Carl Vine
Carl Vine AO is one of Australia's best-known and most often performed composers, with an orchestral catalogue of eight symphonies and thirteen concertos. His piano music is played widely around the world, and recordings of his work appear on more than seventy albums across the major streaming services.
He has written extensively for chamber ensembles as well as for film, television, dance and theatre. Although primarily a composer of modern art music, he has also arranged the Australian National Anthem and written music for the Closing Ceremony of the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996.
Born in Perth, he studied piano with Stephen Dornan and composition with John Exton at the University of Western Australia. After moving to Sydney in 1975 he worked for decades as a freelance pianist and composer with ensembles, theatre and dance companies.
Among his best-known scores are the Piano Sonata (1990), Poppy (1978) for the Sydney Dance Company, and the Choral Symphony (No. 6, 1996) for the West Australian Symphony Orchestra. His first six symphonies appear on the ABC Classics album Carl Vine: The Complete Symphonies with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. Much of his chamber music is gathered on three catalogue albums: Carl Vine: Chamber Music, Vol. 1 (TP013), Carl Vine: Chamber Music, Vol. 2 (TP120) and Carl Vine: The Piano Music 1990–2006 (TP190).
From 2000 until 2019 he was Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia. In that role he also directed the Huntington Estate Music Festival from 2006 and the Musica Viva Festival in Sydney from 2008. He has been Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music since 2014. Later works include Five Intermezzi for solo piano, Piano Sonata No. 4, Symphony No. 8 The Enchanted Loom for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and the trombone concerto Five Hallucinations for the Chicago and Sydney Symphony Orchestras. In 2014 he was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO). Further information is at carlvine.com.
Artist's website: www.carlvine.com
Press quotes
... Vine is a major talent just waiting to be discovered here in the Old World. 'Radically tonal' (his phrase), the music is accessible but vital, richly coloured with a true, distinctive gift for melody, and somehow fresher than most current European writing.
A formidably equipped musician with a passion for jazz and avant garde experimentation. Vine is clearly one of the most talented young composers working anywhere. His orchestral scores such as the compressed and brilliantly inventive MicroSymphony define and inhabit a unique musical world; his Piano Sonata of 1990 is one of the most significant works in the form since the great Piano Sonata of Elliott Carter.
A major talent ... someone capable of breaking genuinely new ground and getting things to grow in it.
Compositions by Carl Vine 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.
Veiled Virtuosity
Amir Farid’s debut solo recording, made after his win at the 2006 Australian National Piano Award, ranges from Beethoven’s Waldstein Sonata and works by Brahms, Liszt and Prokofiev to Australian scores by Stuart Greenbaum and Carl Vine, with two pieces by Iranian composer Javad Maroufi.
Chinese Whispers and other contemporary dance music
Piano works by leading contemporary composers from Australia and China, played by Gabriella Smart. The programme ranges across prepared piano, film-related pieces and dance-inspired solos by Griswold, Tan Dun, Curran, Jia Daqun, Nyman and others.
Rabid Bay
Michael Kieran Harvey is one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music of his generation. This recording presents some of Australia's cutting-edge piano music – bold and experimental, but also increasingly lyrical.
Composer
Tensile Flame
Michael Kieran Harvey’s two-disc piano programme pairs Liszt’s B minor Sonata and its early twentieth-century echoes in Skryabin, Rachmaninov and Ravel with a second disc of Stravinsky, Carter, Graham Hair and Carl Vine’s 1990 Piano Sonata.
Being
Daniel Pini presents five works for solo cello by living Australian composers. Victoria Pham, Brett Dean, Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Liza Lim and Carl Vine each shape a distinct sound world, offering a vivid survey of contemporary Australian composition.
Australian Monody
The Marais Project is joined by countertenor Russell Harcourt for a collection of largely Australian songs and instrumental works, spanning light and darkness, love and loss.
Team of Pianists presents the Schimmel K 256
Australia’s Team of Pianists inaugurates Schimmel’s Artist Collection on the new K 256 concert grand, with Brahms duets, Romantic and Impressionist solos, Saint-Saëns with clarinet, and Carl Vine.