BIOGRAPHY
Christopher Healey is an early career composer of art music, currently with over eighty works in his catalogue. He completed his Bachelor of Music at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University under the tutelage of Gerard Brophy, receiving the Alan Lane and A.G. Francis prizes for his compositions. Chris continued his studies in 2013 at the University of Queensland, where he completed his Honours Year with Dr Robert Davidson and was award First Class Honours and the Dean’s Award for Academic Excellence. He has since been accepted into the University of Queensland’s PhD Program in Music Composition, receiving an Australian Postgraduate Award for the duration of his studies. As of 2018, Chris is now undertaking a new stage of learning with American composer, Daron Hagen, with a particular focus on Opera writing.
Despite being a young composer, Chris has been commissioned by The Brisbane City Council (for its Street Reads Project), Camerata of St John’s, The Queensland Philharmonic Orchestra, by Saxophonist Emma Di Marco, twice by renowned Australian-American conductor Dobbs Franks. He has also been invited to write works for The Sounding Out Composer’s Collective, Ensemble Fabrique, Bricolage Percussion Duo, ANAM Percussion Department, and the Qu many others. Chris’ music has been performed throughout Australia as well as in Paris and Holland, where his Sonata for Saxophone and Piano was premiered live on Holland’s Radio National service. Chris’ work Matrix for Ensemble Fabrique was also recorded and Broadcast by the ABC, and his Overture to Macbeth was recorded by the 3MBS for their Shakespeare Marathon.
Composer website: http://www.christopherhealey.net
FEATURED WORKS
Springtime Dances, Winter Weeps, for solo flute.
When confronted with the need for more music to fill a rapidly approaching concert program, I contacted flutist Brijette Tubb to see if she would be willing to learn something on short notice. She very kindly agreed – and I very frantically got to composing, as the music had not yet been written.
Four days later ‘Springtime Dance, Winter Weeps’ was affixed with a double bar line and sent to Brijette for her appraisal. Along with the music I sent her a profuse apology about the difficulty of the music, as much of my music ends up far more virtuosic in nature than I intend when starting out – and this piece was no exception.
To my great delight, excitement and amazement she was completely and utterly undeterred. The performance, just two weeks later, was a tremendous success.
Springtime Dances, Winter Weeps is a work of contracts with two starkly different musical feels; it captures the bleakness of winter and the feverish play of spring. It is a virtuosic work that is a great contribution to the flute’s solo repertoire, and one which can be at home in a wide variety of concert programs.
Featured in Long Waves – August 2016
No. 3 from Six Piano Miniatures, for piano.
Featured in the playlist: Dream Waves (1/12/2017)
Miniature 1, for piano.
The forest Nymph lures you, its Siren song calling you deeper into the forest where death waits for you.
Featured in Harmonic Waves (May 2019).
MAKING WAVES 