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Photo: Bridget Elliot

Andrew Schultz was born in Australia in 1960. His teachers and mentors included George Crumb, David Lumsdaine and Luciano Berio and he studied at the Universities of Queensland, Pennsylvania and King's College London. Schultz has been the recipient of various awards and prizes in Australia and overseas, including Australia Council Composer Fellowships, a Fulbright Award, a Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan Award, and the APRA Award for Classical Music.

His music covers a broad range of chamber, orchestral and vocal works and has been performed, recorded and broadcast by leading groups and musicians internationally. Over a fifteen-year period, Schultz has been especially engaged in a series of large-scale dramatic works.

His three operas (Black River, Going Into Shadows and The Children's Bach) have been presented live and on film. Black River (1988) was awarded the Australian National Composer Opera Award and, in its film version by Kevin Lucas, the Grand-Prix, Opera Screen in Paris. Going Into Shadows (2000), commissioned by London's Guildhall School of Music and Drama with assistance from the David Cohen Foundation, was premiered in London and Australia in 2001. Both operas are to texts by his journalist sister, Julianne Schultz. The Children's Bach (2008) was commissioned by ChamberMade Opera and is based on Helen Garner's novel to a libretto by Glenn Perry.

Journey to Horseshoe Bend (to a text by Gordon Kalton Williams) is a cantata based on TGH Strehlow's work in Central Australia and had its first performance in 2003 by the Sydney Symphony, and has since been released on ABC Classics. Another large-scale work is a setting of the Song of Songs with a text by Barry Hill. Scored for 18 voices, the work was commissioned by ABC Radio and The Song Company and had its first performance at the Sydney Opera House in 2004. It was released with other of the composer's choral music on a Song Company CD in 2008. Other works for The Song Company include Ekstasis (1990), Data est lux (1997) and Wildflower (2006) - all to sacred texts.

Schultz's recent orchestral works include Once upon a time... (2006) for The Queensland Orchestra, Endling (2007) for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and Ghosts of Reason (2008) for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. The latter work was the Schuller Award recipient in 2008 whilst Endling and Once upon a time... have been recorded by the TSO with the Violin Concerto (Jennifer Pike soloist) for release on ABC Classics. Another recent CD release is a second volume of Schultz's Chamber Music - Suspended Preludes on the Tall Poppies label.

Recent compositions include Beach Burial (2009) for the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and Orchestra and Magnificat (2009) for the Sydney Chamber Choir. Other recent works include Ash-Fire (2001) for the Teatro Lirico Sperimentale, Spoleto, Southern Ocean (1999) for the 50th Anniversary Intervarsity Choir and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (to a text by Margaret Scott), In Tempore Stellae (1998) for the Melbourne Chorale, Falling Man/Dancing Man (2005) for the Melbourne Symphony, and Quicksilver Serenade (2004), Diver's Lament (1996) and The Devil's Music (1992) for the Sydney Symphony. Current projects include a series of chamber works commissioned for an Australia Council Fellowship.

Schultz has held posts and residencies in Europe, Australia and North America including as Head of Composition at the Guildhall School of Music (London), Professor of Composition at the University of Wollongong, Visiting Artist at the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada) and, since February 2009, Professor of Music at the University of New South Wales in Sydney.

Biography provided by the composer — current to September 2009