Damian Barbeler
Biography
March 2020
Damian Barbeler is an award-winning composer and multimedia artist whose works have been performed and broadcast around the world. He is recognised for his playful artistic style and lush, emotional creations inspired by textures and patterns from nature. He regularly collaborates with colleagues from diverse fields including film, architecture, software design, media arts, dance and more, and incorporates visual, sculptural and light elements with all his music.
His work often emphasises tactile experiences of physical places and relationships. His work (with artist Tim Jetis) Visiting Eucalyptus is a good example, where 6 months of travelling, photographing Eucalyptus trees resulted in a concert work, installation, book, film and website.
Damian has twice received the ‘Recommended Work’ award at the UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers and was a finalist in the Toru Takemitsu Prize 2008. He was awarded the Ian Potter Emerging Composer Fellowship to compose seven works during 2006-2007, including commissions for recorder player Genevieve Lacey, and Southern Cross Soloists. In 2010 he received a PhD from the Sydney Conservatorium. In 2015 he was a finalist for “Best Instrumental Work” for the APRA/AMC Art Music Awards.
His interactive light and sound installation “The Sound Bubble” featured in Vivid Festival 2016 on Circular Quay. This same installation will be in residence for a week in the foyer of the City Recital Hall in 2017. Another interactive work “Bruce’s Shed”, premiered in the 2015 Tasmanian International Arts Festival in a disused shed in country Tasmania. This work commission by BighArt (performed: Nicole Forsyth and Matt Hoy is an ode to the history of the building. It incorporated live experimental music performance with lighting and sound design controlled by a custom built Artificial Intelligence computer brain which responded in real time to the live musicians.
2020 will see the premiere of his major trans-music work “Paper Forest” for Jane Seymour and Continuum Saxophone Quartet, in the Dangrove art space in Sydney.
Barbeler current lectures in composition and digital music at University of Sydney and Sydney Conservatorium.