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overview

Variations for Orchestra: premiere, 2002

Ammerseelieder: premiere, 2005

Threnos: premiere, 2007

Euphonium Concerto: premiere, 2008

Resonance for solo-cello: premiere in Melbourne, October 2009

current composition projects

list of compositions

Bundanon residency and photo albumn

Lee Bracegirdle:

Musical Director: Australian Chamber Ballet / Hornist, Sydney Symphony Orchestra / Recipient of First Prize at the Zoltan Kodaly International Composers' Competition, 1998.

Lee Bracegirdle received his Bachelor and Master degrees in french horn at the Juilliard School, studied conducting at the Mozarteum in Salzburg, Austria with Michael Gielen, and was awarded an Honorary Diploma by the Zoltan Kodaly Academy in Chicago. He has held positions as principal horn in orchestras in Germany, America and Australia, and has had an extensive career as an instrumentalist, conductor, composer, and arranger. As a composer he is represented by The Australian Music Centre (Sydney, Australia: telephone: 61 2 9247 4677). His compositions Variations for Orchestra, Ammerseelieder, Threnos, and Concerto for Euphonium and Orchestra are published by C.F. Peters.





Variations for Orchestra
received its world premiere in 2002, performed by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra conducted by Richard Gill, in the Concert Hall of the Sydney Opera House. Live recordings of these performances
as well as a studio recording of excerpts from this work made for music education purposes
are available through The Australian Music Centre

Richard Gill, conductor of the world premiere: Variations for Orchestra

The classical music radio station 2-MBS FM published an article/interview on Mr. Bracegirdle in the March, 2002 issue of their magazine "Fine Music". A copy of this article, "Blow me down, it's a serialist!" is included on the page of this website entitled "reviews / press reports".

In their reviews of the world premiere, Sydney's newspapers acclaimed: Bracegirdle's Variations "exhibit ingenious, multi-coloured scoring, with never a dull moment. This is clever stuff!"

Sydney's North Shore Times, in its 2002 end-of-year concert summary placed this composition at the top of its list of "Best Australian works"

Ammerseelieder

Ammersee (Lake Ammer) with Kloster Andechs and the Zugspitze

"Ammerseelieder" ("Songs of Lake Ammer") were premiered by the Sydney Symphony on July
17, 2005 as part of their bi-annual "Festival of Contemporary Music". This work was commissioned by Symphony Australia, and is a cycle of 5 songs for low voice and orchestra, based on Mr. Bracegirdle's own original texts. These texts were inspired by scenes and experiences in the vicinity of Lake Ammer in Bavaria. This world premiere performance was directed by Dutch conductor
Reinbert de Leeuw, and the soloist was the French-Australian baritone Didier Frederic.

click here for reviews of the world premiere performance

Reinbert de Leeuw	Didier Frederic

"Threnos" for Solo-Horn, Winds and Percussion
was premiered and recorded in 2007 by William Purvis, horn soloist, with the
American Wind Symphony Orchestra under the direction of Robert Boudreau.

William Purvis, hornist

Concerto for Euphonium and Orchestra

Lee's SSO colleague, Scott Kinmont (Associate Principal Trombone) suggested in 2003
that Lee compose a solo work for Euphonium, the instrument that Scott plays with as much passion and flair as the trombone. Scott has bemoaned for many years the fact that this instrument, most often employed in the brass band medium, has been so neglected within the genre of the symphonic orchestra. (see: article from Sydney's Daily Telegraph: "Rare Works Please")
Lee's new concerto was premiered by Scott on February 27 and 28, 2008 accompanied
by their own colleagues, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Matthew Coorey
as part of the orchestra's 2008 "Meet the Music" concert series.

About the world premiere, Sydney's critics acclaimed:

"Bracegirdle has come to the Euphonium's rescue!" -
"jubilation / colourful, ingenious orchestration;
very well-performed all around"

Mr. Bracegirdle being interviewed during "pre- concert talk" with the SSO's education director Margaret Moore	the composer with soloist Scott Kinmont and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra at the world premiere of "Concerto for Euphonium and Orchestra"- Sydney Opera House, February 27, 2008

"Resonance" for unaccompanied cello was premiered October, 2009 by the
Sydney Symphony Orchestra's principal cellist Timothy Walden
in a recital that was as part of Melbourne's
"Spring Early Music Festival"

Lee's SSO colleague Timothy Walden performing the premiere of Resonance

projected for 2010:
"Landscape Visions"
(a work for full orchestra)

New South Wales' Blue Mountains: Jamison Valley

projected for 2011:
"Concerto for Violin and Orchestra"
will be composed at the request of Sydney Symphony Orchestra
concertmaster Michael Dauth, who will perform the premiere.

SSO colleague, Concertmaster Michael Dauth

List of compositions

1997:  Odd Couples (tango for ballet) - [violin, 'cello, horn, piano]
1997:  Devastated  (tango for ballet) - [violin, 'cello, horn, piano]
1998:  Fanfare for the Extraordinary Individual - [3 trumpets, 3 horns, 3 trombones, tuba]
1998:  Divertimento for Orchestra – winner, Zoltan Kodaly International Composers’ Competition, 1998 - [full orchestra]
2000:   Variations for Orchestra - [full orchestra]
2002:   Eat Pianist (ballet in 3 scenes) - [original: flute, oboe, horn, violin, viola, 'cello, piano] - [also: full orchestra]
2003:   Prometheus and Pandora (ballet in 3 acts) - [flute, oboe, horn, violin, viola, 'cello, piano]
2003: Resonance - [unaccompanied cello]
2004: Prometheus and Pandora: full-orchestral version of the ballet
2004: "Suite Box" (Chamber Suite from "Prometheus and Pandora")
2005: Fanfára Miniatura - [brass quartet]
2005: Ammerseelieder - [low voice and full orchestra]
2007: "Threnos" for solo horn, winds and percussion
2007: Concerto for Euphonium and Orchestra

residency at Bundanon, 2003

The Bundanon Trust, a foundation created through the bequest of Australia's most prominent painter of the late 20th century, Arthur Boyd, selected Mr. Bracegirdle for their "Artists-in-Residence" program for the year 2003. In the environment of this inspirational property on the South Coast of New South Wales, he joined other selected applicants from the various graphic and performing arts in an intensive creative atmosphere with the aim of conceiving and bringing to life new compositions.


Bundanon photo albumn

The Artists' Centre, with residences and studios	Arthur Boyd's studio	the historic Boyd family home "Bundanon"
resident artists' workshops and oevres: Jennifer Joseph	"Pulpit Rock"(Arthur Boyd's famous motif) and the Shoalhaven River	artists-in residence, August 2003: L.B./ photographer Jennifer Gough- Cooper / painters Jennifer Joseph and Anthony Pelchen
The Writer's Cottage, Lee Bracegirdle's residence at Bundanon	L.B. at work in the "Writer's Cottage" [photo by J. Gough-Cooper]	Wilhelmina the wombat: permanent resident under the Writer's Cottage
L. B. and "Sugarpuss" - an installation work by artist-in- residence Hitomi Utami (Nov 2003)	in the studio of Patrick Shirvington with his works	November 2003 artists-in-residence L.B., Patrick Shirvington and Hitomi Utami with Polly Boyd
in the studio of the Writers' Cottage with sketches for his ballet Prometheus and Pandora	Patrick Shirvington at the easel	with fellow artist-in-residence Stewart MacFarlane and his family, Sydney, 2004