Composer Profile

David Keeffe

(1956–)

Hometown: London (United Kingdom)

Living in: Melbourne, Victoria

At age six, David Keeffe met Benjamin Britten and shook his hand. Perhaps it was inevitable that he would eventually become a composer too. David was born into a musical family in London but has called Melbourne home since 1997. He studied with the late Sir John Tavener, and more recently with Julian Yu, Brenton Broadstock, and Stuart Greenbaum. David has just completed a PhD in composition at the University of Melbourne. David believes that, because music has become so available to everyone, it has developed a wide vocabulary of allusion and metaphor. His works use this to tell stories and to create images in the mind of the listener. The repurposing and transformation of established material and idiom are all parts of his palette: for example, using traditional forms such as the military march to portray irregular melodies, or taking Schoenberg’s twelve-tone methods to create gentle, harmonious sounds. David has had works played by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Defence Force School of Music Band, the Heidelberg Wind Ensemble, the Grainger Wind Symphony, the Guildhall School of Music Horn Choir, Oakleigh Brass and Sydney’s Bourbaki Ensemble. Recent works include Against the Odds, a micro-symphony for small orchestra; The Thousand Steps, The Eternal Triangle, and St Kilda, all for symphony orchestra; In Time Like Glass, a song cycle for baritone, oboe, and piano; and Pasquino and Neon Lights, both for wind ensemble. His most recently premiered work for brass is For the Fallen, a setting of part of Laurence Binyon’s poem with solo baritone.

Horn Ensemble Works

The Midnight Prince, a Ballet foThe Midnight Prince, a Ballet for 8 Horns20078 horns