Michael Kieran Harvey
Encyclopedia
Michael Kieran Harvey is an Australia
n pianist
whose career has been notable for its diversity and wide repertoire. He is renowned for commissioning and performing new music. He has especially promoted the works of Australian composers, such as Carl Vine
, all of whose piano music he has recorded and much of which was written for him. He is also particularly associated with the piano music of Olivier Messiaen
.
According to critic Clive O'Connell in The Age
: "Few Australian pianists can touch Michael Kieran Harvey, one of the most exciting exponents of contemporary music in the country".
in 1961. He says that as a child he had great difficulty in coming to terms with being a musician, as he played four different codes of football and was also involved in surf lifesaving. His sister is the pianist Bernadette Harvey-Balkus; his brother Dominic Harvey is head of brass at the Australian National University
; and another sister Rowan Harvey is a violinist. His mother Anne (a student of Alexander Sverjensky
) had to abandon plans to become a concert pianist when her father died in her mid-teens; and his father Francis was a journalist and for a time a freelance cellist.
Michael studied piano at the Canberra School of Music
with Alan Jenkins, at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
under Gordon Watson, and at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music
, Budapest
, under Sándor Falvai. He first came to international prominence by jointly winning with Edith Chen the 1993 International Solo Piano Competition founded by Ivo Pogorelić
in Pasadena, California
; this was the world's richest piano competition. He played Carl Vine
's Piano Sonata No. 1 there. He entered the competition not believing he could win, but as an excuse to go to Los Angeles to see Frank Zappa
, who was very ill, and to seek permission to play his piano music in public. However, Zappa died on the day of the finals and Harvey did not meet him. His manager from Columbia Artists Management was Ronald Wilford, who was Glenn Gould
’s manager, and at that stage Ivo Pogorelić's own manager.
In 1998, he and his sister Bernadette Harvey-Balkus formed a two-piano ensemble called Australian Virtuosi.
He is currently on staff at the Australian National Academy of Music
, Visiting Artist at the Victorian College of the Arts, and Fellow of the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne
.
He has premiered many new Australian concertos by composers such as Carl Vine
, Nigel Westlake
, Paul Grabowsky
, Larry Sitsky
and Barry Conyngham
. He has given Australian premieres of important international works by Andriessen, Wolpe, Martino, Frank Zappa, Jon Lord
(of Deep Purple
), Keith Emerson
(of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
), and Milton Babbitt
.
Michael Kieran Harvey has worked with conductors such as Edo de Waart
, Reinbert de Leeuw, Diego Masson
, Markus Stenz
and Kristjan Järvi
, and has collaborated with the Arditti Quartet
, the Netherlands and Luxembourg Philharmonics, Jon Lord, Keith Emerson, Absolute Ensemble and Paul Grabowsky. He regularly appears as soloist with Australian symphony orchestras.
He has performed and recorded most of Olivier Messiaen
's works involving piano to high critical acclaim. In 2005 he released a live 3-CD recording of the Australian premiere of the entire Catalogue d'oiseaux featuring Peter Cundall
as narrator.
He has recorded Carl Vine's complete piano music (including the 12 Preludes of 2006), much of which was written for him. He commissioned Nigel Westlake
’s Piano Sonatas I (1998) and II (2004) and Piano Concerto (2000) and gave the premiere performances.
In 2005 the Michael Kieran Harvey Scholarship was established and funded by Susan Mary Remington in honour of his contribution to Australian music, and to encourage future directions in keyboard art music.
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n pianist
Piano
The piano is a musical instrument played by means of a keyboard. It is one of the most popular instruments in the world. Widely used in classical and jazz music for solo performances, ensemble use, chamber music and accompaniment, the piano is also very popular as an aid to composing and rehearsal...
whose career has been notable for its diversity and wide repertoire. He is renowned for commissioning and performing new music. He has especially promoted the works of Australian composers, such as Carl Vine
Carl Vine
Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...
, all of whose piano music he has recorded and much of which was written for him. He is also particularly associated with the piano music of Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
.
