Presenter(s)

Bio(s)

Bryan Griffiths is a conductor with extensive experience across the professional, educational and community music spheres. Specialising in wind ensemble direction, he is also proficient in orchestral and chamber music, having conducted the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Band of the South Australian Police, Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony, Adelaide Youth Orchestra, New Adelaide Ensemble, Unley Concert Band and the Adelaide Summer Orchestra of which he was co-founder. He was appointed Music Director of the Adelaide Wind Orchestra in 2019 and the Robert Hower Winds of the Adelaide Hills Chamber Players in 2023. Bryan is also the current director of the Wind Orchestra at the Elder Conservatorium of Music (University of Adelaide), where he lectures in ensemble, performance and orchestration classes.
In addition to his busy performance schedule, Bryan regularly presents conducting courses for the Australian Band and Orchestra Directors Association. In 2015, Bryan was invited to teach at the Federal University of Santa Maria’s Festival Internacional de Inverno held in Brazil and in 2023 he established and directed the inaugural Adelaide Wind Band Festival. Before focusing on conducting, Bryan performed as a horn player with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Sinfonia, and Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, where he served in a full-time capacity between 2010–2015.

Contemporary Australian Composition for Wind Band: A Coming of Age

Over the last forty years the Australian wind band has emerged from its British military and American concert band origins, firmly establishing itself as a distinct and compelling movement in its own right. In addition to the growth in scope and number of ensembles across the country, the Australian wind band movement has seen a burgeoning of works by local composers. Yet in spite of the international accomplishments of its most successful advocates such as Jodie Blackshaw, Ralph Hultgren, Catherine Likhuta, and David Stanhope, the global wind band community remains largely unacquainted with the Australian repertory.
This presentation seeks to address this gap by providing a chronicle of the Australian wind band and foregrounding its most significant contributors to date. Notable compositions will be examined, drawn from across Australia’s rich and diverse musical heritage and representative of the movement’s achievements to date. Works surveyed will be suitable for performance by various wind bands, including secondary school, tertiary, community and professional level ensembles.