ian Pheh, Jack Brunialti-Sykes and online creator 'MB'. The episode will feature musical works from these three artists and discussions about being an emerging composer in contemporary Australia. Keep reading to learn more about our composers.
Ian Pheh
Ian Pheh is an emerging composer currently studying diploma of music at University of New England. His aim for his music career is to bring relaxation and positivity to listeners through his compositions and to become a reputable music teacher. His style of music is mainly classical and often draws inspiration from nature. He won first prize in the ACMF National Songwriting competition in 2024 and second prize in 2022 and 2021. Besides being a composer, he is also a pianist (LMusA certificate) and violinist (Licentiate level), having won first prize in the Steinway Youth piano competition 2022 and second prize in the Melbourne International Piano and Strings Festival Competition 2022. He is currently teaching composition and piano. His music is available for streaming at Spotify and YouTube.
Jack Brunialti-Sykes
Jack Brunialti-Sykes is a young pianist and composer from Melbourne. He began his musical journey in 2019, when he was 8 years old. His curiosity and passion for classical music was immediately apparent.
In 2020 Jack entered and won his first music competition, Eisteddfod by the Bay.
He was a member of the Victorian State Schools Spectacular Orchestra in 2021 and 2022. In 2023 and 2025, he was selected to play in the Percy Grainger Youth Orchestra.
In 2022, Jack successfully auditioned for Artology’s ‘To Country’ composition program, where his composition was performed by the Adelaide Youth Orchestra.
He is an active member in the local music community, regularly performing with the Southern Area Concert Band plus boosting morale in retirement homes on a regular basis.
Jack has recently been accepted into the Victorian College of the Arts Secondary School and is currently studying under the tutelage of Coady Green.
Michael "MB"
Michael is a multi-instrumentalist, composer, arranger and music producer. Trained as a classical pianist and guitarist from a young age, his passions lie in music for video games and anime, where he aims to further pursue his music composition. Under his online alias “MB”, he enjoys making arrangements of video game music with online groups such as Resonant Union and KodamaSounds, to show his appreciation for the many artists that have inspired him across the years.
As one of the core leaders of the Resonant Union initiative, he jointly organises and produces arrangement albums for video game soundtracks. His work on various video game fan-arrangement albums provided him with the opportunity to work on GREEN ARRANGE, an official arrangement album for the video game ZeroRanger produced in collaboration with its developers, System Erasure, and many major composers in the video games industry