Dirk Brossé
Encyclopedia
Dirk Brossé is a Flemish
Flanders
Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 Belgian
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

 composer
Composer
A composer is a person who creates music, either by musical notation or oral tradition, for interpretation and performance, or through direct manipulation of sonic material through electronic media...

 and conductor
Conducting
Conducting is the art of directing a musical performance by way of visible gestures. The primary duties of the conductor are to unify performers, set the tempo, execute clear preparations and beats, and to listen critically and shape the sound of the ensemble...

. He’s one of Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

's most talented composers. Since 1999 Brossé is Musical Host of the International Flanders Film Festival
World Soundtrack Academy
The World Soundtrack Academy , launched in 2001 by the Flanders International Film Festival Ghent, is aimed at organizing and overseeing the educational, cultural and professional aspects of the art of film music, including the preservation of the history of the soundtrack and its worldwide promotion...

 in Ghent
Ghent
Ghent is a city and a municipality located in the Flemish region of Belgium. It is the capital and biggest city of the East Flanders province. The city started as a settlement at the confluence of the Rivers Scheldt and Lys and in the Middle Ages became one of the largest and richest cities of...

 and he held also the title of Music Director of the Tokyo
Tokyo
, ; officially , is one of the 47 prefectures of Japan. Tokyo is the capital of Japan, the center of the Greater Tokyo Area, and the largest metropolitan area of Japan. It is the seat of the Japanese government and the Imperial Palace, and the home of the Japanese Imperial Family...

 International Music Festival
Music festival
A music festival is a festival oriented towards music that is sometimes presented with a theme such as musical genre, nationality or locality of musicians, or holiday. They are commonly held outdoors, and are often inclusive of other attractions such as food and merchandise vending machines,...

.

Brossé is best known for his collaborations with Belgian director Stijn Coninx
Stijn Coninx
Stijn, Baron Coninx is a Belgian film director best known for the movie Daens. He was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium...

. He composed the music for Hector
Urbanus
Urbain Servranckx , also known as Urbain and Urbanus van Anus, is a Belgian stand-up comedian, actor, singer and comic book writer.-Career:...

 (1987), Koko Flanel (1989), Daens
Daens (film)
Daens is a 1992 Belgian film directed by Stijn Coninx. This 1992 drama starring Jan Decleir, Gérard Desarthe, Antje de Boeck and Michael Pas, tells the true story of Adolf Daens, a Catholic priest in Aalst who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in the local factories...

 (1993), When The Light Comes (1998) and Kavijaks (2005). Dirk Brossé is also known for conducting the music for the movies Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...

and The Good Thief (with music by Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal
Elliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways...

). In 2009, Dirk Brossé conducted John Williams
John Williams
John Towner Williams is an American composer, conductor, and pianist. In a career spanning almost six decades, he has composed some of the most recognizable film scores in the history of motion pictures, including the Star Wars saga, Jaws, Superman, the Indiana Jones films, E.T...

's original music for Star Wars: In Concert
Star Wars: In Concert
Star Wars: In Concert, previously called Star Wars: A Musical Journey, is a series of concerts featuring a symphony orchestra and choir, along with footage from the Star Wars saga films displayed on a large LED screen at three stories tall. The screen is set to live performances of the Star Wars...

.

Education

Dirk Brossé's musical studies were initially undertaken at the Royal Music Conservatories of Ghent and Brussels
Brussels
Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 before focusing on conducting studies in Maastricht
Maastricht
Maastricht is situated on both sides of the Meuse river in the south-eastern part of the Netherlands, on the Belgian border and near the German border...

, Vienna
Vienna
Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

 and Cologne
Cologne
Cologne is Germany's fourth-largest city , and is the largest city both in the Germany Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than ten million inhabitants.Cologne is located on both sides of the...

, gaining his conducting diploma from the Musikhochschule of Cologne.

Work as conductor

Dirk Brossé has been invited to conduct many of Belgian's major orchestras, including the Flemish Radio Orchestra (VRT
Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroep
The Vlaamse Radio- en Televisieomroeporganisatie , or VRT, is a publicly-funded broadcaster of radio and television in Flanders ....

) and the National Orchestra of Belgium
National Orchestra of Belgium
The Nationaal Orkest van België or Orchestre National de Belgique is the oldest of two major orchestras now in Belgium, along with the Orchestre Philharmonique de Liège....

.

Abroad he has conducted the Milan
Milan
Milan is the second-largest city in Italy and the capital city of the region of Lombardy and of the province of Milan. The city proper has a population of about 1.3 million, while its urban area, roughly coinciding with its administrative province and the bordering Province of Monza and Brianza ,...

