Carl Vine

Carl Vine (born 8 October 1954) is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.

Career

Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. A teenage fascination with the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period of Modernism, which he explored until the mid-1980's.^[1] He studied physics, then composition at the School of Music, University of Western Australia, before moving to Sydney in 1975, where he worked as a freelance pianist and composer with a variety of theatre and dance companies, and ensembles.

Vine first came to prominence in Australia as a composer of music for dance, with 25 dance scores to his credit. In 1979 he co-founded the contemporary music ensemble "Flederman", which presented many of Vine's own works. From 1980 to 1982 he lectured in electronic music composition at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Brisbane.

His catalogue includes seven symphonies, nine concertos, music for film, television and theatre, electronic music and numerous chamber works. Although primarily a composer of modern classical music, he has undertaken tasks as diverse as arranging the Australian National Anthem and writing music for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics closing ceremony 'Sydney 2000' presentation.

Since 2000, Vine has been the Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia, the world's largest entrepreneur of chamber music. In 2005, he was awarded the Don Banks Music Award, the highest accolade the Australia Council for the Arts can confer on a musician. Since 2006, he has also been the Artistic Director of the Huntington Estate Music Festival.

In 2012, his second piano concerto was premiered by Piers Lane and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,^[1] and the Australian Chamber Orchestra with soprano Danielle de Niese premiered his solo cantata, The Tree of Man, after the 1955 novel by Patrick White.^[2]

Vine is now based in Sydney, where he works as a freelance composer.

Works

Symphonic

• Symphony No. 1 MicroSymphony (1986)
• Symphony No. 2 (1988)
• Symphony No. 3 (1990)
• Symphony No. 4 (Symphony No. 4.2, 1992; revised 1998)
• Symphony No. 5 Percussion Symphony (1995)
• Symphony No. 6 Choral Symphony (1996)
• Symphony No. 7 Scenes from Daily Life (2008)
• Percussion Concerto (1987)
• Concerto Grosso (violin, flute, oboe, horn and strings) (1989)
• Gaijin (koto, strings, pre-recorded electronics) (1994)
• Oboe Concerto (1996)
• Piano Concerto No. 1 (1997; commissioned by Sydney Symphony Orchestra)
• Pipe Dreams (concerto for flute and strings) (2003)
• Cello Concerto (2004)
• Violin Concerto (2011)
• Piano Concerto No. 2 (2012)
• The Tree of Man (2012) (cantata for soprano and string orchestra)

Chamber music

• String Quartet No. 1 (KnipsSuite) (1979)
• String Quartet No. 2 (1984)
• String Quartet No. 3 (1994)
• String Quartet No. 4 (2004)
• String Quartet No. 5 (2007)
• String Quintet (2009)
• Miniature I Peace (solo viola) (1973)
• Miniature II (viola duet) (1974)
• Miniature III (flute, trombone, piano, percussion) (1983)
• Miniature IV (flute, clarinet, cello, violin, viola, cello, piano) (1988)
• Sonata for flute and piano (1992)
• Inner World (solo cello with pre-recorded electronics) (1994)
• Fantasia for piano quintet (2013)^[3]

Piano

• Piano Sonata No. 1 (1990)
• Piano Sonata No. 2 (1997)
• Piano Sonata No. 3 (2007)
• Five Bagatelles (solo piano) (1994)
• Rash (piano with CD) (1997)
• Red Blues (solo piano) (1999)
• The Anne Landa Preludes (solo piano) (2006)
• Sonata for Piano Four Hands (2009)
• Toccatissimo (2011)

Dance

• 961 Ways to Nirvana (1977)
• Incident at Bull Creek (1977)
• Poppy (1978)
• Everymans Troth (1978)
• Scene Shift (1979)
• Kisses Remembered (1979)
• Knips Suite (1979)
• Missing Film (1980)
• Return (1980)
• Donna Maria Blues (1981)
• Colonial Sketches (1981)
• Daisy Bates (1982)
• Hate (1982)
• A Christmas Carol (1983)
• Prologue and Canzona (1986)
• Legend (1988)
• On The Edge (1989)
• Piano Sonata (1990)
• The Tempest (1991)
• Beauty and The Beast (1993)
• Mythologia (2000)

Theatre

• The Dreamers (play – 1975)
• New Sky (mime by Judith Anderson – 1981)
• Signal Driver (play by Patrick White – 1982)
• Shepherd On The Rocks (play by Patrick White – 1987)
• The Ham Funeral (play by Patrick White – 1989)
• Night on Bald Mountain (play by Patrick White – 1996)
• A Hard God (play by Peter Kenna – 1997)
• The Master Builder (play by Ibsen – 1991)

Film and television

• The Dunstan Documentaries (TV) (1982)
• You Can't Push the River (1993)
• Bedevil (1993)
• The Battlers (TV) (1994)
• Urn (short film) (1995)
• What Comes After Why? (short film) (1995)
• White Fella's Dreaming (documentary) (1997)
• Marriage Acts (TV) (2000)
• The Potato Factory (TV) (2000)

Discography (partial)

• Carl Vine: The Complete Symphonies, performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
• Carl Vine – Chamber Music Volume 1
• Carl Vine – Chamber Music Volume 2
• Carl Vine: The Piano Music

Awards and prizes

References

1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Goldsworthy, Anna (November 2011). "Right Composition". The Monthly (Collingwood, Victoria) (73): 60–61. ISSN 1832-3421. 
2. ↑ The Tree of man, Carl Vine, January 2013
3. ↑ Fantasia, Carl Vine, January 2013

External links

• Official Carl Vine website