Christopher Sainsbury is a composer, performer and teacher of music. he is an associate professor at the

ANU School of Music The ANU School of Music is a school in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, which forms part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of ...

, Canberra, where he lectures in composition, songwriting, and contemporary Australian Indigenous music. He is descended from the Dharug Aboriginal people, and is the founder and artistic director of the Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers program.

Early life and education

Sainsbury was born on the

Central Coast, New South Wales The Central Coast is a peri-urban region in New South Wales, Australia, lying on the Tasman Sea coast to the north of Sydney and south of Newcastle. The local government area of the Central Coast Council has an estimated population of ...

in 1963. In his early years, Sainsbury was involved in various regional and community musical groups during the 1960s and 1970s which have become important influences in his work. In 1984, Sainsbury studied composition under Australian conductor and composer Richard Mills. Sainsbury attended the Northern Rivers College of Advanced Education (now the

Southern Cross University Southern Cross University (SCU) is an Australian public university, with campuses at Lismore and Coffs Harbour in northern New South Wales, and at Coolangatta, the most southern suburb of the Gold Coast in Queensland. It is ranked in the top ...

) where he was awarded the College Medal in 1986. He began teaching music at the

Eora College TAFE NSW is an Australian vocational education and training provider. Annually, the network trains over 500,000 students in campus, workplace, online, or distance education methods of education. It was established as an independent statutory bod ...

in 1990 where he was the Head of Arts and Media until 2015. Since then, Sainsbury has been teaching at the ANU School of Music.

Career

Sainsbury has made significant contributions to elevating Australian First Nations voices and representation in music. He also writes about Indigenous representation and misappropriation in the cultural arena. The most significant of his contributions is the establishment of Ngarra-Burria: First Peoples Composers (initially known as the Indigenous Composer Initiative) in 2016. He has provided mentorship to the Indigenous composer and hip hop musician known as

DOBBY Rhyan Clapham, known by his stage name Dobby (stylised as DOBBY), is a Filipino-Aboriginal Australian musician. He describes himself as a "drapper", a contraction of rapper and drummer, although he also plays other instruments and is also a compo ...

. he is Associate Professor in Composition, Songwriting, Australian Indigenous Music (Contemporary), Australian Music Studies, and Artistic Director Ngarra-burria First Peoples Composers Program at ANU. Sainsbury is the composer for opera, The Visitors, a First Nation's perspective centered on telling the story of the eve of colonisation in Australia, premiering world wide in October 2023 via

Victorian Opera Victorian Opera is an opera company based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The company was founded in 2005 by the Victorian Government as a replacement for the Victoria State Opera. It commenced operations in January 2006 with Richard Gill as ...

Music

Sainsbury writes music for many different ensembles and in varying styles. He describes himself as ''"a regionalist composer"'' as a way to acknowledge his regional upbringing as his most important influence on his music. He cites composers as varied as James Penberthy,

Steve Swallow Steve Swallow (born October 4, 1940) is an American jazz bassist and composer, known for his collaborations with Jimmy Giuffre, Gary Burton, and Carla Bley. He was one of the first jazz double bassists to switch entirely to electric bass guitar. ...

and

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

as influences in his music, as well as genres including jazz and surf music. He has written for many different instrumentations ranging from solo to orchestral pieces, some of which has been described as ''"orchestral surf music."''

Recognition

In 2020, he was awarded the APRA Art Music Inaugural National Luminary Award in recognition of his work with Ngarra-Burria; an award he says is also "a recognition that the program is built on the back of my 35 years work as a composer and 30 years work in Indigenous music education".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Sainsbury, Christopher 1963 births Living people Australian composers Indigenous Australian musicians APRA Award winners