Brenton Broadstock

Brenton Broadstock

Brenton Broadstock (1952) is an Australian composer and teacher.

Broadstock was born in Melbourne, Australia. He studied History, Politics and Music at Monash University, and later composition and theory with Donald Freund at Memphis State University in the USA and with Peter Sculthorpe at the University of Sydney. He was awarded the Doctor of Music degree by the University of Melbourne in 1987.

Broadstock has won numerous prizes for composition, including first prize in the 1981 Townsville Pacific Festival's National Composition Competition (for the Festive Overture for orchestra); the Albert Maggs Award; two APRA Music Awards (for the orchestral works The Mountain and Toward The Shining Light); and first prize in the Hambacher Preis International Composers' Competition, West Germany (for the Tuba Concerto). In 1994 he received the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Award, Australia's richest composition prize, for Bright Tracks. His orchestral work Stars In A Dark Night (Symphony No.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 Broadstock received the Australian Music Centre’s Award for Best Composition (Victoria) for Dark Side (Symphony No.5), and in 2002 his Federation Flourish was nominated for an APRA/AMC 'Orchestral Work of the Year'.

His works have been performed by all of the major orchestras in Australia – the Melbourne, Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, Tasmanian and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, and the Australian Youth Orchestra – as well as the BBC Symphony Orchestra, the Ulster Orchestra, and other orchestras throughout Europe and Asia.

Also amongst Broadstock’s output are several major works for brass band. Winds of Change was premiered at the 2000 European Brass Band Championships in Birmingham by the Yorkshire Building Society Brass Band and broadcast on BBC Radio. This work was the A-Grade test piece at the Australian Brass Band Championships held in Geelong in 2002. The 30-minute Gates of Day was premiered as the final work in the 2001 Melbourne Festival. Scored for 100 brass players (4 brass bands), military band and 400 bellringers playing 2001 bells it was played at the outdoor Sidney Myer Music Bowl to an appreciative audience of nearly 10,000.

In 1988-89 he was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's inaugural Composer-in-Residence, and in 1991 he signed a publishing contract with G. Schirmer (Australia), the first Australian composer to do so. 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. Also in 1998 he spent three months in Italy on fellowships awarded by the Civitella Ranieri and Rockefeller Foundations.

In 1999 Broadstock received the prestigious Don Banks Award from the Australia Council for his contribution to Australian Music, which enabled him to compose for the year, and to visit the USA (Indiana University), England and Russia.

His music has been performed at many international festivals, and some 36 of his works have been recorded and are now available on 23 commercial CDs worldwide. A recording of his five symphonies, performed by the Krasnoyarsk Symphony Orchestra under Andrew Wheeler, was released on the Etcetera label in 2001 to excellent reviews in England and Australia.

Since 1982 he has been employed in the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne, where he is currently Professor and Coordinator of Composition.

Recent News

Related Links

Brenton Broadstock's personal site at the University of Melbourne

Published Editions
Dying of the Light	Piano solo	Piano
In the Silence of Night	Piano solo	Piano