Donemus Webwinkel — Carey, Ross James

Ross James Carey is a composer and pianist. Born in Lower Hutt, New Zealand in 1969, he has been teaching at universities in Malaysia since 2010. As both a composer and piano soloist and collaborative artist Ross has been active in a variety of settings mostly in Australasia and the Asia-Pacific region, from international festivals (such as Asian Composers’ League Festivals, the first Singapore Asian Composers’ Festival, the BEAT! Festival of Gamelan in Wellington and the Yogyakarta Contemporary Music Festival), conferences (the first and second IMPAC conferences at Universiti Pendidkan Sultan Idris, Malaysia) to community and student-centred events, such as the Kilari-Lachlan River Arts Festival in Forbes, Australia, the Paradise Concert Series in Cairns and the NZCT Schools’ Chamber Music Contests in New Zealand. His compositions draw upon an eclectic range of sources, and include settings of his own words and those of other poets, programmatic works relating specifically to place as well as pedagogical pieces.
Recordings of Ross’ music include those by pianists Yuji Takahashi and Michael Kieran Harvey, guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita, harpist Helen Webby and Gamelan Padhang Moncar (New Zealand), while his scores have been published by Alea Publishers (Tacoma, WA), Wai-te-ata Press (Wellington), Sunrise Music Trust (Wellington), the Wellington Piano and Instrumental Group, the Centre for New Zealand Music (SOUNZ) and upcoming, in an anthology of variations on Twinkle Twinkle Little Star published by the Shanghai Conservatory of Music. An album of collaborative compositions for violin or viola and piano or vibraphone duo with composer Katia Tiutiunnik was published by Universiti Teknologi MARA Press, Malaysia. Ross has presented solo and collaborative piano recitals at Theatre Utan Kaya, Jakarta (2005 and 2008), the ‘International Congress of Women in Music’, Beijing (2008), the ‘East meets west’ conference at the Hong Kong Baptist University (2009) where he performed solo pieces by Chinese composers written since 1950, the Portable Concerto Project in Kobe (2012) as well as four editions of the Universiti Teknologi MARA Composers’ Series at the Kuala Lumpur Performing Arts Centre (2011-14). As a collaborative pianist he has performed (among others) with violinist Mayya Musaeva in ‘Music from Behind the Crimson Curtain’ featuring repertoire for violin and piano by Soviet-era composers in Kuala Lumpur, Shah Alam and Tanjong Malim, Malaysia.