Login

Enter your username and password

Photo: Roger Dilernia

Margaret Brandman's career in music as composer, pianist, recording artist, music educator, arranger, and writer on music education spans more than 50 years. Her award-winning compositions receive both live performances and airplay both in Australia and internationally. She has twice won the Artemis Women in Action Film Festival - Women Powered Music award for 'Best Foreign Composition'. In 2021 she received the award for her Symphonic Tone Poem SPIRIT VISIONS. In 2019 she received the award for her Firestorm Symphony (III) 'All the Trees are Growing' from her Sensations album (nv6041). Both works were performed and recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra for albums produced by Parma Recordings USA.

Born in 1951 into a musical family, Brandman studied accordion and piano from the age of four, taking up guitar and clarinet in her teens. Her education, supported by formal studies in piano, clarinet, harmony, and composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, covered many styles of music from Classical through to Jazz and Latin-American.

Brandman was awarded a scholarship to the University of Sydney, where she studied composition with Peter Sculthorpe. In 1975 she was awarded a Bachelor of Music (Composition), having already acquired her Associate Performer degree and Teacher of Pianoforte diploma. She has since also been awarded the F.Comp.ASMC, F.Mus.Ed.ASMC and L.Perf.ASMC degrees from the Australian Society for Musicology and Composition, Hon.FNMSM (UK), and the Dip.E in Piano Pedagogy of the World Piano Teacher's Association (Serbia).

Parma Recordings (USA) have produced four albums of Brandman compositions: Sensations - Wind, Waves, Birds, and Fire (nv6041) featuring one hour and nineteen minutes of her celebrated orchestral and chamber works, Polarities Vol.2 (nv 6353)a multi-composer album that includes her award-winning orchestral work Spirit Visions, Abrazo (AR0001), a multi-composer album recorded in Cuba, that includes her suite Warm Winds in Havana for saxophone quartet and percussion, and The Cosmic Wheel of the Zodiac (nv6160) a cycle of 12 songs, one for each sign of the Zodiac, composed to the lyrics of Astropoet Benita Rainer. This work was performed and recorded by the Prague Mixed Chamber Choir in 2017.

GENTLE SUMMER RAIN completed in October 2022 is her latest orchestral work recorded by the Moravian Philharmonic Orchestra in April 2023 for Parma Recordings.

Her Australian albums include her song cycle Songs of Love and Desire, written to the lyrics of mezzo-soprano Désirée Regina. In 2020 she composed several new works including Aurora Australis for orchestra and the Look Around suite for saxophone quartet, which has recently also been arranged for Clarinet Choir.

In 2021 she released three new works in her Cello Sensations series through the ModernClassicalx label: Lady of Grace, As Blue as Turquoise Pearls, and Jucaro Rhumba D'Amor. In 2022 she recorded five additional 'cello works for her BINNA BURRA DREAMING album released by AmbitionRecords201: Binna Burra Dreaming, Four Castles of Stone, Ariel's Dream, Universal Truth Remains, Snowgums in Silver Moonlight. The album also includes a bonus track: the premiere live performance of As Blue as Turquoise Pearls. All works are recorded by 'cellist Ariel Volovelsky together with Margaret on piano. The launch concert for the album was presented in the northern Sydney suburb of Allambie Heights. on the 26th of March 2023. In the April 2023 edition of the Fine Music Magazine reviewer Paul Cooke wrote ' the album is a pure delight to listen to'. Subsequently, the album charted as number one in both the ARIA classical and Classical Crossover charts in the week of the 24th of April 2023!

Margaret has also composed 'La Vida Apasionada' an eight-movement Latin-American dance suite for the Vov Dylan string ensemble. The first three movements premiered in a concert in April 2021 and the entire suite was recorded in September 2021. In addition, Vov Dylan and Margaret have this year recorded the violin and piano adaptations of the suite and filmed a video of the trio arrangements of the suite which were presented at the World Piano Teacher's Association online conference in October 2022. The premiere performance of the sextet arrangement of the complete suite, by the Vov Dylan Palace Orchestra, at Margaret Brandman's HIGHLIGHTS & PREMIERES concert on the 18th of September 2022 in the Grand Hall at Mosman Art Gallery, received a standing ovation.

Two significant syllabus additions in 2022: 1) 'When Spirits Soar' for Soprano Saxophone with piano is included in the 2022 ABRSM (UK) 8th-grade Syllabus 2) 'Jucaro Rhumba D'Amor' for Violin with Piano, is included in the 2022 AMEB 7th grade violin syllabus.

New for 2023: 1) WARM WINDS IN HAVANA Suite for String Quartet with optional percussion (fue10423) published by Furore Music (Germany). This work is being performed by the FELIX QUARTET at the Townsville Chamber Music Festival from the 24th of July 2023. 2) LOOK AROUND suite arranged for Clarinet Choir. This will be performed by the ensemble at Sydney Conservatorium conducted by Peter Anthony Smith.

At the recent 'Century of Australiana Concert' presented by FAMS Musical Society on the 25th of June 2023 Margaret was the featured composer She was invited to introduce her five songs, perform her 'Tango Apasionada' piano solo. and accompany two of the singers.

Forthcoming EUROPEAN concerts: Two concerts of her compositions for voice, violin, and piano, will be presented in Amsterdam on the 9th and 10th of September this year. Margaret will be performing as soloist, and piano associate for the concerts.

It has been said of Brandman works '"The music is melodious and intricate, beautifully played.... pieces straddle that indefinable line between jazz and contemporary classical/new music."

Margaret Brandman — current to July 2023