Summary
Australian Brett Dean has plenty of global music-making experience to go along with his early and solid at-home training. After studying viola and composition in Australia, he moved to Germany, where he won a gig as a substitute player with the Berlin Philharmonic at age 22. He joined the orchestra permanently in 1984, when he was 23, and played often under star conductor Herbert von Karajan.
Dean's compositional gifts soon flowered in Europe, and his work quickly gained ground, including a ballet score choreographed by Jir Kylin and a clarinet concerto, Ariel's Music. He frequently conducted his own pieces, as well as playing in them. Since he returned to Australia in 2000, his career has continued to expand. He often finds inspiration in paintings by his wife, artist Heather Betts.See the full content of this document
Extract
Interrogating the Orchestra
Dean's first opera, Bliss, is set for production in Melbourne next year; it is based on Australian writer Peter Carey's 1981 novel of the same name. He won the $200,000 Grawemeyer Award last December for his 2006 violin concerto, The Lost Art of Letter Writing. The Santa Fe...
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