Brett Kelly
One of Australia's leading resident conductors, Brett Kelly is also Principal Trombonist of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Artistic Director and Chief Conductor of the Academy of Melbourne and Music Advisor/Resident Conductor for Chamber Made Opera.
Brett studied at the Newcastle branch of the NSW State Conservatorium and was Principal Trombonist in the Australian Youth Orchestra in 1978 and 79.
He joined the orchestra of Opera Australia in 1980 before taking up his current position in Melbourne in 1981.
From 1983 he was a member of the Australian contemporary music ensemble Flederman, and he has also been a core member of The Seymour Group and Elision and has conducted the premiere of numerous works.
He has also performed as soloist with the Melbourne, Sydney and Queensland Symphony Orchestras.
Brett studied conducting with the distinguished Austrian/Romanian conductor Robert Rosen and in 1991 studied at the Vienna Conservatory, then in Switzerland, Salzburg and Czechoslovakia.
With the Academy of Melbourne, which he formed in 1989 from among his colleagues in the MSO, Brett has conducted fifteen seasons of the Mozart Collection series at Hawthorn Town Hall.
He has also conducted most of Australia's major orchestras, including the Melbourne, Tasmanian, West Australian and Hunter Symphony Orchestras, The Queensland Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, the Adelaide Chamber Orchestra and the Elision and Schirmer ensembles. He has conducted CD recordings for labels such as NAXOS, Tall Poppies and ABC Classics.
Brett was Artistic Director of the 1999 and 2001 Castlemaine State Festivals and in 2001 stepped in at short notice to conduct three concerts with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra featuring soloist Ian Munro.
During 2004 he conducted The Queensland Orchestra, the MSO, TSO and The Academy of Melbourne and a new production for ChamberMade Opera of The Hive by Nicholas Vines.
Brett Kelly