Artist Biography
Ian Munro: Composer and pianist
Ian Munro has emerged over recent years as one of Australia's most distinguished and awarded musicians, with a career that has taken him to thirty countries in Europe, Asia, North America and Australasia. He has performed with orchestras throughout Europe, the United States and Asia, and all the major orchestras of Australia in over fifty piano concerti. Ian is a member of the Australia Ensemble and Conjoint Professor of Piano at the University of Newcastle Conservatorium.
Ian's solo repertoire embraces rare and unusual works of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries and displays a special commitment to and interest in new music. Premieres and commissions to his credit include works by Australian composers Peter Sculthorpe, Carl Vine, Elena Kats-Chernin, Roger Smalley, Andrew Ford and Gordon Kerry.
In 2003 Ian's piano concerto Dreams won the prestigious Queen Elisabeth competition in Brussels and was subsequently played by the twelve finalists of the international piano competition. It was broadcast across Europe both on radio and television. Since 2004 Ian has also been commissioned to write three new works for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra as part of a Symphony Australia composer attachment. The first work, Blue Rags, was premiered by the TSO wind, brass and percussion in April 2005 as part of the Ten Days on the Island Festival. The symphonic poem Drought and Night Rain was performed by the TSO in November 2005 and the cello concerto O Traurigkeit will receive its premiere in September 2006 with soloist Sue-Ellen Paulsen, who is also appearing at the Four Winds Festival in the Four Winds Quartet. Further commissions include a piano quintet for the Flinders Quartet, to be performed in Melbourne in October 2006.
Ian has recorded CDs for ABC Classics, Hyperion, Cala, Naxos, Marco Polo, Tall Poppies and the new UK label Warehouse. Recent discs include two irreverent political satires: The Keating Tangos, a musical tribute to the eponymous orator, and The Whitlam Rags.
Ian will perform the following works at the Four Winds Festival: Sculthorpe Sydney Singing, Korngold Three Songs of Farewell, Henry Duparc 3 Songs, Somei Samoh The Heavenly Spheres, Beethoven Adagio sostenuto from the Moonlight Sonata and the Shostokovich Adagio from his viola sonata, arranged for cello by Daniil Schafran.
www.ae.unsw.edu.au/profiles/IanMunro.html
www.afcm.com.au/piano.htm
www.amo.org.au/artist.asp?id=100