According to critic Clive O'Connell in The Age
The Age
The Age is a daily broadsheet newspaper, which has been published in Melbourne, Australia since 1854. Owned and published by Fairfax Media, The Age primarily serves Victoria, but is also available for purchase in Tasmania, the Australian Capital Territory and border regions of South Australia and...
: "Few Australian pianists can touch Michael Kieran Harvey, one of the most exciting exponents of contemporary music in the country".
Biography
Michael Kieran Harvey was born in SydneySydney
Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...
in 1961. He says that as a child he had great difficulty in coming to terms with being a musician, as he played four different codes of football and was also involved in surf lifesaving. His sister is the pianist Bernadette Harvey-Balkus; his brother Dominic Harvey is head of brass at the Australian National University
Australian National University
The Australian National University is a teaching and research university located in the Australian capital, Canberra.As of 2009, the ANU employs 3,945 administrative staff who teach approximately 10,000 undergraduates, and 7,500 postgraduate students...
; and another sister Rowan Harvey is a violinist. His mother Anne (a student of Alexander Sverjensky
Alexander Sverjensky
Alexander Borisovich Sverjensky was a Russian-born Australian pianist and teacher....
) had to abandon plans to become a concert pianist when her father died in her mid-teens; and his father Francis was a journalist and for a time a freelance cellist.
Michael studied piano at the Canberra School of Music
ANU School of Music
The School of Music is a school within the Faculty of Arts of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of Music building - which contains Llewellyn Hall - and the Peter Karmel Building....
with Alan Jenkins, at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Sydney Conservatorium of Music
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...
under Gordon Watson, and at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music
Franz Liszt Academy of Music
The Franz Liszt Academy of Music is a concert hall and music conservatory in Budapest, Hungary, founded on November 14, 1875...
, Budapest
Budapest
Budapest is the capital of Hungary. As the largest city of Hungary, it is the country's principal political, cultural, commercial, industrial, and transportation centre. In 2011, Budapest had 1,733,685 inhabitants, down from its 1989 peak of 2,113,645 due to suburbanization. The Budapest Commuter...
, under Sándor Falvai. He first came to international prominence by jointly winning with Edith Chen the 1993 International Solo Piano Competition founded by Ivo Pogorelić
Ivo Pogorelic
Ivo Pogorelić is a Croatian pianist.-Early life:He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia, to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother...
in Pasadena, California
Pasadena, California
Pasadena is a city in Los Angeles County, California, United States. Although famous for hosting the annual Rose Bowl football game and Tournament of Roses Parade, Pasadena is the home to many scientific and cultural institutions, including the California Institute of Technology , the Jet...
; this was the world's richest piano competition. He played Carl Vine
Carl Vine
Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...
's Piano Sonata No. 1 there. He entered the competition not believing he could win, but as an excuse to go to Los Angeles to see Frank Zappa
Frank Zappa
Frank Vincent Zappa was an American composer, singer-songwriter, electric guitarist, record producer and film director. In a career spanning more than 30 years, Zappa wrote rock, jazz, orchestral and musique concrète works. He also directed feature-length films and music videos, and designed...
, who was very ill, and to seek permission to play his piano music in public. However, Zappa died on the day of the finals and Harvey did not meet him. His manager from Columbia Artists Management was Ronald Wilford, who was Glenn Gould
Glenn Gould
Glenn Herbert Gould was a Canadian pianist who became one of the best-known and most celebrated classical pianists of the 20th century. He was particularly renowned as an interpreter of the keyboard music of Johann Sebastian Bach...
’s manager, and at that stage Ivo Pogorelić's own manager.
In 1998, he and his sister Bernadette Harvey-Balkus formed a two-piano ensemble called Australian Virtuosi.
He is currently on staff at the Australian National Academy of Music
Australian National Academy of Music
The Australian National Academy of Music is Australia's centre of excellence responsible for training the country's finest young musicians. Located in the South Melbourne, Victoria, it is a member of the Australian Roundtable for Arts Training Excellence...
, Visiting Artist at the Victorian College of the Arts, and Fellow of the Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne
University of Melbourne
The University of Melbourne is a public university located in Melbourne, Victoria. Founded in 1853, it is the second oldest university in Australia and the oldest in Victoria...
