“Dillon’s skill at bringing highly complex thoughts through classical music, opera and philosophy so seamlessly together is ingenious.”
“Kym Dillon’s ‘Robbie’s Daydream’ ... was virtuosic, grippingly emotive and perfectly paced ... this work deserves many more performances, and proves Dillon as a skilled composer to keep an eye on”
“the highlight of the afternoon was Melbourne-based composer Kym Dillon’s ‘It Was’ ... allowing [the singers]
to explore emotions, text and the exciting but challenging music with guts and aplomb ... a deeply enjoyable romp through Dickens’ well-loved words”
Kym Alexandra Dillon is an Australian composer, pianist and presenter whose unique path as a musician has led her to cultivating a category-defying artistic career. Equally at home improvising in jazz ensembles, composing for symphony orchestras, performing complex contemporary works or engaging orchestral audiences with her talks on music, her professional activity spans across a multitude of disciplines and genres, all stemming from her deep love of music, and belief in its power to shape and enrich our lives.
As a Composer she has been a finalist for the Australian Art Music Awards (Work of the Year - Large Ensemble 2023), has been commissioned by ensembles such as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australian Youth Orchestra, Forest Collective, Inventi Ensemble, Musica Viva, Homophonic! and the Melbourne Recital Centre. She completed a bachelor of composition at the Victorian College of the Arts, and her Masters in composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, and was awarded the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music/Melbourne Recital Centre Composition Prize in 2023. She has learnt from such as Carl Vine, Melody Eötvös, Elliott Gyger, Christine McCombe and John McCaughey. She has been touted by Limelight as “a skilled composer to keep an eye on”, and in a review of her large scale song cycle Diapsalmata: Portrait of a Self, writer Myron May wrote that “Dillon’s skill at bringing highly complex thoughts through classical music, opera and philosophy so seamlessly together is ingenious”. She also has a passion for contemporary orchestral arranging, and was involved as an arranger for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s collaboration with Find Your Voice Collective, ‘Sonder’, in 2026.
As a Pianist she performs widely across both classical and jazz contexts. Originally beginning her piano studies with composer Vanessa Lann in the Netherlands, her sense for play, creativity and collaboration led her into the improvisational language of jazz in her early life, but this soon expanded out into a love for classical and art music. Equally informed by her compositional training and her contemporary improvisational language, her piano voice is known for its unique expansiveness, stylistic versatility, emotional directness and lyricism.
She has performed in the Melbourne International Jazz Festival, the 2026 Peninsula Summer Music Festival, and at 2025’s Port Fairy Spring Music Festival she performed the central piano part in Stefan Cassomenos’ opera ‘Eva’ as well as performing her solo show. She has been awarded ‘best accompanist in the finals’ at the 2022 National Liederfest, the ‘Maurie Fabrikant award for piano playing excellence’ from the Victorian Jazz Club, and frequently tours across Australia accompanying performers such as Simon Gleeson, Rachael Beck, Michael Cormick, Gorgi Coghlan, Ian Stenlake, and Harrison Craig. She appeared as part of ABC TV’s The Piano performing her own composition, ‘Epilogue’. In April 2026 she will launch her debut album as pianist and composer, ‘Vendestiny’.
As a Presenter committed to deepening public engagement with music, she regularly delivers pre-concert talks for the Australian Chamber Orchestra and Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, where she unpacks contemporary orchestral repertoire for a general audience. She regularly conducts two large social-inclusion community choirs under the With One Voice program (who have been featured on the ABC and Channel 9), and she has been a guest presenter for ABC Classic radio.