Graeme Koehne

Graeme Koehne (born 3 August 1956) is an Australian composer and music educator. He is best known for his orchestral and ballet scores, which are characterised by direct communicative style and embrace of triadic tonality. His orchestral trilogy "Unchained Melody", "Powerhouse", and "Elevator Music" makes allusions to Hollywood film score traditions, cartoon music, popular Latin music and other dance forms. He cites influences from "much-maligned and misunderstood" work by composers Les Baxter, Nelson Riddle, Henry Mancini and John Barry.Fact|date=September 2007

Life and career

Koehne was born in Adelaide, South Australia. He completed his undergraduate and post-graduate studies at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, University of Adelaide, studying composition with Richard Meale.

In 1984, Koehne was awarded the Harkness Fellowship to work at the School of Music, Yale University. Here he studied with Louis Andriessen and Jacob Druckman. For two years of the fellowship he also took private lessons with Virgil Thomson in New York, whose influence is immediately discernible in the radically simplified, direct and anti-modern style of subsequent scores.Elder Conservatorium]

He returned to Australia in 1986 and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music.

He gained national attention at the 1992 Adelaide Festival of Arts when he was awarded the Young Composers Prize for his orchestral work "Rainforest". Around this time, Graeme commenced his long and fruitful collaboration with choreographer Graeme Murphy, which included a children's ballet based on Oscar Wilde's "The Selfish Giant" and the full-length work "Nearly Beloved".

As of 2005, Koehne is Head of Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. He also chairs the Music Board of the Australia Council and is a Board Member of the Council.

Works

Ballets

*"Nearly Beloved" (Sydney Dance Company)
*"Nocturnes, 1914" (Australian Ballet)
*"Selfish Giant" (Sydney Dance Company)
*"Tivoli" (Sydney Dance Company/Australian Ballet co-production)

Chamber music

*String Quartet

Concertos

*"InFlight Entertainment" (2000, Oboe concerto)

Orchestral

*"Rainforest" (c. 1982)
*"Unchained Melody" (1991)
*"Powerhouse" (1993)
*"Elevator Music" (1997)

Notes

References

*Bebbington, W. (ed.) (1997), "The Oxford Companion to Australian music", Melbourne, Oxford University Press, pp. 324-325.
* [http://www.music.adelaide.edu.au/staff/composition/graeme_koehne.html Elder Conservatorium, Graeme Koehne: Head of Composition] Accessed: 2007-09-28
*Williams, L. (1988) "Emerging Australian Composers", "The Musical Times", Vol. 129, No. 1749. (Nov. 1988), pp. 591-594.

External links

* [http://www.amcoz.com.au/composers/composer.asp?id=452 Composer biography maintained by the Australian Music Centre]