A Voice From The Fire: Brenton Broadstock (1952 -)

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Brenton Broadstock was born in Melbourne, Australia. He studied History, Politics and Music at Monash University, and later composition and theory with Donald Freund at the University of Memphis in the USA and with Peter Sculthorpe at the University of Sydney. The University of Melbourne awarded him the Doctor of Music degree in 1987. From 1982-2006 he was employed in the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne where he was Professor of Music and Head of Composition.

In 1991 he signed a publishing contract with G. Schirmer, Australia (Music Sales). He has won numerous prizes for composition including First Prize in the 1981 Townsville Pacific Festival's National Composition Competition for his orchestral work Festive Overture; the Albert Maggs Award; two APRA Music Awards for his orchestral works The Mountain and Toward The Shining Light; First Prize in the Hambacher Preis International Composers' Competition, West Germany for his Tuba Concerto; and in 1994 he received the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Award, Australia's richest composition prize, for Bright Tracks for mezzo soprano and string trio. His orchestral work Stars In A Dark Night (Symphony #2) received four 'Sounds Australian' National Music Critics' Awards including 'Best Australian Orchestral Work in 1989' and was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's entry to the prestigious Paris Rostrum of Composers in 1990. In 2001 he received the Australian Music Centre's Victorian Award for Best Composition – Dark Side (Symphony #5), and in 2002 his Federation Flourish was nominated for an APRA/AMC "Orchestral Work of the Year".

His music has been performed at many international festivals including The Stroud Festival, England; the 11th Berlin Biennale; the Festtage fur Musik in East Berlin; Darmstadt Summer School, West Germany; the Music Today Festival, Tokyo; the Hong Kong and Oslo World Music Days; Asian Music Festivals in Japan and Korea; Musica Nova Festival in Munich; the BBC Proms; the European Brass Band Championships in Birmingham; and in Australia at the Adelaide Festival, Musica Nova Festival, Brisbane; Summer Music, Moomba and Spoleto Festivals in Melbourne and the Townsville Pacific Festival. There have also been performances in England, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Spain and China.

He has had performances by all of the major orchestras in Australia: the Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, the Australian Youth Orchestra and Camerata Australia, and by the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra in Japan, the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Bavarian Radio Orchestra in Munich, the Pacific Ocean Orchestra and the Krasnoyarsk Orchestra in Russia, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Moldova, the Ulster Orchestra, and the Tampere Philharmonic Orchestra in Finland. In July 1994 The Australian Youth Orchestra conducted by Yakov Kreisberg performed Festive Overture on their world tour, including the BBC Proms (#10) at the Royal Albert Hall and the Concertgebouw in Amsterdam.

Brenton has also written several major brass band works; he was commissioned to write Winds of Change, which was premiered at the 2000 European Brass Band Championships in Birmingham by the Yorkshire Building Society Brass Band, conducted by David King, and broadcast, on BBC Radio (see Reviews). This work was the A Grade Test Piece at the 2002 Australian Brass Band Championships held in Geelong. Brenton's 30 minute work Gates of Day was premiered as the final work in the 2001 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts. Scored for 100 brass players (4 brass bands), military band (conducted by Graham Lloyd) and 400 bellringers playing 2001 bells, it was played at the outdoor Sidney Myer Music Bowl to an audience of several thousand.

In 2001 he was one of seven composers commissioned to compose a work, Jagged Tears, for the Field of Bells - a computer controlled interactive installation (a public music instrument) - at Birrarung Marr in Melbourne. Jagged Tears can be heard at 9am 12.30pm and 5pm every day.
For more information: http://www.abc.net.au/arts/music/stories/s510908.htm
and www.ausbell.com/Federation%20Bells/FEDBELLS.html

In 1988-89 he was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's Inaugural Composer In Residence. In 1997 he received the Jean Bogan Prize for his solo piano work Dying of the Light and in 1998 he received the Michelle Morrow Memorial Award for Composition and an Explorations Opera Project grant. In 1998 he spent three months in Italy on fellowships awarded by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and a Bellagio Study Center Award from the Rockefeller Foundation. In November 2005 he returned to Italy as a fellow at the Ligurian Study Center in Bogliasco, Italy.

In 1999 he received the prestigious Don Banks Award from the Australia Council, for his contribution to Australian Music, which enabled him to compose for most of that year, including visits to the USA (Visiting Professor of Composition at Indiana University), England and Russia. His five symphonies were recorded by the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra (Russia) conducted by Andrew Wheeler and released on the Etcetera label in 2000 receiving excellent reviews in England and Australia (see Reviews). The CD was named as one of 'The Recordings of the Year 2007' by Music Web International editor Rob Barnett (see Reviews).

