biography
Christopher
de Groot holds a Bachelors degree with Honours majoring in composition
from the West Australian Academy Of Performing Arts (WAAPA).
Christopher’s eclectic tastes have seen him write music for a wide
variety of ensembles from jazz big bands to full orchestras, as well as
music incorporating electronics and many short film scores. In 2007 he
was invited to be Composer In Residence at WAAPA and during his tenure
wrote several new works, gave a number of lectures on his honours
research and scored two short films – one of which (Party For One)
received the Best Experimental Sound Track Composer award at the 2007
Perth International Film Festival.
Christopher is currently studying a Masters degree in film music and is
a part-time staff member at WAAPA’s composition department teaching
Certificate IV composition as well as film music history. Christopher
is also a frequent guest lecturer and has given lectures on
director/composer collaboration, critical listening, 20th century music
history and music copyright.
He was recently awarded the Tura New Music Commissioning Prize for the
most outstanding final year WAAPA composition graduate, and his score
for the feature length film The
Director’s Cut recently received a WASA
for Best Original Music Composition at the West Australian Screen
Awards (2009). De Groot has also been short listed for a prestigious
2009 APRA professional development award in the highly competitive
category of film music.
His most recent project was a film score to a French silent film
entitled Ménilmontant
(1926) by Dimitri Kirsanoff which featured his 19-piece Annexia Ensemble. Ménilmontant was performed
in August 2009.
Having always considered instrumental timbre and texture a crucial
element in his writing, de Groot’s recent music has focused on the use
of manipulated found sounds, electronics and traditional
instrumentation to create brooding, often evocative musical atmospheres
that blur the distinction between sound-art and music.