Jacques De Vos Malan : Represented Artist
Born on the 3rd December 1953 in New York to South African
parents, Dr Jacques de Vos Malan was educated at schools in
England, Portugal and South Africa. He graduated as Bachelor of
Music (composition) from the University of Cape Town (1976),
winning the Van Huylsteyn Scholarship, the Universal Edition
Prize for composition and the Composition Class Medal three years
in succession.
He pursued post-graduate work in London, studying composition
with Nicola LeFanu (and informally with David Lumsdaine) and
reading musicology with Arnold Whitall and palaeography with
Pierluigi Petrobelli. He graduated as Master of Music
(composition) at King's College, University of London (1979) and
returned to South Africa to complete the degree of Doctor of
Music at the University of Pretoria (1983) under Stefans Grové.
On several occasions, he studied informally, and collaborated,
with the American experimental composer Morton Feldman.
De Vos Malan worked as a radio and television music producer for
the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) and
subsequently as an independent arts documentary filmmaker. He has
lectured in ethnomusicology at the University of the
Witwatersrand and in composition and twentieth-century aesthetics
at the University of Cape Town. His career as an arts
administrator has included the roles of Manager of the National
Symphony Orchestra, Johannesburg; Executive Director of the Cape
Town Symphony Orchestra; Music Director of the Musica Reservata
chamber orchestra; and founder of Fine Music Radio, Cape Town. De
Vos Malan migrated to Australia in 2000 where his roles have
included managing the Major Festivals portfolio for Arts Victoria
and Director of Programming & Marketing for the Adelaide
Festival Centre. He has served on the Music Council of Australia,
representing composition, the board of the SA Living Artists
Festival and the Advisory Committee of the Arts Management
Programme at the University of South Australia. In 2006, de Vos
Malan was appointed as the inaugural CEO of Melbourne Recital
Centre, which opened in 2009.
De Vos Malan's work is substantially influenced by the music and
ideas of John Cage and Morton Feldman, the theoretical writings
of Umberto Eco and his own studies of Japanese aesthetics. Since
1995, he has written almost exclusively for small chamber groups
and his works are typically quiet and sparse and deal with
abstract questions of signification, meaning and memory.
De Vos Malan's works are published by Musications (Cape Town) and
Seesaw Music (New York). Several works have been commissioned by
the SABC and Adcock-Ingram Ltd, while numerous works have been
performed, recorded and broadcast in Australia, Belgium,
Portugal, South Africa, Switzerland, the UK and the USA and at
the Banff Festival 2003 in Canada. His scores are included in the
library of the Gaudeamus Foundation Contemporary Music Centre,
Amsterdam; the New York Public Library; and the Australian Music
Collection.
The composer has conducted numerous performances of his own and
other living composers' music.
Jacques De Vos Malan — current to September 2009