 Symphony Orchestra , the Volgograd
Volgograd
Volgograd , formerly called Tsaritsyn and Stalingrad is an important industrial city and the administrative center of Volgograd Oblast, Russia. It is long, north to south, situated on the western bank of the Volga River...

 Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, London Philharmonic Orchestra
London Philharmonic Orchestra
The London Philharmonic Orchestra , based in London, is one of the major orchestras of the United Kingdom, and is based in the Royal Festival Hall. In addition, the LPO is the main resident orchestra of the Glyndebourne Festival Opera...

, the Elgin Orchestra of Chicago, the Camerata St Petersburg, the Ulster Orchestra of Northern Ireland, the Orquestra Metropolitana de Lisboa and the National Orchestras of Venezuela
Venezuela
Venezuela , officially called the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela , is a tropical country on the northern coast of South America. It borders Colombia to the west, Guyana to the east, and Brazil to the south...

, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...

 and Ecuador
Ecuador
Ecuador , officially the Republic of Ecuador is a representative democratic republic in South America, bordered by Colombia on the north, Peru on the east and south, and by the Pacific Ocean to the west. It is one of only two countries in South America, along with Chile, that do not have a border...

.

In 2001 he started working with The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra is a Dutch symphony orchestra based in Rotterdam. Its primary venue is the concert hall De Doelen. The RPhO is considered one of the Netherlands' two principal orchestras of international standing, second to the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra of Amsterdam...

, The London Symphony Orchestra
London Symphony Orchestra
The London Symphony Orchestra is a major orchestra of the United Kingdom, as well as one of the best-known orchestras in the world. Since 1982, the LSO has been based in London's Barbican Centre.-History:...

 and The KBS Symphonic Orchestra of Seoul.

In 2009 he started his work with Star Wars: In concert
Star Wars: In Concert
Star Wars: In Concert, previously called Star Wars: A Musical Journey, is a series of concerts featuring a symphony orchestra and choir, along with footage from the Star Wars saga films displayed on a large LED screen at three stories tall. The screen is set to live performances of the Star Wars...



2009 marked Brosse's debut as musical director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, succeeding Ignat Solzhenitsyn
Ignat Solzhenitsyn
Ignat Aleksandrovich Solzhenitsyn is a Russian-American conductor and pianist who is the conductor laureate of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and the principal guest conductor of the Moscow Symphony Orchestra.-Career:...

.

Film and Musical works

His works include songs, symphonic works, oratorios, chamber music
Chamber music
Chamber music is a form of classical music, written for a small group of instruments which traditionally could be accommodated in a palace chamber. Most broadly, it includes any art music that is performed by a small number of performers with one performer to a part...

 and music for the theatre and film. Among his 20 distinctive film scores for award-winning films are "Daens
Daens (film)
Daens is a 1992 Belgian film directed by Stijn Coninx. This 1992 drama starring Jan Decleir, Gérard Desarthe, Antje de Boeck and Michael Pas, tells the true story of Adolf Daens, a Catholic priest in Aalst who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in the local factories...

" (Academy Award nomination 1993), "When the Light Comes", "A Peasant's Psalm", "Marie" (Nominated Overall Winner in the French Film Section at the Venice Film Festival in 1994) and the classic silent film "Visages d'Enfants".

Artists with whom he has collaborated in performance include clarinet
Clarinet
The clarinet is a musical instrument of woodwind type. The name derives from adding the suffix -et to the Italian word clarino , as the first clarinets had a strident tone similar to that of a trumpet. The instrument has an approximately cylindrical bore, and uses a single reed...

ist Sabine Meyer
Sabine Meyer
Sabine Meyer is a German classical clarinetist.-Biography:Meyer began playing the clarinet at an early age. Her first teacher was her father, also a clarinetist...

, cellist
Cello
The cello is a bowed string instrument with four strings tuned in perfect fifths. It is a member of the violin family of musical instruments, which also includes the violin, viola, and double bass. Old forms of the instrument in the Baroque era are baryton and viol .A person who plays a cello is...

 Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber
Julian Lloyd Webber is a British solo cellist who has been described as the "doyen of British cellists".-Early life:Julian Lloyd Webber is the second son of the composer William Lloyd Webber and his wife Jean Johnstone . He is the younger brother of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber...

, the singers Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad O'Connor
Sinéad Marie Bernadette O'Connor is an Irish singer-songwriter. She rose to fame in the late 1980s with her debut album The Lion and the Cobra and achieved worldwide success in 1990 with a cover of the song "Nothing Compares 2 U"....

, Anne Cambier, Guy de Mey, Claron McFadden
Claron McFadden
Claron McFadden is an American soprano. McFadden studied voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, finishing her degree in 1984....

