Carl Edward Vine, AO (born 8 October 1954) is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.
From 1975 he has worked as a freelance pianist and composer with a variety of theatre and dance companies, and ensembles. Vine's catalogue includes eight symphonies, twelve concertos, music for film, television and theatre, electronic music and numerous chamber works. From 2000 until 2019 Carl was the Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia. Within that role he was also Artistic Director of the Huntington Estate Music Festival from 2006, and of the Musica Viva Festival (Sydney) from 2008. In 2005 he was awarded the Don Banks Music Award. In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Vine was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), "for distinguished service to the performing arts as a composer, conductor, academic and artistic director, and to the support and mentoring of emerging performers." Vine currently lectures in composition and orchestration at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.[1]
Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. He played the cornet from the age of 5, and took up the piano when he was 10. A teenage fascination with the music of Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period of Modernism, which he explored until the mid-1980s.[2] He studied physics, then composition at the University of Western Australia (now the UWA Conservatorium of Music), before moving to Sydney in 1975, where he worked as a freelance pianist and composer with a variety of theatre and dance companies, and ensembles.
Vine first came to prominence in Australia as a composer of music for dance, with 25 dance scores to his credit. In 1979 he co-founded the contemporary music ensemble "Flederman", which presented many of Vine's own works. From 1980 to 1982 he lectured in electronic music composition at the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in Brisbane.
His catalogue includes eight symphonies, thirteen concertos, music for film, television and theatre, electronic music and numerous chamber works. Although primarily a composer of modern classical music, he has undertaken tasks as diverse as arranging the Australian national anthem and writing music for the 1996 Atlanta Olympics closing ceremony.
Since 2000, Vine has been the Artistic Director of Musica Viva Australia, the world's largest chamber music presenter. In 2005, he was awarded the Don Banks Music Award, the highest accolade the Australia Council for the Arts can confer on a musician. Since 2006, he has also been the Artistic Director of the Huntington Estate Music Festival.
In 2012, his second piano concerto was premiered by Piers Lane and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra,[2] and the Australian Chamber Orchestra with soprano Danielle de Niese premiered his solo cantata, The Tree of Man, after the 1955 novel by Patrick White.
In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Vine was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), "for distinguished service to the performing arts as a composer, conductor, academic and artistic director, and to the support and mentoring of emerging performers."[3]
Vine is based in Sydney, where he works as a freelance composer. His trombone concerto Five Hallucinations was premiered by the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in October 2016.[4] Since 2014, Vine has also worked at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a senior lecturer in composition.[1]
The ARIA Music Awards is an annual awards ceremony that recognises excellence, innovation, and achievement across all genres of Australian music. They commenced in 1987.
The Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to music in Australia.
The Don Banks Music Award was established in 1984 to publicly honour a senior artist of high distinction who has made an outstanding and sustained contribution to music in Australia.[10] It was founded by the Australia Council in honour of Don Banks, Australian composer, performer and the first chair of its music board.
