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.
Christopher is currently putting the final touches on his Masters degree dissertation (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's original film score to the French silent film masterpiece Ménilmontant (Dimitri Kirsanoff, 1926) performed by his 19-piece Annexia Ensemble received a standing ovation and very favorable reviews when performed at the Astor Theatre in August 2009. Ménilmontant was subsequently performed at bamBOO in November 2009.
His
most
recent project involved an augmented Annexia
ensemble line-up - de Groot's exciting film-noir inspired score for Sam
Barrett's independent feature Esoterica
was recorded in April 2010.
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.
“Chris de Groot is a Western Australian composer who represents the new breed: a jazz and classical background, moving into film and electronic music – Chris’s music is exciting, interesting and rewarding.” – Cat Hope (sound artist, composer, Lecturer in Classical Music [composition] WAAPA)