.
He has premiered many new Australian concertos by composers such as Carl Vine
Carl Vine
Carl Vine is an Australian composer of contemporary classical music.-Career:Vine was born in Perth, Western Australia. When he was ten years old, he took up the piano. An adolescent encounter with Karlheinz Stockhausen inspired a period as a teenage modernist, a direction which he abandoned in 1985...
, Nigel Westlake
Nigel Westlake
-Biography:Nigel Westlake's career in music has spanned more than 3 decades.He studied the clarinet with his father, Donald Westlake and subsequently left school early to pursue a performance career in music.Nigel toured Australia and the world playing with ballet companies, a circus troupe,...
, Paul Grabowsky
Paul Grabowsky
-Biography:Grabowsky was born on 27 September 1958 in Lae, Papua New Guinea; his father Alistair had lived in Papua New Guinea with his wife Charlotte since the 1930s working on oil rigs, building roads, flying planes and playing the drums...
, Larry Sitsky
Larry Sitsky
Lazar Sitsky AM, usually referred to as Larry Sitsky, born 10 September 1934, is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar...
and Barry Conyngham
Barry Conyngham
Emeritus Professor Barry Conyngham AM is an Australian composer and academic. He has over seventy published works and over thirty recordings featuring his compositions, and his works have been premiered or performed in Australia, Japan, North and South America, the United Kingdom and Europe. His...
. He has given Australian premieres of important international works by Andriessen, Wolpe, Martino, Frank Zappa, Jon Lord
Jon Lord
Jonathan Douglas "Jon" Lord is an English composer, pianist and Hammond organ player.Jon Lord, also known as 'Hammond Lord', is a classically trained piano player. He is recognised for his Hammond organ blues-rock sound and for his pioneering work in fusing rock and classical or baroque forms...
(of Deep Purple
Deep Purple
Deep Purple are an English rock band formed in Hertford in 1968. Along with Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, they are considered to be among the pioneers of heavy metal and modern hard rock, although some band members believe that their music cannot be categorised as belonging to any one genre...
), Keith Emerson
Keith Emerson
Keith Noel Emerson is an English keyboard player and composer. Formerly a member of the Keith Emerson Trio, John Brown's Bodies, The T-Bones, V.I.P.s, P.P. Arnold's backing band, and The Nice , he was a founder of Emerson, Lake & Palmer , one of the early supergroups, in 1970...
(of Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer
Emerson, Lake & Palmer, also known as ELP, are an English progressive rock supergroup. They found success in the 1970s and sold over forty million albums and headlined large stadium concerts. The band consists of Keith Emerson , Greg Lake and Carl Palmer...
), and Milton Babbitt
Milton Babbitt
Milton Byron Babbitt was an American composer, music theorist, and teacher. He is particularly noted for his serial and electronic music.-Biography:...
.
Michael Kieran Harvey has worked with conductors such as Edo de Waart
Edo de Waart
Edo de Waart is a Dutch conductor, and the Music Director of both the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra and the Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra....
, Reinbert de Leeuw, Diego Masson
Diego Masson
Diego Masson is a French conductor, composer, and percussionist.The son of artist André Masson and brother of the singer and actor Luís Masson, Diego Masson studied piano and composition at the Paris Conservatoire...
, Markus Stenz
Markus Stenz
Markus Stenz is a German conductor. He studied at the Hochschule für Musik Köln with Volker Wangenhein and at Tanglewood with Leonard Bernstein and Seiji Ozawa....
and Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi
Kristjan Järvi is an Estonian-American conductor. Järvi is the younger son of Neeme Järvi, and the brother of conductor Paavo Järvi and flutist Maarika Järvi....
, and has collaborated with the Arditti Quartet
Arditti Quartet
The Arditti Quartet is a string quartet founded in 1974. The quartet is associated particularly with contemporary music.-Early history:The quartet was founded in 1974 by violinist Irvine Arditti together with John Senter, Levine Andrade and Lenox Mackenzie...
, the Netherlands and Luxembourg Philharmonics, Jon Lord, Keith Emerson, Absolute Ensemble and Paul Grabowsky. He regularly appears as soloist with Australian symphony orchestras.
