Login

Enter your username and password

Forgotten your username or password?

Your Shopping Cart

There are no items in your shopping cart.

Bozidar Kos (1934-2015) : Represented Artist

Random Audio Sample: Modulations : for flute, two percussionists, ring modulator and filter (VCS3 synthesizer), and three potentiometers. by Bozidar Kos, from the CD Sideband.


Photo of Bozidar Kos

Bozidar Kos (B.Mus.[Hons], M.Mus, PhD) was a widely esteemed composer and educationalist. He was born in Novo mesto, Slovenia, in 1934. Kos began studying music at an early age and later became actively involved in jazz, playing throughout Europe. He moved to Australia in 1965 and began to compose seriously while a student of composition at the University of Adelaide. After a year of teaching at the Torrens College of Advanced Education, he was appointed in 1976 to the staff of the Faculty of Music at the University of Adelaide, where he later held the position of Fellow in Composition from 1978 to 1983. The following year Kos joined the staff of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and was later appointed Chair of Composition, a position he held until his retirement in 2002. He moved back to his native Slovenia in 2008.

Kos earned a number of important prizes, grants and awards, among them the Adolf Spivakovsky Scholarship for Composition in 1977, the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award in 1983, third prize at the XXIV Premio Musicale Citta di Trieste competition in 1987 (for his Violin Concerto), which also received, in 1991, three Sounds Australian National Music Critics' Awards, including the Award for the Best Australian Orchestral Work. In 2004 he received the Classical Music Award (State Award for South Australia) for Long-term Contribution to the Advancement of Australian Music. In 2003 he was elected Corresponding Member of the Slovenian Academy of Sciences and Arts and in 2009 became its full member.

Kos was active in many areas related to composition in Australia and Europe. In 1976 he participated at the Darmstadt Summer School, in 1983 he was teaching at the Summer School for Young Australian and New Zealand Composers and, in 1992, at the National Orchestral Composers' School. In 1995 he was a Visiting Professor at the Music Academy, the University of Ljubljana. For many years, Kos was a member of the committee of the ISCM Australia Section, and of the executive committee of the Fellowship of Australian Composers. In 1999 he was a composition tutor to participants in the Australian Composers Orchestral Forum.

Kos was commissioned by many leading soloists, ensembles and orchestras, as well as by the Sydney International Piano Competition, Music Board of Australia, and the Adelaide Festival of Arts. His music has been performed and recorded by a variety of renowned soloists, ensembles and orchestras in Australia and overseas (including Dene Olding, Monika Skalar, Wolfram Christ, Georg Pedersen, Daniel Herscovitch, Arditti String Quartet, Lontano Ensemble, Concorde Ensemble, Slowind Ensemble, Tambuco Percussion Ensemble, Sydney Alpha Ensemble, Australia Ensemble, the Seymour Group, Flederman, Synergy Percussion, Kiev Percussion, Sydney, Adelaide and Queensland Symphony Orchestras, Rundfunk-Sinfonieorchester Saarbrücken, Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenia, and the Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra).

Kos had numerous broadcasts of his music in Australia and in Europe. Recordings of his compositions have been released in Australia on Vox Australis and Tall Poppies labels and in Europe on Helidon and RTV Slovenia labels.

Recent works by Kos include: Catena 3, commissioned by the SLOWIND quintet; Fatamorgana, commissioned by the Offspring Ensemble, Symphony (In memoriam cara Milana), Symphony No. 2 (The Symphony Of Two Continents), commissioned by the Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenia, and Symphony No. 3, completed in 2012.

Bozidar Kos passed away in Slovenia on 29 March 2015.


Teacher/Influence on

Brad Gill (1998 - 2002)

Damien Ricketson (1992 - 1995)

Awards & Prizes

Year Award Placing Awarded for
1983 Albert H Maggs Composition Award First Prize
1977 Adolph Spivakovsky Scholarship for the Composition of Music Winner

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
Concerto for cello and orchestra : cello with orchestra (2010) Commissioned by Slovenian Philharmonic Orchestra.
Symphony No.2 : The Symphony of Two Continents : full orchestra (2008) Commissioned by Symphony Orchestra RTV Slovenia.
Fatamorgana (sextets: flute, clarinet, piano, marimba, violin, cello) (2004) Commissioned by Ensemble Offspring.
Digital sheet music sample Catena 3 : for wind quintet (2003) Commissioned by and dedicated to the SLOWIND quintet
Evocations II : for guitar solo (1999) Commissioned by Geoffrey Morris.
Aurora Australis : for orchestra (1997) Commissioned by Australian Broadcasting Corporation.