Paul Grabowsky

Solo Piano

Much of this performance will be taken from Grabowsky’s album ‘Solo’, featuring all the hallmarks that have made him one of the world’s foremost jazz instrumentalists and composers.  This is jazz for the connoisseur: rich, engaging, full of allusion and wit. 

It is difficult to describe Paul Grabowsky’s career easily. He has been a director of some of Australia’s most prominent arts festivals, the composer of nearly thirty feature film scores, and several works of music theatre, the founder and leader for nineteen years of the Australian Art Orchestra, an executive at the ABC, and currently heads up Monash University Performing Arts Centres.

Whether as composer, teacher, television personality, mentor or advocate for the role of artistic expression as a defining attribute of contemporary life, for him this is all informed by his work as a pianist, and composer, particularly in the field of jazz, where, according to him, ‘the piano never lies’.

His musical journeys have resulted in collaborations with musicians from many countries, not least with the First Nations peoples of Australia, and those journeys continue. Among his many awards are eight ARIA Awards, the Melbourne Prize for Music and an H.C. Coombs Fellowship. In recognition of his achievements, he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia in 2014.

Concert Program:

Paul Grabowsky is a pianist, composer, arranger, conductor – and is one Australia’s most distinguished artists.

He lived and worked in Europe and the US from 1980-85, during which time he performed with many jazz luminaries including Chet Baker, Art Farmer and Johnny Griffin.

He was musical director of Tonight Live with Steve Vizard (a nationally televised variety show) from 1990-1992. He was Commissioning Editor (Arts and Entertainment) for ABC Television 1995-98.

He has written the scores for over twenty feature film scores in Australia, the UK and US. Television credits include the series ‘Phoenix’ and ‘Janus’ and the Emmy-winning ‘Empire Falls’. His works for the theater include four operas and various multimedia works.

He is the Founding Artistic Director of the Australian Art Orchestra, which he led from 1994-2013.

He has won eight ARIA awards, two Helpmann awards, several APRA and Bell Awards and a Deadly award. He was the Sydney Myer Performing Artist of the Year in 2000, and received the Melbourne Prize for Music in 2007. He was the 2010 Australian National University H.C.Coombs Fellow.

He was Artistic Director of the Queensland Music Festival from 2005-2007 and was Artistic Director of the Adelaide Festival of Arts for 2010 and 2012. He is currently director of the Monash University Performing Arts Centres and the Monash Art Ensemble. He oversaw the development of the Ian Potter Centre for Performing Arts, which opened in May 2019.

In 2014 he was made an Officer of the Order of Australia for services to music and arts administration. In 2019 he was appointed Artist in Residence for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for which he composed 4 symphonic works.

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