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Bio
Christopher Sainsbury was born in the
regional town of Gosford, on the Central Coast of NSW, about 100
kilometres north of Sydney. He continues to live there today, and
considers himself to be a regionalist composer, for he draws upon
his local sounds and stories for inspiration, and finds meaning and
joy in the ongoing local narrative.
Sainsbury's music is strong of will, lyrical
of gesture and positive in affect. He studied at the NRCAE with the older generation
Australian master James Penberthy, and also with Richard Mills, and
received the College medal upon graduation in 1986. In the same
year he won the Australian Young Composer
Award.
Recent
commissions, releases, and
awards
Sainsbury’s recent music includes
the Lydian
Caprice - a
commission for the London-based Wilhelm String Quartet’s tour of
Australia and Crossroads Festival (2010), the orchestral work
First Light (adapted from the commissioned work, Symphony
of the Birds) which was awarded winner of the New England
Philharmonic Orchestra’s Scores Competition in Boston (2010), the
Bushfire
Cor anglais Concerto - a new CD
release on major Australian new music label Wirripang (2011)
featuring Rachel Tolmie, and also this year his North Country
Sketches have been selected for the new AMEB guitar syllabus
(higher grades).
In 2009 there was the recording and release of
his Wellbeing
Concertino for Clarinet and Strings
with the
Millenium Symphony (Virginia) and selection of
Each
Field a Window (solo
flute) for the whacky Live Elevator Music project by Swedish new
music group Levande Musik.
Background
Previous works include the Concerto for
Guitar (The Luthier) written at the invitation of Adrian Walter
and the Spanish virtuoso guitarist Jose Maria Gallardo del Rey for
the Darwin International Guitar Festival 2002, My Eye Has Seen
My Desire (for bass recorder and guitar) for the ripper
avante-garde Duo Bosgraaf-Elias (Holland) 2003, and Homage to TS
Eliot - a commission from the ACO (under Carl Pini) 1988. In
addition, Sainsbury was commissioned by Australian contemporary
pianist Michael Hannan and the Newcastle
Bi-Centennial Authority, leading Australian flautist Gordon Yemm,
and the Gosford Philharmonic Orchestra (the local work is always
his favourite!). His choral work Voyage of the Endeavour was
written for the Nouveaux Singers and the Brsibane World Expo 1988,
and his ambient orchestral work Horizons was featured by the Queensland Orchestra and
4MBS-FM in their 1986 new music
series.
Visit the Sounds and
Scores page to hear sounds, and the
List of
Works or Current
Work page for more
information.
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