, Derek Lee Ragin
Derek Lee Ragin
Derek Lee Ragin is an American countertenor.Ragin studied as a piano major at the Oberlin Conservatory of Music. While at Oberlin he took secondary voice lessons with Richard Anderson. He began his operatic career at Oberlin in Benjamin Britten's A Midsummer Night's Dream as Oberon...

, and, the renowned Hans Zimmer
Hans Zimmer
Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...

, Toots Thielemans
Toots Thielemans
Jean-Baptiste Frédéric Isidor, Baron Thielemans , known as Toots Thielemans, is a Belgian jazz musician well known for his guitar and harmonica playing as well as his whistling. Thielemans is credited as one of the greatest harmonica players of the 20th century...

, Howard Shore
Howard Shore
Howard Leslie Shore is a Canadian composer, notable for his film scores. He has composed the scores for over 80 films, most notably the scores for The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, for which he won three Academy Awards. He is also a consistent collaborator with director David Cronenberg,...

 (for ‘The Aviator’) and Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour
Youssou N'Dour is a Senegalese singer, percussionist and occasional actor. In 2004, Rolling Stone described him as, in Senegal and much of Africa, "perhaps the most famous singer alive." He helped develop a style of popular music in Senegal, known in the Serer language as mbalax, a type of music...

.

Dirk Brossé added a new dimension to the wide range of his oeuvre with his scoring of the musical "Sacco & Vanzetti" commissioned by the Theatre of the Royal Ballet of Flanders in 1996. With 92 critically acclaimed performances in the Netherlands
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...

 and Belgium
Belgium
Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

, this dramatic study of minority victims in a hyper-patriotic state, is now scheduled to appear on New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...

's Broadway
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...

.

Brossé wrote also the score for the musical based on the world-famous cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...

 character "Tintin
Tintin (character)
Tintin is a fictional character in The Adventures of Tintin, the series of classic Belgian comic books written and illustrated by Hergé. Tintin is the protagonist of the series, a reporter and adventurer who travels around the world with his dog Snowy....

" created by Hergé
Hergé
Georges Prosper Remi , better known by the pen name Hergé, was a Belgian comics writer and artist. His best known and most substantial work is the 23 completed comic books in The Adventures of Tintin series, which he wrote and illustrated from 1929 until his death in 1983, although he was also...

, which premiered in September 2001 in Belgium.

Dirk Brossé has been granted the title 'Cultural Ambassador of Flanders'. In 1999 Brossé was invited by the City Council of Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...

, to conduct the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in performances marking the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...

.

Film, Theatre and Musical scores

  • 1983 Reigen (by Arthur Schnitzler
    Arthur Schnitzler
    Dr. Arthur Schnitzler was an Austrian author and dramatist.- Biography :Arthur Schnitzler, son of a prominent Hungarian-Jewish laryngologist Johann Schnitzler and Luise Markbreiter , was born in Praterstraße 16, Leopoldstadt, Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian...

    ) (theatre)
  • 1986 Springen (by Jean Pierre De Decker)
  • 1986 Marc and Nathalie (by Roland Verhaevert)
  • 1988 Visages d'enfants (by Jaques Feyder)
  • 1988 Boerenpsalm (by Roland Verhaevert)
  • 1988 The Mystery Of The Lamb (by Frederic Duchau)
  • 1989 Koko Flanel (by Stijn Coninx
    Stijn Coninx
    Stijn, Baron Coninx is a Belgian film director best known for the movie Daens. He was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium...

    )
  • 1989 Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme (musical)
  • 1990 Till Eulenspiegel
    Till Eulenspiegel
    Till Eulenspiegel was an impudent trickster figure originating in Middle Low German folklore. His tales were disseminated in popular printed editions narrating a string of lightly connected episodes that outlined his picaresque career, primarily in Germany, the Low Countries and France...

    (by Charles De Coster) (theatre)
  • 1991 In The Summer House (by Jane Bowles
    Jane Bowles
    Jane Bowles, born Jane Sydney Auer , was an American writer and playwright.-Early life:Born into a Jewish family in New York, Jane Bowles spent her childhood in Woodmere, New York, on Long Island. She developed tuberculous arthritis of the knee as a teenager and her mother took her to Switzerland...

    )
  • 1992 Daens
    Daens (film)
    Daens is a 1992 Belgian film directed by Stijn Coninx. This 1992 drama starring Jan Decleir, Gérard Desarthe, Antje de Boeck and Michael Pas, tells the true story of Adolf Daens, a Catholic priest in Aalst who strives to improve the miserable working conditions in the local factories...

    (by Stijn Coninx
    Stijn Coninx
    Stijn, Baron Coninx is a Belgian film director best known for the movie Daens. He was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium...

