Dirk, Knight Brossé^[1] (born 18 February 1960, Ghent) is a Belgian conductor and composer. He has composed over 200 works, including concerti, oratorios, lieder, chamber music and symphonic works. Brossé has also composed extensively for stage, cinema, television. His score for the BBC/HBO series Parade's End (2012) was nominated for an Emmy Award. Dirk Brossé is currently music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia and of the Ghent Film Festival. John Williams chose him as Principal Conductor of the Star Wars in Concert World Tour. Brossé is also professor of composition and conducting at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent. Dirk Brossé has conducted international orchestras, both at home and abroad. Amongst them, the London Symphony Orchestra, London Philharmonic Orchestra, Royal Philharmonic orchestra, Vancouver Opera, Opéra National de Lyon, BBC Concert Orchestra, Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, Orchestre de la Suisse Romande and the Philharmonic Orchestra of Brussels, Antwerp, Rotterdam, Basel, Madrid, Porto, Birmingham, Ulster, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Seoul, Queensland, St Petersburg, Los Angeles and Boston. In 2008, he made his first appearance at the Royal Albert Hall in London, conducting the London Symphony Orchestra. In 2010, at the request of the Hong Kong Chinese Orchestra, he wrote The Hallow-e'en Dances. This Halloween-inspired work is especially written for age-old, traditional Chinese instruments. Brossé recently composed Haiku Cycle 1, written for Jessye Norman and based on Haiku by Herman Van Rompuy.

He has made more than 70 CD recordings and has collaborated with artists such as José Van Dam, Barbara Hendricks, Julia Migenes, Claron McFadden, Julian Lloyd Webber, Sabine Meyer, Alison Balsom, Salvatore Accardo, John Williams, Toots Thielemans, Hans Zimmer, Elmer Bernstein, Emma Thompson, Kenneth Branagh, Randy Crawford, Lisa Gerrard, Marcel Khalife, Mel Brooks, Maurane, Sinéad O'Connor, Maurice Jarre, Michel Legrand and Youssou N'Dour. Dirk Brossé has worked with directors Stijn Coninx, Frank Van Laecke, Susanna White and Roland Joffé, and with writers Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Seth Gaaikema and Didier Van Cauwelaert. Dirk Brossé has been awarded the title Cultural Ambassador of Flanders, the Flemish Parliament's gold medal for Merit, the Achille Van Acker Prize, the Joseph Plateau Honorary Award and the Global Thinkers Forum Award for Excellence in Cultural Creativity. In 2010, Dirk Brossé was made an honorary citizen of Destelbergen. In 2013, he was elevated to Belgium's hereditary nobility, with the personal title of Ridder.

Education

Dirk Brossé's musical studies were initially undertaken at the Royal Music Conservatories of Ghent and Brussels before focusing on conducting studies in Maastricht, Vienna and Cologne, gaining his conducting diploma from the Musikhochschule of Cologne.

Work as conductor

Dirk Brossé has been invited to conduct many of Belgium's major orchestras, including the Flemish Radio Orchestra (VRT), the National Orchestra of Belgium and the European Union Choir (Les Choeurs de l'Union européenne). Abroad he has conducted the Milan Symphony Orchestra, the Volgograd Philharmonic Orchestra, the Philharmonic Orchestra of Shanghai, London Philharmonic Orchestra, 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, Colombia and Ecuador. In 2001 he started working with The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra, The London Symphony Orchestra and The KBS Symphonic Orchestra of Seoul. In 2009 he started his work with Star Wars: In Concert. In 2008 and 2009 he had guest appearances in The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, where he later debuted as musical director in 2010, succeeding Ignat Solzhenitsyn.

Film and musical works

His works include songs, symphonic works, oratorios, chamber music and music for the theatre and film. Among his 20 distinctive film scores for award-winning films are "Daens" (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 clarinetist Sabine Meyer, cellist Julian Lloyd Webber, the singers Sinéad O'Connor, Anne Cambier, Guy de Mey, Claron McFadden, Derek Lee Ragin, and, the renowned Hans Zimmer, Toots Thielemans, Howard Shore (for 'The Aviator') and Youssou N'Dour. 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 and Belgium, this dramatic study of minority victims in a hyper-patriotic state, is now scheduled to appear on New York's Broadway. Brossé wrote also the score for the musical based on the world-famous cartoon character "Tintin" created by Hergé, 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, to conduct the Shanghai Philharmonic Orchestra in performances marking the 50th Anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. In 2013 he received the Global Thinkers Forum 2013 Award for Excellence in Cultural Creativity.

List of works

Awards and nominations

• 1986 (1986)-CIAM Price for Best Filmscore – Belgium (Ghent)
• 1992 (1992)-Academy Award Nomination for 'Daens' (Los Angeles)
• 1995 (1995)-Cultural Ambassador of Flanders (Brussels)
• 2000 (2000)-'Torenwachterprijs' by the City of Ghent (Ghent)
• 2006 (2006)-Nominated for Dutch Musical Awards for 'Tin – Temple of the Sun' (Amsterdam)
• 2008 (2008)-Awarded with the 'Achiel Van Acker Award 2008' – Belgium (Bruges)
• 2008 (2008)-Awarded by the Belgian Government 'Gouden Erepenning' for merit (Brussels)
• 2009 (2009)-Flemish Musical Award for 'Musical Daens' (Antwerp)
• 2010 (2010)-Awarded with the 'Joseph Plateau Honorary Award' (Ghent)
• 2010 (2010)-Honorary citizen of Destelbergen-Belgium (Destelbergen)
• 2011 (2011)-Barrymore Theater Award (2011) for L' Histoire du Soldat / Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia
• 2013 (2013)-Award for Excellence in Cultural Creativity by Global Thinkers Forum (Athens)
• 2013 (2013)-Elevated to Belgium's hereditary nobility, with the personal title of Knight (Brussels)
• 2013 (2013)-Emmy Award nomination for the music for the series Parade's End / BBC/HBO (Los Angeles)
• 2014 (2014)-'Gouden Label Muziektheater' by Klassiek Centraal for 'Musical 14-18' (Belgium)
• 2016 (2016)-Golden Calf nomination for the soundtrack Knielen (Holland)

References

External links

• Dirk Brossé at IMDb
• Official site