Hao is a recent graduate of the Conservatorium’s distinctive Words, Text, Voices, Music program where she studied under the supervision of Professor Liza Lim. The program offers students a rare opportunity to combine intensive creative practice with real-world collaborative projects. For Hao, it was a place to experiment with sound and voice in innovative ways, most notably through a chamber opera produced in partnership with NIDA. Hao’s work ‘Lullaby’, part of the MOTHER project, was one of four original operas created by students in the Words, Text, Voices, Music master’s course and directed by renowned opera director Lindy Hume. Presented at NIDA, the work was a bold showcase of emerging voices in Australian opera.

“Looking back, two things at the Con made all the difference: the chance to work on real creative projects and space to develop a research practice that fed into the music-making,” said Hao.

The NIDA collaboration became a turning point. “My first opera project with NIDA left me with more questions than answers (the best kind of project, really).

In the opera, Hao incorporated graphic notation and passages where the cast could improvise: evoking the sound of a shooting star, a mosquito, an ambulance, or expressing gestures like the trajectory of a cry or a childlike lip-trill battle—all without specifying pitch.

“I’m curious to keep exploring the intersection between everyday vocal sounds and opera—the possibilities of the human voice in dialogue with the more-than-human world, especially through sounds that are non-verbal and non-textual.” said Hao.

“Perhaps this kind of free notation could also invite those who don’t consider themselves musically literate to enjoy creating sounds with their own voices. My father has always called himself tone-deaf. I’d love to write more music for people like him—to give them a way in.”

Her academic journey was equally rich. With the guidance of Professor Liza Lim and Associate Professor Damien Ricketson, Hao explored how ideas from philosophy and environmental humanities could inform her composition practice.

“Some of the most useful ideas came from far outside music,” she says. “Zhuangzi’s idea of the body as spontaneous and dispossessed led me to rethink notation, not as fixed notes but as a porous surface where sounds interact. Same with Alaimo’s trans-corporeality theory. It gave language to what the music and the production were trying to do with the opera’s central metaphor: Mother’s desires, coupled with guilt and internal conflict, materialise as snake-like entities—Mother’s “shadow self.”

The snakes manifest in fluid, omnipresent forms that traverse identities on stage and through music. Initially embodied as eerie hissing sounds that infiltrate the atmosphere, the snakes later take on physical forms: a billowing black plastic sheet, a shimmering golden fabric resembling snakeskin.

An abandoned car becomes a body for the snake with headlights as eyes, a hood as a mouth, and silver fabric as a tongue. The snakes’ presence also extends into human form, as three singers collectively embody the snakes, while corrugated aluminium tubes surround the stage, giving the illusion of coiled, winding snakes.

These pulsing, shifting bodies are not mere projections of Mother’s fears—they are active agents in her psychological confinement. The stage itself becomes an elastic, transformative space where cycles of dreaming and waking intertwine, and the snakes thread together reality and nightmare, embodying the fluidity of fear.

Beyond the research and performances, Hao says it was the people that made her experience truly meaningful.

“What I’m most proud of from the past two years is the friendships I’ve made and the moments we’ve shared. Whether it was sitting under the trees in the Royal Botanic Garden sewing leaves with friends, brainstorming opera ideas with NIDA collaborators, pulling faces through practice room windows to make each other laugh or chatting in the library so long we forgot our assignments, these joyful everyday moments are what I carry with me.”

She also treasures her performance opportunities such as playing in the Sonata Competition and touring Europe with the Conservatorium Chamber Choir – memories she will cherish forever.

As she looks to the future, Hao’s creative philosophy remains grounded in connection.

“These friendships remind me that music is at its heart about connection or more precisely connectedness. I want to create music that reflects this: music shaped by collaboration, by those around me, friends, mentors, performers, as well as the land and the textures of daily life.”

Hao has recently been awarded a prestigious PhD Fellowship at the University of Chicago which offers full tuition and a generous scholarship for up to nine years. It’s an extraordinary opportunity and one that speaks to the strength of the foundation built during her time at the Con.

“My family, mentors and friends are all very happy and proud. Their encouragement and support have meant the world to me. It’s given me a deep sense of possibility. I've always thought that being able to write music is like living a dream that’s almost too good to be true. I want to carry the patience they've shown me and the trust they've placed in me and let that become a source of strength as I move forward.”

Hao’s story is an example of the impact of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s commitment to fostering both creative excellence and intellectual exploration and how it prepares graduates to lead, innovate and inspire in the global music community.