Brenton's solo piano work Torre di Forza was one of two Australian 'test' pieces commissioned for the 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition, and in 2005 ABC Classics released a CD of orchestral works performed by the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra conducted by Ola Rudner (see Reviews). His chamber opera based on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was performed in Bonn, Germany in April 2006.

Brenton has been a member of many boards, committees and competition panels, including The Australia Council, Arts Victoria, the Australian Music Centre, Symphony Australia's Reading Panel, the Paul Lowin Prize, The Maggs Prize, APRA Classical Music Advisory Committee, The Victorian College of the Arts Committee, Australian National Academy of Music, Australian Composers' Orchestral Forum, National Music Camp, Chamber Made Opera et al, and adjudicator at several national music competitions and eisteddfods. In 1995 the Australian Music Centre published his book Sound Ideas (with Linda Kouvaras) that documented 95 Australian composers (see Articles - Rites of Passage).

Brenton has written 6 symphonies, concertos for tuba, piano, euphonium and saxophone, several orchestral works, a chamber opera, 4 string quartets and much chamber, choral and solo music. His compositions are available on 43 commercial CDs worldwide (see discography). In 2007 he was one of 4 musicians short-listed for the Melbourne Prize and he was appointed as a Vice Chancellor's Fellow at the University of Melbourne.

From 2008 he has been a freelance composer and in 2009 was Composer in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Recent works include a piece for 12 saxophones, Twelve, a concerto, Made In Heaven, for trumpeter James Morrison and a chamber ensemble work, Hall of Mirrors, for trombonist Brett Kelly. His sixth symphony, Tyranny of Distance, for orchestra (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra conducted by Warwick Stengards), soprano soloist (Merlyn Quaife), didgeridoo (Jaida Gulpilil), MSO Chorus/Jonathan Grieves-Smith and live visuals created and performed by Tim Gruchy, was premiered at the 2009 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.

In 2011 he received a two year Composer Fellowship from the Australia Council for the Arts that has allowed him to complete a full length version of his opera Fahrenheit 451. He also completed a brass band work, Metal on Metal for the National Australia Brass, directed by Dr David King. In 2011 Brenton was a Composer In Residence with the National Australia Brass.

Brenton is currently working on a saxophone concerto for Dr Michael Duke and a string orchestra work, Never Truly Lost, commissioned by Rob Pallin for performance by the Australia Chamber Orchestra in 2013.

[Article taken from composer's website]

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I've become utterly fascinated by this composer's extremely personal and emotional idiom. I've been listening to his symphonies for the past few days. It seems like I've got them on loop! Anyway, I know there's not a composer thread for Broadstock, so I figured I would start one. Anybody else familiar with this man's music?

[snyprrr]

Do ALL your relatives write music?

[Mirror Image]

Do ALL your relatives write music?

I'm not related to Mr. Broadstock, snyprrr. There's not a Broadstock in my family history.

[snyprrr]

There's not a Broadstock in my family history.

mm, I'm sorry for your wife? ...or ... aye ,... nevermind ...

[Mirror Image]

mm, I'm sorry for your wife? ...or ... aye ,... nevermind ...

All jokes aside, do you have anything to add to this thread? Have you heard Broadstock's music?

[Dundonnell]

I have heard the Symphony No.2 "Stars in a Dark Sky".....and I like it

Modern but "accessible" (to use the word I was once given a severe scolding for using ). Evocative music, redolent of the wide-open spaces of the Australian Outback at night
(I think _.

Anyway....

