Gillian Whitehead

Gillian Karawe Whitehead, DCNZM (born April 23, 1941) is a New Zealand composer.

She studied at the University of Auckland from 1959–62, and Victoria University of Wellington in 1963, graduating BMus Hons in 1964. She then studied composition at the University of Sydney with Peter Sculthorpe from 1964–65, graduating MMus in 1966. That same year she attended a composition course given by Peter Maxwell Davies in Adelaide and in 1967 travelled to England to continue studying with him. She worked in London composing and copying music for two years and then with the assistance of a New Zealand Arts Council grant worked in Portugal and Italy from 1969–70. For the next seven years she continued freelance composing, principally based in the UK. Her first opera "Tristan and Iseult" was composed in 1975 and premiered in 1978. [ [http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/W.html Opera Glass] ; Thomson and Kerr 2001.] From 1978–80 she was Composer in Residence for Northern Arts attached to Newcastle University. In 1981 she returned to Australasia to join the staff of the Composition School at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was for four years Head of Composition there before taking early retirement in 1996.Fact|date=August 2008

She currently divides her time as a free-lance composer between Sydney and Dunedin, New Zealand. In 1999 her opera, "Outrageous Fortune" won the SOUNZ Contemporary Award and she was honoured with membership to the New Zealand Order of Merit. In 2000 she became one of the inaugural Artist Laureates of the New Zealand Arts Foundation and is now a governor of the organisation.Fact|date=August 2008 During 2000 and 2001 she was Composer in Residence at the Auckland Philharmonia and her major orchestral work, "The Improbable Ordered Dance", written during the Residency won the 2001 SOUNZ Contemporary Award.Fact|date=August 2008

Whitehead has written a wide range of music including works for solo, chamber, choral, orchestral and operatic forces, most of them direct commissions from performers and funding organisations. A number of her works have been recorded for commercial release, including a CD of her chamber works by Waiteata Press and a recording of her opera, "Outrageous Fortune".

In 2008 she was awarded DCNZM in the Queen's Birthday Honours, for services to music. [cite web|url=http://www.dpmc.govt.nz/honours/lists/list.asp?id=43|title=Queen's Birthday Honours 2008|date=2008-06-02|publisher=Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet|accessdate=2008-06-02]

References

Bibliography

*Thomson, J. M., and Elizabeth Kerr. 2001. "Whitehead, Elizabeth." "The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians", edited by Stanley Sadie and John Tyrrell. London: Macmillan.

External links

* [http://sounz.org.nz/contributor/composer/1099 A biography and selected list of works at Sounz, The Centre for New Zealand Music]
* [http://www.artsfoundation.org.nz/whitehead.html Information at the Arts Foundation of New Zealand celebrating her Laureate award]
* [http://opera.stanford.edu/composers/W.html Opera Glass: Composers: W]