Andrew Byrne
Andrew Byrne is a Australian composer based in New York, who has written works for film, dance, theater, and the concert hall. His music, which always betrays a fascination with polyrhythm, is influenced by American experimental music and non-Western music.
Over the last decade, Byrne has developed a number of different types of pieces, all informed by polyrhythmic techniques: "mobile" pieces (such as Whispers and Cries, 2008, Lines Towards Another Century, 2006/08, Fandango Fantasy in F, 2009) featuring modular structures for variable performers; "landscape" pieces (White Bone Country, 2006) in which sonic environments are evoked through static polyrhythmic processes; "folk music" pieces (A Ringing World for solo percussion, 2009), which suggest a fictional folk music. Byrne tends to write for non–traditional ensembles like percussion instruments, piano and other keyboards, voices, and electronics.
Compositions by Andrew Byrne appear on
Threnody
Michael Kieran Harvey’s landmark 1995 Astra recital of late twentieth-century Australian piano music returns in a 2024 Move re-master. Premiere recordings by Harvey, Vine, Campbell, McCaughey, Byrne, Humble and Anderson form one continuous programme.
Broadway Boogie
Broadway Boogie gathers premiere recordings of recent Australian piano works by Andrew Ford, Andrew Byrne, John McCaughey, Nigel Westlake, Mark Pollard and Michael Kieran Harvey, loosely linked by allusions to New York. Melbourne’s Herald-Sun named it the best classical CD of 2008.