BRENTON BROADSTOCK: A CATALOGUE OF THE ORCHESTRAL MUSIC

1981:      Festive Overture: 10 minutes   +  (ABC Classics cd)
1982:      Festival March "Valiant" for brass band: 3 minutes
1984:      "The Mountain" for orchestra: 9 minutes    +  (ABC Classics cd)
1985:      Tuba Concerto: 18 minutes
                "Expedition" for string orchestra: 15 minutes
1986:      "Battlements" for orchestra: 10 minutes
1987:      Piano Concerto: 17 minutes
1988:      Symphony No.1 "Toward the Shining Light": 21 minutes  +  (Etcetera cd)
1989:      Symphony No.2 "Stars in a Dark Sky": 24 minutes   *   +  (Etcetera cd)
                Concert Etude "Born to Battle" for brass band: 5 minutes
1991:      Symphony No.3 "Voices from the Fire": 23 minutes   +  (Etcetera cd)
1993:      "In a Brilliant Blaze" for small orchestra: 8 minutes
1995:      Symphony No.4 "Born From Good Angel's Tears": 18 minutes   +  (ABC Classics and Etcetera cds)
                Concertino "Song of the Pilgrim" for Trumpet and brass band: 9 minutes
1996:      "Dancing on a Volcano" for orchestra: 15 minutes
                "Sandakan Suite" for concert band: 10 minutes
1998:      Overture "Catch the Joy": 7 minutes
                "The Cross on the Hill" for Trombone and brass band: 8 minutes
1999:      Symphony No.5 "Dark Side": 35 minutes     +  (Etcetera cd)
2001:      Overture "Federation Flourish": 8 minutes
                 "Gates of Day"(Federation Symphony) for 4 brass bands, military band and bells: 25 minutes
2002:      "Dance in the Sunlight" for small orchestra: 5 minutes
                "Timeless" for string orchestra: 10 minutes   +  (ABC Classics cd)
2003:      "Federation Square(Rooms of Wonder)" for string orchestra: 11 minutes   +  (ABC Classics cd)
2005:      "Yarra Yarra" for string orchestra: 10 minutes
2007:      "Unseen Shore" for string orchestra: 8 minutes
2009:      Symphony No.6 "Tyranny of Distance": 38 minutes
                "Made in Heaven" for Trumpet or Flugel Horn and Orchestra: 25 minutes
2009-10:Concertino "Under Capricorn" for Euphonium and Concert Band: 15 minutes
2010:      "Emu, Wombat and Kangeroo" for string orchestra: 8 minutes
                Concertino for Tuba and Concert Band: 13 minutes

[Mirror Image]

I have heard the Symphony No.2 "Stars in a Dark Sky".....and I like it

Modern but "accessible" (to use the word I was once given a severe scolding for using ). Evocative music, redolent of the wide-open spaces of the Australian Outback at night
(I think _.

I don't hear Australia in his music much at all, Colin. What I do hear is a deeply personal musical voice crying out amongst all the horrible things that are happening in this world. Symphony No. 2: Stars in a Night Sky is a good work, but what until you hear Symphony No. 3: Voices From The Fire. You're in for quite a rude awakening. Such a fiery passion. Symphony No. 4: Born from Good Angel's Tears could be considered his "pastoral" symphony, which a last movement that just crescendos into something incredibly beautiful. I ordered an ABC Classics recording of some of his other orchestral works (conducted by Ola Rudner) that I look forward to hearing.

[Mirror Image]

I can't say enough great things about this set:



Despite some shaky instrumental playing, this, IMHO, is a major achievement in Australian music.

[snyprrr]

2010:      "Emu, Wombat and Kangeroo" for string orchestra: 8 minutes

[snyprrr]

All jokes aside, do you have anything to add to this thread? Have you heard Broadstock's music?

No, but I just ordered a cd by Howard Boatwright! No kiddin'

[calyptorhynchus]

"Emu, Wombat and Kangaroo" for string orchestra: 8 minutes"

This is a work for young string players.

[calyptorhynchus]

Inspired by this thread I went and purchased the Symphonies 1-5 (Broadstock has completed a sixth symphony subsequently).

I was quite disappointed by these works, I felt they were rather thin on invention and depended too much on their programmes to elicit sympathy from the listener. For me there wasn't enough counterpoint or development to think of the first four symphonies as symphonies at all.

However I found the fifth a bit better, I think Broadstock had fallen under the good influences of Sibelius and Pettersson, and the music is beginning to move and develop a bit.

I look out for more of his recent music.

[Mirror Image]

Inspired by this thread I went and purchased the Symphonies 1-5 (Broadstock has completed a sixth symphony subsequently).

I was quite disappointed by these works, I felt they were rather thin on invention and depended too much on their programmes to elicit sympathy from the listener. For me there wasn't enough counterpoint or development to think of the first four symphonies as symphonies at all.

However I found the fifth a bit better, I think Broadstock had fallen under the good influences of Sibelius and Pettersson, and the music is beginning to move and develop a bit.

I look out for more of his recent music.

I highly disagree. Surprise, surprise! I don't feel that they are 'thin on invention' but rather convey their emotion quite clearly. I didn't even read these symphonies' programs until after I heard them all. Whether they have a program or not, I believe they stand on their own, because of the directness of the sound-world the music inhabits. They combine the emotionalism of Mahler with more compound structures. His symphonies aren't long at all and this is another thing that makes them easily accessible. I think Broadstock did a brilliant job of getting his thoughts across and, more importantly, I connected with them. Ultimately, that's all I care about. You have every right to feel the way you do and I respect your judgement. I, however, thought they were beautiful and haunting. The best symphonic cycle I've heard from an Australian composer. Not that there are many of them.

