This six-track album brings together string quartet, synthesizers and found sound in an immersive production mixed in Dolby Atmos – Apple Spatial Audio. Created with Melbourne-based string collective Eclective Strings, the project represents a major new chapter for Cornelius, moving beyond his celebrated career in screen composition into a more intimate and personal musical world.
PRE ORDER VIA BANDCAMP LINK
https://dalecornelius.bandcamp.com/album/what-is-carried-what-is-left-behind
‘What is Carried, What is Left Behind?’ is a meditation on the wind’s invisible cargo: the fragments of experience we retain and those we must let go. Inspired by a site-specific recording in an Italian cathedral, the album serves as an act of reclamation, bridging new compositions from 2025 with a deeply personal, previously unrecorded work from 1999. It is a journey through instability and trauma toward a final state of awe, joy, and renewal.
Stage Whispers review July 2026
“The presentation of Munarto’s story through film, projection, music and song added another breathtaking layer of storytelling. These sequences are devastating, haunting and visually stunning, allowing the past to speak directly into the present. Dale Cornelius’ music and composition enrich every emotional beat…..
As the final moments unfolded and the audience rose to its feet, the standing ovation felt not merely appropriate but inevitable. It was recognition of exceptional performances, extraordinary creative vision and the importance of the stories being told. Logan St is warm, courageous, respectful, heartbreaking and profoundly hopeful. It reminds us that history lives not only in archives, but in friendships, in food, in stories and in the simple act of listening to one another. It is, quite simply, unmissable.”
After a successful music development and song cycle commission in 2025, in collaboration with Jacob Boehme, Sonya Rankine and Feroz Ansari, I’m working toward the theatre outcome of this amazing story, created by visionary Kaurna and Narungga theatre-maker Jacob Boehme.
It’s a sweeping tale that honours the enduring strength of Jacob’s female ancestors, the legacy of the cameleers, and the spirit of resistance etched into this place now called Adelaide.
Set in the backyard of an Adelaide mosque, an unlikely alliance takes root between Goolie, an Afghan cameleer and mosque caretaker, and Dulcie, a young Aboriginal woman navigating life, loss and love on Kaurna Country. As war, racism and bureaucracy press in from all sides, their bond — anchored in storytelling, cooking and kinship — becomes an act of survival.
Opening Night July 28 (with previews beforehand)
The Way Home wins BEST MUSIC in SHORT FILM at the Australian Screen Music Awards October 28, 2025.
Sometimes a story comes along and without any doubt, you know you have to be involved. This was one of those films.
The Way Home was one of the first films to be shot in Ukraine since the Russian invasion.
It tells a story set during The Holodomor—the Russian man-made famine, engineered by Stalin, that killed nearly four million Ukrainians in two years. It powerfully connects the past with the present, and brings into focus Russia’s historical aggressions against Ukraine.
I’ll never forget recording our ‘white-voice’ singer Alina Savchuk in Kyiv…because for the recording engineer, this was his last session before he was sent to the frontline. This was a stark reminder of how every single Ukrainian is affected by this war and why creating films like this is so important.
Thank you to; Erkki Veltheim for your wonderful performances on violin, viola and electric violin; Christian Scallan for an awesome mix; Alina Savchuk for your spectacular and emotive voice, and to Stefan Burgyn – please keep making these films!
SOUNDTRACK OUT NOW!
…listen in immersive Dolby Atmos (Spatial Audio)
via Apple Music
https://music.apple.com/au/album/the-way-home-original-motion-picture-soundtrack/1832585117
1st release from the soundtrack album available for preview listen and pre-order now!
http://itunes.apple.com/album/id/1832006788
The Way Home is a short documentary about one man’s arduous 1,000 km journey to escape a Soviet prison and return to his family during Soviet Russia’s collectivisation of the country, known as The Holodomor, which created a man-made famine killing millions of Ukrainians, directed by Stefan Bugryn. The film also brings into focus the current situation in Ukraine with Russia’s historical interference with this independent country. Screened at Flickerfest and the Melbourne Documentary Festival in the first half of 2025.
The score features the ‘white voice’ singing by the incredible, Alina Savchuk, electric violin, violin and viola by Erkki Veltheim, and church bells – which hold deep cultural, historical, and symbolic significance in the Ukraine during times of conflict, acting as far more than just religious instruments….
We have remixed one of the cues from the film and will be releasing this as a single before the album release later in the month. Stay tuned for more info!
World premiere at FLICKERFEST – Best of Documentary Shorts 1
Director: Stefan Bugryn Editor: Steven Zelko Composer: Dale Cornelius
Synopsis: After Stalin ordered the forced collectivisation of all the farms in 1930s Ukraine, Maxim, a humble cucumber farmer, rebels. He is arrested by local authorities and shipped off to forced labour camps of Siberia. To survive and return to his family, he steals away in the dead of night and begins the 1,000km journey home.
This was a very special film to work on and was one of the first productions to be filmed in the Ukraine since the war broke out. I hope this film travels internationally to highlight the plight of the Ukrainian people’s independence. I also had the pleasure of recording the amazing ‘white-voice’ Ukrainian vocalist, Alina Savchuk, whose voice is featured in the score, providing a powerful emotional focus in the film’s storyline.
Score Excerpt
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