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Christian Scallan

@thesoftcentre

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Records and mixes music for albums and film.

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Last year, we were invited to be part of award winning Australian screen composer @dalecornelius_composer’s album “What Is Carried, What Is Left Behind?”, six works for string quartet, pre-recorded synthesisers and sound recordings.

While rehearsing and learning Dale’s tracks, we were absolutely drawn into his beautiful sound world, filled with intricate textures and layers. It was so special to be part of bringing his music to life, and to now share it with everyone!

As independent artists, we know just how much love, time and heart goes into creating original work. If you have a moment, we’d love for you to show Dale some support by giving the album a listen (link in his bio) or sharing this post. Every listen means something, and it would mean so much to see his music find its way to more people.

It’s been such a special journey, and we feel so privileged to have been part of such an intimate and personal album, with a kind and incredible composer who we’re now so happy to call our friend.

Thank you, Dale, for trusting us with your music! 🧡

Recording and mix: @thesoftcentre
Track Name: In This Moment, What Matters Most

#stringquartetrecording #australiancomposer #filmmusiccomposer #filmmusic

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Releasing a post-classical album is a niche within a niche and was never going to be easy in the current market.
That being said, I’ve been receiving some beautiful messages, which tells me this album is resonating with people, and that it might just be able to find a larger audience.
To everyone who’s listened, thank you so much, and please share with your friends
🙏💛🎻
Quartet: @eclectivestrings
Recording & Mix: @thesoftcentre
Album artwork: @elaegidy
#newmusic #stringquartet #modernclassical #dolbyatmos

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In Dolby Atmos you sit at the centre. The string quartet forms a circle around you, synthesisers and found sound move through the space and above you, and the metal door caught in the wind in Montalcino sits as close as it was the night I heard it.

What is Carried, What is Left Behind? is mixed in Dolby Atmos by Christian Scallan @thesoftcentre in the acoustic of a 14th-century abbey.

The Atmos mix is on Apple Music.
Headphones give you a sense of it; a Dolby Atmos speaker system gives you all of it.

Link in bio.

#dolbyatmos #applemusic #modernclassical #newmusic #spatialaudio

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What is Carried, What is Left Behind? is out today.

The seeds of this album were sown late one night in Montalcino, Italy. Walking past the Concattedrale di San Salvatore, I heard a metal door caught in a howling wind: a ghostly, percussive dialogue between the architecture and the elements. Recording that moment sparked a meditation on the wind’s invisible cargo, the fragments of ourselves we carry and those we leave behind in order to grow.

Six pieces for piano, string quartet, synthesisers and found sound, spanning 26 years: from A Whispered Dawn (Spencer’s Lullaby), written in 1999 as my first-born son fought for his life in Neonatal Intensive Care, to Bloom, a piece of awe, joy and new growth.

It’s a narrative chamber cycle, made to be heard from beginning to end. I hope you’ll give it that time.

Listen via the link in bio. The album is also available in Dolby Atmos on Apple Music.

Strings: @eclectivestrings
Recorded and mixed: @thesoftcentre
Artwork: Ela Egidy
Music copying: @play.pause.record
Published by BMG ANZ

#modernclassical #stringquartet #newmusic #australiancomposer

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Wonder and awe lead us to joy. The trick is how you reconnect with them once they are lost?

When my sons were young I started a simple ritual at dinner: each of us saying what we were grateful for. It was awkward at first. Then I noticed the boys doing it without being prompted, and it became something we looked forward to.

Gratitude and wonder turn out to be the same muscle. Bloom is about both, and about what follows them.

“What is Carried, What is Left Behind?” is out 2 October. Pre-save it now and it arrives in your library on release day. Link in bio.

The illustration in this reel is AI generated.

Quartet: @eclectivestrings
Dolby Atmos Mix: @thesoftcentre
Recording studio footage: @beanp.roductions
Music copying: @play.pause.record

#narrativechambercycle #stringquartet #filmcomposer #newmusic #spatialaudio

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Loneliness rarely arrives directly. More often it’s sideways: a room that’s too quiet after the phone goes dark, or the gap between a text sent and one that never comes.

Music can’t fix loneliness, but it offers a kind of evidence: proof that someone else has stood in this particular interior weather before.

This track is a small offering for anyone feeling unseen right now, a reminder that warmth and hope still exist in the silence.

