Dr Inga Liljeström is an Australian/Finnish song-writer, composer and vocalist whose work weaves together haunting vocals, atmospheric sound design and cinematic songwriting into richly immersive worlds. Across six acclaimed albums, her music has continually reinvented itself, from Nordic-inspired string arrangements and electronic textures to stark desert folk, rock and experimental soundscapes. Whether composing songs, creating sound for film and public art, or performing live, her work is united by a fascination with the emotional and transformative possibilities of the human voice.

Recently Inga completed a PhD exploring the creative muse and the ways composers and songwriters understand their sources of inspiration. A self-taught instrumentalist, she uses her home recording studio as an extension of the compositional process, creating music that blurs the boundaries between song and sonic landscape.

In the 1990s, she composed and performed with the art rock group Helgrind before embarking on a solo career.

Her solo work led to performances at Sydney Festival, Adelaide Festival and Sydney Opera House Studio before she relocated to Europe, where she spent 14 years based in France and UK, forming a band, recording albums and releasing music on European labels.

Her European performances included festivals such as Wrocław Impart Festival (Poland) and Colours of Ostrava (Czech Republic), alongside performances throughout France, Italy, Switzerland, Finland and the UK. Along the way she collaborated with artists including d.i.g. (Directions in Groove), Gerling, The Church, Cameron Undy’s Kidzen, American producer Carmen Rizzo, and created remixes for Gotye and the FourPlay String Quartet. She also toured South America as singer and actor in Paradise City, the acclaimed physical theatre production by Branch Nebula, co-composing the score with award-winning producer and sound designer Bob Scott.

In addition to her solo work, Inga has contributed vocals to film and television projects including Blood Brothers (ABC), Rake (ABC), The Kettering Incident (BBC) and promotional work for Dracula (Sky TV). Her compositions have featured in film, television and nature documentaries, including the award-winning Wild Antarctic by Galaxiid.

Her music has also become an integral part of large-scale public art. She composed music for Light Origami by Japanese artist Masakazu Shirane, an internationally touring installation presented at VIVID Sydney, Scottsdale Light Festival (Arizona) and Singapore Night Festival. More recently, she composed the music for Circles of Rhythm at VIVID Sydney 2026, collaborating with artists Anna Fraser, Giles Westley and Julian Burgess.

Her artistic practice has been supported through numerous grants, including research into yoik, the traditional vocal music of the Sámi people, and the creation of the music film Paris, She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not, exploring the hidden darker histories of the French capital.

Collaboration continues to play a central role in her creative practice. Highlights include the album We Have Tigers with award-winning film composer Michael Lira, and the experimental drone-based recording Of Stars and Stones with multi-instrumentalist and producer Leigh Ivin, two instrumental tracks from which featured in the television series The Lost Flowers of Alice Hart.

Currently, Inga performs as a solo artist, creating immersive performances for voice, electric guitar, live looping, samples and projection. Drawing audiences into evocative sonic landscapes, her work inhabits the space between concert, installation and ritual.

She is also a certified sound therapist and facilitates regular sound immersions.

The Story

I’ve always felt drawn to the landscapes of my Finnish heritage. Ice, forests, northern skies and the melancholy beauty of Scandinavian music found their way into my compositions as naturally as the rivers, birds and mountains of my childhood in Bellingen, Australia. Much of what I create exists somewhere between these two worlds.

I’ve always experienced music visually. Songs begin as places, colours or fragments of film before they become melodies, which is perhaps why my work has often been described as creating cinematic sonic landscapes. Rather than settling into one style, each album has become an exploration of a different landscape, from Nordic forests and windswept fjords to vast Australian deserts, intimate folk songs and experimental sound worlds.

I grew up in The Promised Land, outside Bellingen, where our home was surrounded by rivers, mountains, horses, giant Moreton Bay fig trees and early morning mist. Music was always playing -Nick Drake, Melanie Safka, John Martyn, Steeleye Span, Blondie and The Rolling Stones. I was born a romantic dreamer, and wrote poems and made little books of drawings and stories, My first schooling was in a hall beside a river with a few friends. It was beautifully creative and freeing, before going into the public school system.

One of my earliest musical memories is seeing Melanie Safka perform when I was about seven years old. I remember the red velvet curtains, her long dark hair, the excitement of the audience, and then falling asleep before the concert finished because it had all become too overwhelming. Years later, a friend played Melanie my recording of her song Some Say I Got Devil.

When I was ten, my mother and I joined a religious community. I was given a nylon-string guitar and I taught myself to play. I also sang with the church band, and my mum led the tambourine players. Looking back, those uninhibited sessions of improvisation and “speaking in tongues” were probably my first lessons in trusting the voice beyond words.

I studied jazz vocals at university and fell deeply in love with Billie Holiday, Sarah Vaughan, Nancy Wilson and Nina Simone. I then moved to Sydney, and began collaborating with other musicians, eventually forming the band Helgrind, a theatrical collision of angst, beauty and performance art. We performed in vintage swimsuits, biker boots and platinum wigs while the men wore 1950s nylon nighties. After hearing our music, one record executive said, “You make me feel like I don’t understand music.” We took it as a compliment.

I then began experimenting as a solo artist, working with strings, electronics, voice, folk instruments, but always creating music that, for me, evoked landscapes and filmic scenes. My albums have been made in lounge rooms in the Blue Mountains, old schools in rural France, studios in Sydney, and houses in Normandy where musicians gathered around crackling fireplaces while winter trees stood outside the windows. Sometimes we’d begin by talking about a landscape or a scene from a David Lynch film before anyone played a note. The images came first; the music simply found its way towards them.

Over the years I’ve collaborated with wonderful musicians, filmmakers, dancers, visual artists and composers across Australia and Europe, touring internationally and creating music for theatre, film, television and immersive installations. I have made albums with award winning film composer, Michael Lira, and also with producer / pedal steel extraordinaire, Leigh Ivin.

Alongside performing, I’ve always been fascinated by creativity itself. That fascination eventually led me to complete a PhD investigating the creative muse and the nature of inspiration. I also trained in sound therapy, exploring music’s capacity to connect, heal and transform. I’ve worked with university students in Finland and Australia, bringing together musicians, filmmakers, dancers and visual artists to create collaborative performances in old theatres, underground car parks and other unconventional spaces.

In recent years, I’ve been experimenting as a performing solo, combining voice, electric and acoustic guitars, soundscapes, samples of orchestral strings and live vocal looping. Anna Fraser, a wonderful creative director and designer, animated my collages resulting in a projection that is used at my shows. I’ve been loving this new chapter of performing alone…something about the freedom and the intimate nature of  stripped back instrumentation, the vulnerability of the voice. My intention is to create a world that moves between darkness and beauty, where vulnerability and strength coexist.