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Known
for his radiant orchestrations, his dramatic structures and
his innovative guitar work, Canadian Tim Brady
is a composer and guitarist who has created music in a wide
range of genres ranging from chamber and orchestral music to
electroacoustic works, chamber opera, contemporary dance
scores, jazz and free improvisation. He has been commissioned
and performed by numerous ensembles and orchestras in North
America and Europe including the Orchestre symphonique de
Montréal, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra, the Winnipeg
Symphony Orchestra, the Société de musique contemporaine du
Québec, The South Bank Centre, New Music Concerts, INA-GRM
(Radio-France), the English Guitar Quartet, the Pittsburgh New
Music Ensemble, the Esprit Orchestra (CBC), the
Philadelphia-based Relâche ensemble, the Australian group
Topology, and the New York groups Newspeak and the Trinity
Wall Street Choir.
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Since 1988 he has released 24 CDs as both a
composer and a performer on Justin Time Records and Ambiances
magétiques, and, more recently,
on ATMA Classique, Centrediscs and Starkland labels. His most
recent CDs are: Music for
Large Ensemble - with Bradyworks (Autumn 2018 -
Starkland Records), The How and the Why of Memory,
with Symphony Nova Scotia (Centrediscs - 2015)
Atacama: Symphonie #3 (ATMA Classique - Feb.
2013) - nominated for a JUNO Award in 2014.
In June 2018 his work "While 100 Guitars Gently Weep:
Concerto for George", for 100 guitars,
was premiered at the Luminato festival in
Toronto to over 1,400 people. The work was commissioned by
Luminato from Tim Brady, with Brady as guitar soloist.
February 2019 saw his work "Symphony #9" - for 150
electric guitars - given its premier at the
Festival MNM in Montréal to an audience of 3 200, who gave it
a standing ovation.
His electric guitar collective "Instruments
of Happiness" presented shows for 100, 20 and 4
guitars to sold out houses across Canada in 2015 and 2016, and
the first IoH CD was released in March 2016 on the American Starkland
Records, to excellent reviews. The group has toured
Canada twice (2017, 2018), as well as the USA (2019),
presenting new works by a range of Canadian and American
composers.
Other touring success include the premiere
of the chamber opera Ghost Tango in Halifax
and Kitchener (Sept. 2015), and the New York premiere of Atacama:
Symphony #3, with Newspeak and the Trinity Wall
Street Choir at the National Sawdust concert
hall (Oct. 2015), under the direction of Julian Wachner. His
work "Journal: String Quartet #2" has toured
North America to acclaim, performed by the New Orford
String Quartet, which commissioned the work in
2013. It was released on CD by the NOSQ in early 2018.
Other orchestral pieces include Viola
Concerto (Orchestre symphonique de Laval, Requiem
21.5: Violin Concerto, commissioned
by Symphony Nova Scotia and
Amplify, Multiply, Remix and Redfine: in memory of Les Paul
(for 21 electric guitars & orchestra), commissioned
for the 2010 Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra New Music Festival.
He had a considerable international success in June 2010 with
a production of excerpts from "24 Frames - Trance" at
the Bang on a Can Marathon in New York City, as well as a
6-city East Coast US tour in September 2012.
Brady
regularly tours North America, Europe, Asia and Australia as
an electric guitar soloist, performing his own music as well
as new works which he commissions from other composers in his
effort to create a new voice for the electric guitar. He has
performed at many leading venues including The South Bank
Centre and the ICA (London), The Huddersfield Contemporary
Music Festival (UK), The Darwin International Guitar Festival
(Australia), the Bang on a Can Festival (NY), and De Ijsbreker
(Amsterdam), Radio-France (Paris), the Barcelona Contemporary
Music Festival and BKA (Berlin). He has recorded extensively
for Radio-Canada, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the
British Broadcasting Corporation, Netherlands Public Radio,
Radio-France, Spanish National Radio and National Public Radio
in the USA. In 1999 his Strange Attractors World Tour
took him to 10 countries for a total of 23 concerts. The
ensemble's most recent tour in March and April 2014 took them
to the USA and Australia, including a broadcast recording for
the Australian Broadcasting Corporation show New
Music Up Late.
His new
music ensemble Bradyworks has toured Canada six times
(1991, 1994, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2009), performed in the United
States, and records regularly for both the CBC and
Radio-Canada. The ensemble released its first CD in 1991,
entitled Inventions, and released its second
recording, Revolutionary Songs, in 1996 to coincide
with its performance at the Festival international de musique
actuelle de Victoriaville. In the autumn of 2003 the group
released its third CD, entitled Unison Rituals, and
presented its first European tour, including a radio
performance for the BBC Radio 3 programme "Hear and
Now", along with concerts in Aberdeen, Dublin and Cork. The
ensemble recently presented Brady's two chamber operas in
highly successful productions: Three Cities in the Life of
Dr. Norman Bethune (Montreal, 2003 / Toronto, 2005), and
The Salome Dancer (Kitchener, 2005). In May 2008 it
presented 5 performances of the multi-media work My
20th Century in a
tour across Québec, including a performance at the Festival
international de musique actuelle de Victoriaville.
My 20th Century's success continued in 2009, with a
10-city Canadian tour, to rave reviews.
In
January 2013 his work "Atacama: Symphonie #3"
was named "Best new composition of the year" at the Prix OPUS.
In 2004 he was awarded the Prix OPUS for "Composer of the
Year" by the Conseil québécois de la musique, for the
outstanding quality of his work as a creative artist. In Nov.
2006 he was awarded the Jan V. Matejcek Award by SOCAN,
for the most concert music performance royalties in Canada for
2005 (francophone category). From 2008 to 2013 he served as
the "composer-in-residence" with the Orchestre
symphonique de Laval, working with music director
Alain Trudel to build a creative music presence in the
orchestra and in the city of Laval.
In
addition to his work as a composer and guitarist, from 1994 to
2004 he served as the Artistic Director of Innovations en
concert, a company which he founded. It is one of
Montreal's main new music producers, and during his tenure as
director he produced over 100 concerts of contemporary music
from across Canada and around the world. He also has written
for Musicworks Magazine, and has served on the boards
of Codes d'accès, The Canadian League of Composers and the
Music Gallery. He was the founding president of the Canadian
New Music Network, serving from 2005 to 2014.
Photo: Laurence Labat
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