    )
  • 1993 Als het leven een nieuwe wending neemt (by Serge Leurs)
  • 1993 Oost-Vlaanderen, schat van een provincie (by Frank Van Laecke)
  • 1993 Marie (by Marian Handwerker)
  • 1995 A Forest Is A Symphony (by WWF)
  • 1996 Sacco and Vanzetti
    Sacco and Vanzetti
    Ferdinando Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti were anarchists who were convicted of murdering two men during a 1920 armed robbery in South Braintree, Massachusetts, United States...

    (musical)
  • 1997 When The Lights Comes (by Stijn Coninx
    Stijn Coninx
    Stijn, Baron Coninx is a Belgian film director best known for the movie Daens. He was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium...

    )
  • 2000 Mijn eerste Sjeekspier (by Douglas Boswell)
  • 2001 Tintin
    The Adventures of Tintin
    The Adventures of Tintin is a series of classic comic books created by Belgian artist , who wrote under the pen name of Hergé...

    , le temple du Soleil (musical)
  • 2001 Follow Me (by Francesca Marti)
  • 2001 Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...

    (by Hironobu Sakaguchi
    Hironobu Sakaguchi
    is a Japanese game designer, game director and game producer. He is world famous as the creator of the Final Fantasy series, and has had a long career in gaming with over 100 million units of video games sold worldwide...

    ) (only as conductor)
  • 2002 Music and Fly (by Francesca Marti)
  • 2002 The Good Thief (by Neil Jordan
    Neil Jordan
    Neil Patrick Jordan is an Irish filmmaker and novelist. He won an Academy Award for The Crying Game.- Early life :...

    ) (as conductor)
  • 2004 Romance (by Douglas Boswell)
  • 2005 Bonkers (by Martin Koolhoven
    Martin Koolhoven
    Martin Koolhoven is a Dutch film director and screenwriter.Born as Martinus Wouter Koolhoven, Koolhoven graduated from Dutch film school in 1996 and almost immediately made an impact on the Dutch film industry with his 53 minute television film Duister Licht in which the slaughtering of a pig was...

    )
  • 2006 Knetter
  • 2007 De Kavijaks (by Stijn Coninx
    Stijn Coninx
    Stijn, Baron Coninx is a Belgian film director best known for the movie Daens. He was made a Baron by King Albert II of Belgium...

    )
  • 2007 Brod Ludaka (by Matthias Lebeer)
  • 2008 Samaritan
  • 2008 Daens (musical)

Concert music - Symphonic works

  • 1986 On Safari
  • 1990 Bacob Overture
  • 1991 Music in Mycology
  • 1992 Ouvertura
  • 1992 La Soledad de America Latina
  • 1995 Flanders international Film Festival Overture
  • 1995 Artesia - Symphony Nr. 1
  • 1995 Daens Suite
  • 1996 Bit by Bit
  • 1996 Principals
  • 1996 Le Nozze di Sacco
  • 1997 The Birth of Music - Symphony Nr. 2
  • 1997 Light Main Theme
  • 1999 Millennium Overture
  • 1999 Inferno

Fanfare and orchestral works

  • 1986 7 Inch Framed
  • 1987 Oscar for amnesty
  • 1989 El Golpe Fatal
  • 1989 Elegy for a lost Friend
  • 1992 La Soledad de America Latina
  • 1992 Music for a Celebration
  • 1995 And the winner is...
  • 1999 War Concerto for Clarinet and Symphonic-Band
  • 1999 Elegy
  • 2000 Milestone Overture
  • 2002 Tintin - Prisoners of the Sun

Songs

  • 1994 Landuytcyclus
  • 1995 La Vida es un Sueño
  • 2000 Beauty to the Surface brought
  • 2003 I loved you
  • 2009 Claron
    Claron McFadden
    Claron McFadden is an American soprano. McFadden studied voice at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York, finishing her degree in 1984....

     Sings Brossé-Crazy Diamonds

Conducted works

  • The Wings of A Film, by Hans Zimmer
    Hans Zimmer
    Hans Florian Zimmer is a German film composer and music producer. He has composed music for over 100 films, including critically acclaimed film scores for The Lion King , Crimson Tide , The Thin Red Line , Gladiator , The Dark Knight and Inception .Zimmer spent the early part of his career in the...

  • Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within
    Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within is a 2001 Japanese-American computer animated science fiction film directed by Hironobu Sakaguchi, creator of the Final Fantasy series of role-playing video games. It was the first photorealistic computer animated feature film and also holds the record for the most...

     by Elliot Goldenthal
    Elliot Goldenthal
    Elliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways...

  • The Good Thief by Elliot Goldenthal
    Elliot Goldenthal
    Elliot Goldenthal is an American composer of contemporary classical music. He was a student of Aaron Copland and John Corigliano, and is best known for his distinctive style and ability to blend various musical styles and techniques in original and inventive ways...


External links

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