Gerard Brophy
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After an increasingly musical adolescence, Gerard Brophy began his studies in the classical guitar at the age of twenty-two. In the late seventies he worked closely with Brazilian guitarist Turibio Santos and the Argentine composer Mauricio Kagel before studying composition at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music.
He has been commissioned and performed by some of the world’s leading ensembles, including the Melbourne, Queensland, Tasmanian, West Australian, Sydney and New Zealand Symphony Orchestras; the Malaysian Philharmonic Orchestra; the Residentie Orkest; the Sendai Philharmonic Orchestra and the BBC Philharmonic and the BBC Symphony Orchestras, to name a few.
Over recent years he has developed a keen interest in collaborating with artists from other disciplines and he is particularly active in the areas of ballet, dance and electronica. He has also been involved in exciting collaborations with musicians from other cultures among them the great Senegalese master drummers, the N’Diaye Rose family, and the timbila virtuoso Venancio Mbande from Mozambique.
Recent performances include the sell-out season of his ballet Yo Yai Pakebi, Man Mai Yapobi choreographed by Regina van Berkel and performed by the Residentie Orkest and the Nederlands Dans Theater; the premiere seasons of Semele and Halcyon as part of the Australian Ballet’s highly successful INTERPLAY and EDGE OF NIGHT programmes, and the tour of Gethsemane, his contemporary passion play by the Song Company.
Among his recent pieces are Sentinel a major work for large orchestra, a commission from the Four Winds Festival for the Omega Ensemble and a piece for Riley Lee and the Enigma String Quartet .