[foxandpeng]

How good to discover a thread dedicated to Brenton Broadstock, however dusty and neglected! Sadly neither of the enthusiastic contributors are here any longer - I often read Dundonnell's incisive comments on various threads, and miss MI for his love of C20th-C21st music!

I enjoy Broadstock's symphonies very much indeed, and as I have listened again through the five symphonies on the attached disc this morning as a break from my Pettersson ponderings, I wondered whether there was anyone else here who enjoys them? Warm, open music that evokes beauty and accessibility in #1 (certainly in part) and #4 for example, and other passages that seem extremely turbulent and conflicted in #2 and #3, and in the excellent conclusion to #1.

He definitely takes his place for me alongside compatriots of his that I also very much appreciate - Brett Dean, Carl Vine, Ross Edwards, and Peter Sculthorpe (and Malcolm Williamson and Arthur Benjamin, who I don't know anywhere near as well as I should) as a significant Australian composer.

[Roasted Swan]

How good to discover a thread dedicated to Brenton Broadstock, however dusty and neglected! Sadly neither of the enthusiastic contributors are here any longer - I often read Dundonnell's incisive comments on various threads, and miss MI for his love of C20th-C21st music!

I enjoy Broadstock's symphonies very much indeed, and as I have listened again through the five symphonies on the attached disc this morning as a break from my Pettersson ponderings, I wondered whether there was anyone else here who enjoys them? Warm, open music that evokes beauty and accessibility in #1 (certainly in part) and #4 for example, and other passages that seem extremely turbulent and conflicted in #2 and #3, and in the excellent conclusion to #1.

He definitely takes his place for me alongside compatriots of his that I also very much appreciate - Brett Dean, Carl Vine, Ross Edwards, and Peter Sculthorpe (and Malcolm Williamson and Arthur Benjamin, who I don't know anywhere near as well as I should) as a significant Australian composer.

have that set of the symphonies - bought as/when in no small part to MI's passionate espousal.  I'm not sure I've ever made it through all the works as at the time they simply did not float my boat ... but I WILL try again in the light of what you have written so thankyou for the nudge!

On the subject of Australian composers; do seek out Matthew Hindson.  I really like his music which sits on the cusp of contemporary and contemporary popular culture music.  He has written a lot of really interesting (to my ear anyway) stuff.  Serious but accessible. 

[vandermolen]

I have the set but must listen again. I don't think that they made a great impression on me (of that list of composers my favourites are Williamson, Edwards and Benjamin) but I will search out that set as I may appreciate them more now.

[foxandpeng]

have that set of the symphonies - bought as/when in no small part to MI's passionate espousal.  I'm not sure I've ever made it through all the works as at the time they simply did not float my boat ... but I WILL try again in the light of what you have written so thankyou for the nudge!

On the subject of Australian composers; do seek out Matthew Hindson.  I really like his music which sits on the cusp of contemporary and contemporary popular culture music.  He has written a lot of really interesting (to my ear anyway) stuff.  Serious but accessible.

I must admit to being very fond of the Broadstock symphonies. MI's passion and Dundonnell's approval give me some hope that I am not alone . Hopefully the nudge might be enough to put him back on your listening radar . Thank you for the Hindson recommendation - not known to me, but several pieces exist on Spotify, including his Symphony 1, so that sounds really good to get my teeth into!

I have the set but must listen again. I don't think that they made a great impression on me (of that list of composers my favourites are Williamson, Edwards and Benjamin) but I will search out that set as I may appreciate them more now.

Perhaps time and distance will make the heart grow fonder? I do hope so, as the symphonies all grew on me the more I listened. I appreciate your appreciations! As I say, I need to spend more time with Williamson and Benjamin.

Do let me know, chaps!

[Roasted Swan]

Yesterday I listened to the 2nd disc in this set so symphonies 4&5.  I found that I had almost the identical reaction as the first time - atmospheric music, competently written for orchestra and well played here but too reliant on atmosphere rather than having much discernible structure or form.  If you'd told me this was a musical representation of a dramatic bit in "Lord of the RIngs" I might well have thought yup that's evocative.  Given Broadstock's background as a professor of music and composition I am sure there must be more sinew and backbone and structure in this music than I hear.  Even when its loud it just seems to me to be almost directionless.  I'm not sure the actual recording helps - very resonant acoustic that adds to the washy impact of the climaxes but renders a lot of the detail as hazy backgrounds........

[Symphonic Addict]

Here foxandpeng's taste and mine do concur, these symphonies were a cool revelation when I heard them some years ago. Perhaps I'm going to be rather subjective at saying that some of them have bits that sound like New Age, a sort of hopeful and transcendental element that appeals to me very much.

Nos. 2-4 are my favorites.