He has performed and recorded most of Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen
Olivier Messiaen was a French composer, organist and ornithologist, one of the major composers of the 20th century. His music is rhythmically complex ; harmonically and melodically it is based on modes of limited transposition, which he abstracted from his early compositions and improvisations...
's works involving piano to high critical acclaim. In 2005 he released a live 3-CD recording of the Australian premiere of the entire Catalogue d'oiseaux featuring Peter Cundall
Peter Cundall
Peter Cundall, AM is a horticulturalist, conservationist, author, broadcaster and television personality in Australia. He currently lives in Tasmania's Tamar Valley, and until the age of 81 continued to be a presenter of the ABC TV program Gardening Australia. His last show aired on 26 July 2008...
as narrator.
He has recorded Carl Vine's complete piano music (including the 12 Preludes of 2006), much of which was written for him. He commissioned Nigel Westlake
Nigel Westlake
-Biography:Nigel Westlake's career in music has spanned more than 3 decades.He studied the clarinet with his father, Donald Westlake and subsequently left school early to pursue a performance career in music.Nigel toured Australia and the world playing with ballet companies, a circus troupe,...
’s Piano Sonatas I (1998) and II (2004) and Piano Concerto (2000) and gave the premiere performances.
In 2005 the Michael Kieran Harvey Scholarship was established and funded by Susan Mary Remington in honour of his contribution to Australian music, and to encourage future directions in keyboard art music.
Honours
- Joint Grand Prix in the 1993 International Solo Piano Competition (usually referred to as the Ivo PogorelićIvo PogorelicIvo Pogorelić is a Croatian pianist.-Early life:He was born in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, now Serbia, to a Croatian father and a Serbian mother...
Piano Competition, after its founder) in Pasadena, with Edith Chen - DebussyClaude DebussyClaude-Achille Debussy was a French composer. Along with Maurice Ravel, he was one of the most prominent figures working within the field of impressionist music, though he himself intensely disliked the term when applied to his compositions...
Medal (Paris 1985) - Finalist, Inaugural International Franz Liszt Piano CompetitionInternational Franz Liszt Piano CompetitionThe International Franz Liszt Piano Competition , a member of WFIMC, is an international piano competition.The Competition is held in Utrecht in the Netherlands. It first took place in 1986, one hundred years after the death of Franz Liszt...
, Utrecht, Netherlands (1986) - Four consecutive Australian Mo AwardsMo AwardsThe Mo Awards are long running annual Australian entertainment industry awards. They recognise achievements in live entertainment in Australia....
for best classical artist - Awarded the Australian Government's Centenary Medal for services to Australian music (2002)
- Three times nominated for the HelpmannRobert HelpmannSir Robert Helpmann CBE was an Australian dancer, actor, theatre director and choreographer.-Early years:He was born Robert Murray Helpman in Mount Gambier, South Australia and also boarded at Prince Alfred College in Adelaide. From childhood, Helpman had a strong desire to be a dancer...
Award - His recordings are regularly nominated in the ARIAARIA Music AwardsThe Australian Recording Industry Association Music Awards is an annual series of awards nights celebrating the Australian music industry, put on by the Australian Recording Industry Association...
s and APRAAPRA AwardsThe APRA Music Awards are several award ceremonies run in Australia and New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually....
s. - APRAAPRA AwardsThe APRA Music Awards are several award ceremonies run in Australia and New Zealand by Australasian Performing Right Association to recognise songwriting skills, sales and airplay performance by its members annually....
Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music (2009)
Sources
- http://www.abc.net.au/rn/music/mshow/s928158.htmThe Music Show with Andrew FordAndrew FordAndrew Ford is an English and Australian composer, writer and radio presenter.He was Composer-in-residence with the Australian Chamber Orchestra , held the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composer Fellowship from 1998 to 2000 and was awarded a two-year fellowship by the Music Board of the Australia Council...
] - move: Michael Kieran Harvey
- move: Catalogue d’oiseaux
- Recitals Australia, Media Information
- Sunday, 20 April 2003
- University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music