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Ross Edwards – Photo by Bridget Elliot
One of Australia’s best known composers, Ross Edwards has created a unique sound world which seeks to reconnect music with elemental forces and restore such qualities as spontaneity and the impulse to dance. Intensely aware of his vocation since childhood, he has largely followed his own path, allowing the music to speak for itself. His music, universal in that it is concerned with age-old mysteries surrounding humanity, is at the same time deeply connected to its roots in Australia, whose cultural diversity it celebrates, and from whose natural environment it draws inspiration, especially birdsong and the mysterious patterns and drones of insects. As a composer living and working on the Pacific Rim, he is conscious of the exciting potential of this vast region. Based in Sydney, he is married with two adult children.
A graduate of the Universities of Adelaide and Sydney, Ross Edwards studied with Peter Sculthorpe and Richard Meale, and in Adelaide and London with Peter Maxwell Davies. His compositions, which are performed worldwide, include five symphonies, concertos, choral, chamber and vocal music, children’s music, film scores, a chamber opera and music for dance. Works designed for the concert hall sometimes require special lighting, movement, costume and visual accompaniment – notable examples are his Symphony No. 4 ‘Star Chant’, premiered by the Adelaide Symphony at the 2002 Adelaide Festival; Bird Spirit Dreaming: Concerto for Oboe and Orchestra, which Diana Doherty premiered with the Sydney Symphony and Lorin Maazel, subsequently performing it with many other orchestras including the New York Philharmonic; and The Heart of Night, for shakuhachi and orchestra, composed especially for shakuhachi Grand Master Riley Lee and the Melbourne Symphony. Recent commissions include Elegies and Epiphanies for the West Australian Symphony; Sacred Kingfisher Psalms for The Song Company, Ars Nova Copenhagen and the Edinburgh Festival; and a Piano Sonata for Bernadette Harvey and the Sydney Conservatorium.
Ross Edwards’ music is available through the Australian Music Centre.
