Sydney Symphony Welcomes Conductor, Composer and Violist Brett Dean as Resident Artist

The Sydney Symphony Orchestra is today proud to announce celebrated Australian conductor, composer and violist Brett Dean as Artist in Residence for three years from 2016, in a position supported by Geoff Ainsworth AM and Johanna Featherstone.

Dean will work closely with SSO Chief Conductor and Artistic Director David Robertson and the musicians throughout the residency, acting as an incredible resource on international and Australian contemporary music during an exciting period of expansion of the orchestra's offerings.

Together with Robertson, Dean has curated the orchestra's new contemporary music series, SSO at Carriageworks, which will see works by Dean performed alongside new commissions by Australian composers and works by international composers Gérard Grisey, Frederic Rzewski and Steve Reich in two concerts -- one also featuring the Artist in Residence as conductor.

Robertson, who counts Dean as a long-time friend, said the appointment was a coup for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. "I'm so excited to have Brett Dean as the first ever Artist in Residence of the SSO," Robertson says. "As a musician Brett Dean is aware of all of the currents that are going on in the world right now so he will bring an Australian as well as an international flavour to the Sydney Symphony Orchestra diet."

Dean said he was looking forward to building on his long history with the SSO and working intimately with Robertson and the musicians: "I have grown up with many of these musicians, in many cases having accompanied them on their paths from student days to their current positions as highly qualified leaders in their field, so there is a strong sense of extended musical family for me in working with the SSO."

"Sydney audiences will have realised by now that David Robertson is not only one of the finest conductors of our time but also one of the great musical communicators with an uncanny knack for finding unexpected points of interconnection; for this reason, working closely with him in cura ng concerts and crea ng programmes is immensely s mula ng, enlightening and a lot of fun!"

Brett Dean's music has appeared regularly in SSO main-stage programming since 2000, when Carlo, one of the works that first brought him international attention, was programmed in a concert conducted by Marin Alsop. Ariel's Music for clarinet and orchestra -- another important early work -- was added to the orchestra's repertoire in 2001. Since then the SSO has performed a further ten of Dean's works, including the Grawemeyer Award-winning Lost Art of Letter Writing, and two more have been programmed in the 2016 season (Pastoral Symphony and 11 Oblique Strategies).

The SSO has commissioned two works from Brett Dean. The Viola Concerto was commissioned in collaboration with the BBC Symphony Orchestra and the Los Angeles Philharmonic, and the SSO gave the Australian premiere, with the composer as soloist, in 2006. And the symphonic version of Engelsflu?gel was composed for David Robertson and the SSO and premiered in 2014. Most recently, in 2014, the orchestra gave the Australian premiere of Dean's trumpet concerto, Dramatis Personæ, with the composer conducting.

As a performer, Brett Dean has previously appeared with the orchestra as soloist in his Viola Concerto, and he has conducted the SSO in the recording of Twelve Angry Men and the Australian premiere performances of Dramatis Personæ. In 2016 he will conduct the SSO in two concerts: Oblique Strategies in the new Carriageworks series, and Dedications, a program of Lutos?awski and Dvor?a?k.

The Sydney Symphony is grateful for the generous support of Geoff Ainsworth AM and Johanna Featherstone in sponsoring the Artist in Residence program.

ABOUT BRETT DEAN:

Brett Dean studied in Brisbane before moving to Germany in 1984 where he was a permanent member of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for fourteen years. He began composing in 1988, initially concentrating on experimental film and radio projects and as an improvising performer. Dean's reputation as a composer continued to develop, and it was through works such as his clarinet concerto Ariel ?s Music (1995), which won an award from the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers, and Carlo (1997) for strings, sampler and tape, inspired by the music of Carlo Gesualdo, that he gained international recognition. In 2000 Dean returned to his native Australia to concentrate on his composition, and he now shares his time between homes in Melbourne and Berlin.

Now one of the most internationally performed composers of his generation, much of Dean's work draws from literary, political, environmental or visual stimuli, including a number of compositions inspired by paintings by his wife Heather Betts. His music is championed by many of the leading conductors and orchestras worldwide, including Sir Simon Rattle, Andris Nelsons, Marin Alsop, David Robertson and Simone Young.

Dean enjoys a busy performing career as violist and conductor, and since 2005 has been performing his own Viola Concerto with many of the world's leading orchestras. Dean is a committed and natural chamber musician, frequently collaborating with other ensembles and orchestral musicians to perform both his own chamber works and standard repertoire.

Pictured: The SSO's Artist in Residence Brett Dean

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