From my upcoming album, ‘What is Carried, What is Left Behind.’ 🎻

Featuring the incredible @amyyouviolin
Dolby Atmos Mix: Christian Scallan @thesoftcentre
Copying: @play.pause.record
Session footage: @beanp.roductions

#narrativechambercycle #modernclassical #digitalloneliness #solitude #newmusic

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It’s happening again…

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Hi everyone 👋 Chuffed that the music video 'Gone', for the Rapunzel's Sister project, has been selected as a finalist at @cinefestoz festival 2026! 📣🎶

I loved composing and producing this track and I'm so proud to see this reach the big screen with all of you! ❤️

Huge congrats to the whole team for bringing it to life so powerfully ⭐

For the full credits see the video, link in bio👆

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We are super excited that “Gone” has been selected as a finalist to screen at @cinefestoz festival 2026, in WA from August 29th to 6th September!!
📽️🩰🍾
We thank the festival co-ordinators and selection committee for this honour.🙏💗
Thank you to all involved in its creation…we can’t wait to see it on the big screen, with you!!🌺🌟🩰

Link in bio for the festival link and music video!
@angiecoffeycomposer @elizaflute @rosscaliaartist @zoereddawaydance @christophermoore3061 @thesoftcentre @mia.atacador.dance @lalu.germaine @catherine.marty_ @rhiannon_tappenden_ @sadie.foster1
#musicvideo #choreography #flute #viola #dancers

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Sometimes the most radical thing you can do is be as open as you once were…..

We tend to think of innocence as a casualty of experience. The first thing we lose as we grow older.

But I don’t think that’s quite right.

Innocence isn’t ignorance. It’s not naivety, or the absence of knowledge. It’s something more specific - it’s the version of us that existed before the protective layers were built. Before the defences, the habits, the armour we construct in response to being hurt.

That version of us doesn’t disappear. It goes somewhere quieter. Deeper. But it’s still there.

This track isn’t a lament for what’s been lost. It’s a quiet reclamation of that unblemished clarity - a reminder that it still lives inside all of us, underneath everything we’ve accumulated.

Album coming soon!🎻

Dolby Atmos/Spatial Audio Mix:
Christian Scallan @thesoftcentre
Recording session footage:
@beanp.roductions

#stringquartet #mentalwellbeing #modernclassicalmusic #spatialaudio #newmusic

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I have this tattooed on my forearm.

      ‘In This Moment, What Matters Most?’

      A few years ago I was seeing a psychologist for anxiety. She suggested a circuit breaker — a question to ask myself when things escalated, to interrupt the cycle before it took hold. The question was: in this moment, what matters most?

      I knew, with my ADHD brain, that in the heat of the moment, I would simply forget to ask it. So I had it tattooed where I’d always be able to see it!

      It became the opening track of my album. The music is built on a circular motif that keeps returning, mirroring the way life keeps throwing us into moments that seem to demand an immediate response. The question is the pause before that response; the space where we get to choose.

      What matters the most to you, right now, in this moment? 🎻

Recording session filmed by: @beanp.roductions
Dolby Atmos mix: Christian Scallan
@thesoftcentre
String quartet: Eclective Strings
@eclectivestrings
Tattoo by:
@laniakea.tattoo

      #modernchamber #stringquartet #anxiety #ADHD #newmusic

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Most of this album was written in 2025. But one piece has been waiting twenty-six years to be heard.

‘A Whispered Dawn (Spencer’s Lullaby)’ was written in 1999, when my first-born son was fighting for his life in neonatal intensive care. Until this album, it had never been recorded. It existed only as a manuscript, written by a version of me that hadn’t yet learned how to face what was happening.

Kierkegaard wrote about the difference between existing and truly becoming yourself: the slow, difficult work of choosing who you are rather than drifting through who you’ve been told to be. In 1999, I hadn’t started that work. My son was in crisis, and so was I, though I didn’t have the language for it then.

The years since have been a long process of unlearning: re-examining decisions, sitting with fear instead of outrunning it, learning to live with more honesty than the version of me who wrote this piece could manage.

Recording it now, alongside music written from that more honest place, is an act of reclamation. It’s the answer that piece has been waiting twenty-six years for.

Spencer is twenty-seven now. This piece was written for him, for me, and I hope you find something in it too. 🎻

Footage of recording sessions by @beanp.roductions
String Quartet: @eclectivestrings
Dolby Atmos Mix: @thesoftcentre
#narrativechambercycle #stringquartet #filmcomposer #newmusic #spatialaudio

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