Douglas Gibson
Featured
on New Music Arizona
Concert, June
20, 2010, 3:00 PM
After launching his musical career in spectacular style in 2001 by conducting at the Sydney Opera House for a charity benefit, he has gone on to have his own works performed in film festivals in Phoenix, Los Angeles, Sydney and Melbourne, as well as at the National Gallery of Victoria and the Australian Centre of the Moving Image. His music has also been broadcast on ABC Radio, 3MBS and RRR radio stations.
He released his debut EP “God Help Me I’ve Gone Mad” in March 2006 and collaborated on the soundtrack for the Australian feature film “The Line”. In August of the same year his orchestral composition “Avalanche” premiered at the Iwaki Auditorium and was broadcast on ABC Classics FM, Australia’s nationwide classical music radio station. “Avalanche” was subsequently picked up for international distribution by ERM media and recorded by the Kiev Philharmonic for the compilation CD “Masterworks of the New Era.” In 2009 he released his second CD “Opening the Hand of Thought”. “Essence” for shakuhachi, guitar, and string quartet won a composition prize in the inaugural International Shakuhachi Chamber Music Composition competition, and was selected to compose a new work for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra composers workshop. In addition to this he was selected as a participant in the 2009 NYU/ Buddy Baker film scoring workshop. He received awards from ASCAP in 2007, 2008 and 2009 for outstanding contribution to concert music.
One of his objectives has been to actively engage the wider public in the appreciation of contemporary music and to facilitate collaboration between artists in film, music and other creative fields. To this end, he founded the Melbourne Film Composers Society in 2004. The following year, he created the Foreign Exchange Film and Music Festival which toured New York City and featured an award winning Australian short film screened to live soundtrack performances by emerging New York composers.
He launched The Future of Classical Music composers’ collective, which staged a 2 year series of monthly performances of new classical music at the Loop art space in the Melbourne CBD.
He is also a sought-after speaker in the field of film composition in Melbourne, and has presented workshops, and been on staff, at several film and television training institutions, such as the VCA School of Film and Television, AFTRS, University of Melbourne, Box Hill TAFE, and Open-Channel. As a film composer he has composed soundtracks to over 20 short films, numerous corporate videos, and has studied with famed Hollywood composer Christopher Young. (Spiderman 3)
In July of 2009 he moved to New York City to pursue his career as a film, television, and concert composer. He is currently completing a new 10 minute work for Orchestra Victoria, titled Mesmerized, commissioned by Symphony Australia’s emerging composers program.