Gordon Kerry

For 2020 he composed Christchurch Monody for the baroque ensemble The Marais Project, a new piece for jazz group Elysian Fields, a Clarinet Quintet for Omega Ensemble and song cycles for Plexus Collective and soprano Ayse Göknur Shanal.

Other recent works include his Piano Trio No.3 for Firebird Trio, operas to librettos by John Kinsella, The Snow Queen (Victorian Opera) and Snow White and other Grimm Tales (Opera Scholars Australia), a violin concerto for the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and a Second String Quintet for the Australian String Quartet and Dutch cellist Pieter Wispelwey.

In 2012 he was featured composer with Musica Viva Australia and his opera Midnight Son, with a libretto by Louis Nowra, was premiered in May as part of Victorian Opera’s subscription season later winning several Green Room Awards.

In 2009 he was awarded an Established Composer fellowship from the Ian Potter Cultural Trust, and composed new works for Sydney Chamber Choir, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and Scottish Chamber Orchestra. The year 2009 also saw the publication of his New Classical Music: Composing Australia (UNSW Press). His other writings about music include music criticism and program annotations, and contributions to books such as Soundscapes of Australia (Ashgate) and Shakespeare’s Creative Legacies (Bloomsbury).

In 2006 he made a completion of Mozart's Requiem for ABC Classic FM; and composed chamber works for ensembles in Australia, the UK and the Netherlands, and Clouds and Trumpets for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's centenary. In 2008 he was composer in residence at the Australian National Academy of Music in Melbourne.

Kerry has composed orchestral music commissioned by the ABC, BBC, Symphony Australia, and several youth orchestras.

His first opera Medea, to Justin Macdonnell's libretto and featuring Merlyn Quaife, has been performed in Australia and the USA by Chamber Made Opera and in Germany by the Berliner Kammeroper.

Kerry's involvement with local musicians in north-eastern Victoria and the NSW Riverina has produced new works for Opera in the Alps (a commemoration of the 2003 bushfires), the Murray Conservatorium Choir and Orchestra and the Riverina Summer School for Strings.

Gordon Kerry studied composition with Barry Conyngham and has held fellowships from the Australia Council, Peggy Glanville-Hicks Trust and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. He has received APRA AMC Cart Music Awards for choral, instrumental and orchestra works. Recordings of his music are available on ABC Classic, Tall Poppies and MOVE Records.