Brett Dean

Brett Dean (born 23 October 1961 in Brisbane) is a contemporary Australian composer, violist and conductor.

Career

Brett Dean was raised and educated in Brisbane. He started learning violin at the age of eight, and later studied viola with Elizabeth Morgan and John Curro at the Queensland Conservatorium, where he graduated in 1982 with the Conservatorium Medal for the highest achieving Student of the Year.[1] In 1981 he was a prize winner in the ABC Symphony Australia Young Performers Awards. From 1985 to 1999, Dean was a violist in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. In 2000, he decided to pursue a career as a freelance artist and returned to Australia, where his many appointments have included curating classical music programs with the Sydney Festival (2005) and the Melbourne Festival (2009). As a composer and musician, he is a regularly invited guest to many professional concert stages around the world.

Brett Dean was Artistic Director of the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne until June 2010 when his brother, Paul Dean, took up the post.[2]

The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra celebrated Brett Dean's 50th birthday, and his contribution to music as composer, performer and teacher, in its 2011 Metropolis Festival.[3]

Honours

Dean's clarinet concerto Ariel's Music won an award from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in 1995. Winter Songs for tenor and wind quintet received the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Prize in 2001; Moments of Bliss for orchestra was named Best Composition at the Australian Classical Music Awards in 2005.[4] In 2002–2003, Dean was artist-in-residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and composer-in-residence at the Cheltenham Festival. In 2007–2008, he became artist-in-residence with the Radio-Sinfonieorchester Stuttgart des SWR.

He has been awarded an honorary doctorate from Griffith University in Brisbane. On 1 December 2008, he was awarded the 2009 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music Composition[5] for his violin concerto, The Lost Art of Letter Writing.[6] In September 2011, he was composer-in-residence at the Trondheim Chamber Music Festival.[7]

APRA Awards (Australia)

The APRA Awards are presented annually from 1982 by the Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA).[8]

Year Nominee/work Award Result
2005 Moments of Bliss (Brett Dean) Best Composition by an Australian Composer[9][10] Won
Eclipse (Brett Dean) – Artemis Quartet Best Performance of an Australian Composition[11] Nominated
Moments of Bliss (Brett Dean) – Melbourne Symphony Orchestra Best Performance of an Australian Composition[11] Nominated
2007 Viola Concerto (Brett Dean) Best Composition by an Australian Composer[12] Nominated
2008 The Lost Art of Letter Writing (Brett Dean) – Frank Peter Zimmermann (violinist), Munich Philharmonic, Jonathan Nott (conductor) Best Performance of an Australian Composition[13] Nominated
2012 Sextet (Brett Dean) – Australia Ensemble Work of the Year – Instrumental[14] Won
2013 Fire Music (Brett Dean) – Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Brett Dean (conductor) Work of the Year – Orchestral[15] Won
2014 The Last Days of Socrates (Brett Dean, Graeme Ellis [text]) – Peter Coleman-Wright (soloist), Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Chorus, Simone Young (conductor) Work of the Year – Orchestral[16] Nominated
Performance of the Year[17] Won
2015 Dramatis Personae – Music for Trumpet and Orchestra (Brett Dean) – Håkan Hardenberger (soloist), Brett Dean (conductor), Sydney Symphony Orchestra Orchestral Work of the Year[18] Won

Works

General

Dean began composing in 1988 initially focusing on experimental film and radio projects as well as improvisational performance. Since then, he has created numerous compositions, mainly orchestral or chamber music as well as concertos for several solo instruments. His most successful work is Carlo for strings, sample and tape, inspired by the music of Carlo Gesualdo. On 7 September 2008 his work Polysomnography for wind quintet and piano received its world premiere at the Lucerne Festival; on 2 October 2008 Simon Rattle conducted the first performance of the orchestral song cycle Songs of Joy in Philadelphia. His first opera, Bliss, based on the novel by Peter Carey, premiered at Opera Australia in 2010.

Dean's compositional style is known for creating dynamic soundscapes and treating single instrumental parts with complex rhythms. He shapes musical extremes, from harsh explosions to inaudibility. Modern playing techniques are as characteristic for his style as an elaborate percussion scoring, often enriched with objects from everyday life. Much of Dean's work draws from literary, political or visual stimuli, transporting a non-musical message. Environmental problems are the subject of Water Music and Pastoral Symphony, while Vexations and Devotions deal with the absurdities of a modern society obsessed with information.

In April 2013 "The Last Days of Socrates" was premiered by the Berlin Philharmonic.[19] The work for bass-baritone, choir, and orchestra was a co-commission of the Rundfunkchor Berlin, the Los Angeles Philharmonic and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

In August 2014 "Electric Prelude"[20] was premiered during the BBC Proms 2014 and was conducted by Sakari Oramo.

List of compositions

Stage

Orchestra

Concertos

Chamber music

Choral

Vocal

References

  1. ↑ Queensland Conservatorium: Brett Dean Archived 25 October 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  2. ↑ "ANAM Announces New Artistic Director" at Australian Stage, 26 March 2010
  3. ↑ 2011 Metropolis Festival Archived 10 April 2012 at the Wayback Machine.
  4. ↑ APRA Classical Music Awards – 2005 Winners
  5. 1 2 Grawemeyer Awards Archived 1 February 2014 at the Wayback Machine.
  6. 1 2 "Keynotes", Limelight, February 2009, p. 10
  7. ↑ "Brett Dean - Trondheim Chamber Music Festival". kamfest.no.
  8. ↑ "What we do | APRA AMCOS Australia". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS). Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  9. ↑ "2005 Classical Music Awards". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2005. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  10. ↑ "Best Composition by an Australian Composer". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2005. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  11. 1 2 "Best Performance of an Australian Compostion". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2005. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  12. ↑ "Best Composition by an Australian Composer". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2007. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  13. ↑ "Best Performance of an Australian Compostion". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2008. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  14. ↑ "Work of the Year – Instrumental". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australian Music Centre (AMC) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2012. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  15. ↑ "Work of the Year – Orchestral". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2013. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  16. ↑ "Work of the Year – Orchestral". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  17. ↑ "Performance of the Year". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2014. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  18. ↑ "Orchestral Work of the Year". Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) | Australasian Mechanical Copyright Owners Society (AMCOS) | Australian Music Centre (AMC). 2015. Retrieved 24 March 2016.
  19. ↑ Berliner Philharmoniker
  20. 1 2 "BBC - Proms 2014 Prom 28: Beethoven & Stravinsky - Events - BBC Proms". BBC Music Events.
  21. ↑ Interview of Brett Dean from Intermusica's April 2007 podcast, hosted by Meurig Bowen

External links

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