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Born in Melbourne, Brenton Broadstock studied history, politics and music at Monash University, composition and theory with Donald Freund at the University of Memphis (USA) and with Peter Sculthorpe at the University of Sydney. He received the Doctor of Music from the University of Melbourne where he was Professor of Music and Head of Composition until 2007.

Broadstock has won numerous prizes for composition, including first prize in the 1981 Townsville Pacific Festival's National Composition Competition; the Albert Maggs Award; two APRA Music Awards; first prize in the Hambacher Preis in Germany; and in 1994 he received the Paul Lowin Song Cycle Award for Bright Tracks. In 1991, he signed a publishing contract with G. Schirmer (Australia).

Broadstock's music has been performed at many international festivals in England, Germany, Japan, Hong Kong, Norway, Korea, and in Australia and further performances in New Zealand, Canada, Russia, Sweden, Spain and China. His orchestral music has been performed by all of the major orchestras in Australia as well as orchestras in Japan, England, Germany, Russia, Moldova, Ulster, and Finland.

Brenton Broadstock has written five symphonies, concertos for tuba, piano and saxophone, several orchestral works, four string quartets and much chamber, choral and solo music; also several major brass band pieces such as Winds of Change, which was commissioned, by the Yorkshire Building Society Brass Band and premiered at the 2000 European Brass Band Championships in Birmingham, and Gates of Day, premiered at the 2001 Melbourne International Festival.

In 1988–89, Broadstock was the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra's inaugural composer in residence. In 1997 he received the Jean Bogan Prize, in 1998 the Michelle Morrow Memorial Award and an Explorations Opera Project grant. In 1998, he spent three months in Italy on fellowships awarded by the Civitella Ranieri Foundation and a Bellagio Award from the Rockefeller Foundation. In 1999, he received the prestigious Don Banks Award for his 'outstanding contribution to Australian Music' and his five symphonies were released on the Etcetera label in 2000.

In 2004, Torre di Forza was the test piece at the Sydney International Piano Competition. ABC Classics released a CD of his orchestral works with Ola Rudner conducting the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra in December 2005. His chamber opera based on Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451 was performed in Bonn, Germany in April 2006.

In 2008 Broadstock's music was performed at the Opening Ceremony of the Beijing Olympic Games, and in 2009 he will be composer in residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, including a concerto for trumpeter James Morrison, a chamber concertino for trombonist Brett Kelly and a large work for soloists, choir and orchestra to be premiered at the 2009 Melbourne International Festival of the Arts.

Biography provided by the composer — current to December 2008