Tom Henry
Tom Henry is an Australian composer of works for solo piano, organ, voice, choir, chamber ensemble and orchestra. His music has been performed in Australia, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Germany, Switzerland, Italy and Canada.
Born in Melbourne, he began as a flautist. After graduating from the Victorian College of the Arts he studied overseas with the French virtuoso Patrick Gallois. Returning to Australia in 2002, he held posts including Associate Principal Flute with Orchestra Victoria.
He first studied composition with the late Australian composer Lawrence Whiffin (a former student of René Leibowitz), then with Julian Yu, Elliott Gyger and Stuart Greenbaum. In 2022 he completed a PhD in Composition at the University of Melbourne with Stuart Greenbaum.
His piano works include two Piano Sonatas. The first (2006, revised 2011) was dedicated to and first performed by Michael Kieran Harvey, and was a finalist in the 2011 American Liszt Society Bicentennial Composition Prize; a studio recording appeared in 2012 on Astra 60. His full solo piano catalogue is gathered on Light in dark (MD 3465). His Sonata for Flute and Piano (2020) was first performed by Derek Jones and Jerry Wong in May 2022, and is recorded on Flute Perspectives – Vol. 3.
He has been commissioned by many Australian chamber groups, among them the Huon Quartet (Shelley on the Water, 2016) and Syzygy Ensemble (Towards Patmos – after Hölderlin, 2018, for Macedon Music). His first string quartet, Scenes from a poet’s life (2015), was written for the Flinders Quartet and recorded for ABC Classics on ‘The Offering’. The Piano Trio (2020), his second commission for the Firebird Trio, was first given in December 2020 for Melbourne Digital Concert Hall. The Australian Chamber Choir has twice commissioned major works for European tours: Kakadu Man (2015), heard on Gold (MCD 660), and Uncertain Journeys (2017).
Orchestral scores include Variations for orchestra in three movements (2009), which won the APRA Prize in the 3MBS National Composers Award, and Ancestors for orchestra – Night Dances (2011), performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Visions from the interior – after Fred Williams (2020) was commissioned by and first performed by the University of Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in May 2022.
Artist's website: tomhenry.com.au
Tom Henry is featured on the following titles
Light in dark
Light in dark gathers Tom Henry’s solo piano works across two decades. The newly recorded programme moves through jazz and pop colour, renaissance polyphony, and twentieth-century modernism.
Producer
Compositions by Tom Henry also appear on
Flute Perspectives, Vol. 3
The third release in Derek Jones’s series, Flute Perspectives 3 continues to convey the synergy of Australia’s varied classical flute repertoire, with newly commissioned works, some recorded here for the first time.
Astra 60
This recording captures a concert of Australian piano music celebrating Astra’s long support of Australian composers and performers. For sixty years the Astra Chamber Music Society has placed new Australian work beside international new-music currents, always with a distinctive cultural frame.
Gold
The Australian Chamber Choir, directed by Douglas Lawrence, performs works by eight Australian composers. From Gordon Kerry’s Shakespeare setting to Malcolm Williamson’s English Eccentrics, the programme turns individual voices into pure gold.