Brett Leighton

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Brett Leighton is a musician with some notability in Europe. His expertise is the organ and harpsichord.

[edit] Professional

Leighton is Professor of Organ and Harpsichord at the Anton Bruckner Privatuniversität in Linz, Austria. He is featured on at least four CD releases including Orgel Landschaft Ober-Österreich II (1998) ^[1], Brett Leighton an der West-Orgel in Taufkirchen/Pram (1998) ^[2] Music for Organ and Zink (2005)^[3] and The World's Oldest Organ ^[4] and he is a judge for the 2007 Paul Hofhaimer Prize of Austria. ^[5] He was 1977 Student of the Year at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music (Sydney, Australia) - where his teacher was David Rumsey - Brett Leighton has lived in Europe for over 20 years. Further organ studies took him to Anton Heiler and Michael Radulescu in Vienna (Wiener Musikhochschule, 1981), and harpsichord with Jean-Claude Zehnder in Basel and Ton Koopman in Amsterdam. His many prizes and awards include the prestigious Paul Hofhaimer Prize of the City of Innsbruck in 1979. Since then, Brett Leighton has been an active recitalist in Europe, Japan, Australia, Mexico and the USA. His repertoire spans almost all styles with an emphasis on historically researched performance practice. In addition, Leighton has played numerous first performances of contemporary organ works. He has broadcast and recorded CDs as soloist and in ensemble in Europe and Australia. In addition to teaching, Leighton is a regular performer at many European festivals and summer courses and has acted as consultant for the construction of new organs, especially in Austria.