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Brett Dean, composer / conductor / violist

Biography

The Australian composer and viola player Brett Dean studied in Brisbane with Elizabeth Morgan and John Curro, graduating from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in 1982. Dean travelled to Germany in 1984 with the financial assistance of the Australia Council to further his studies with Wolfram Christ, and in 1985 became a permanent member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra, a post he held for 15 years. In the Hindemith centenary year he was soloist in his Viola d´Amore Concerto under Claudio Abbado, and recorded this work and the Viola Concerto of Benjamin Frankel for CPO. His particular interest in contemporary music led to well over 50 premieres of new solo and chamber music pieces by some of the leading composers of our time, including Hans Werner Henze, György Kurtág, Colin Matthews, Wolfgang Rihm and Isang Yun. In February 2000 Dean left Berlin and returned to Australia to concentrate on his growing compositional activities.

Brett Dean began composing in 1988, initially working on film and radio projects. His career writing concert works grew rapidly during the 1990s and he is now one of the most internationally performed composers of his generation. Leading interpreters include conductors Simon Rattle, Markus Stenz and Daniel Harding, and his works have been performed by the major Australian orchestras, BBC Symphony Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic, Los Angeles Philharmonic, Ensemble Modern, London Sinfonietta and Ensemble InterContemporain. He has also created music for dance, including One of a Kind, choreographed by Jiri Kylian and staged internationally more than 40 times by the Nederlands Dans Theater, and has created sound installations including hundreds and thousands commissioned for the millennium celebrations at the Berlin Kulturforum.

Dean’s most widely-known work is Carlo for strings, sampler and tape, inspired by the music of Carlo Gesualdo, which has received over 50 performances worldwide. Other recent scores include Beggars and Angels (1999) commissioned by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and toured to Switzerland and Germany, Pastoral Symphony (2001) written for Ensemble Modern, and Dispersal (2001) co-commissioned by the Adelaide Symphony and BBC Symphony Orchestras. Future projects include Shadow Music for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, a new work for the Auryn String Quartet, and an operatic adaptation of Peter Carey’s Bliss for Opera Australia.

Brett Dean is represented by Intermusica Artists’ Management Ltd, London. The works of Brett Dean are published by Boosey & Hawkes.

November 2002/366 words


Not to be altered or shortened without permission of Intermusica. Please destroy all previous biographical material.