Benjamin Vary – conductor
Benjamin Vary holds the honour of being the first Australian to have graduated from the renowned conducting class of the Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, where he studied with Jorma Panula, Eri Klas, Atso Almila and Leif Segerstam. Vary also worked intensively under the guidance of Ilja Musin at the Rimsky-Korsakov Conservatory in St. Petersburg, Gianluigi Gelmetti at the Accademia Chigiana in Siena, and Christoph Eschenbach at the Pacific Music Festival in Sapporo. Previously, Vary completed postgraduate studies in conducting at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow.
Since making his professional debut with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the 1999 International Barossa Music Festival, Benjamin Vary has conducted orchestras in Denmark, Norway, Australia, Spain, Italy (Siena Chamber Orchestra and Sofia Symphony Orchestra), France’s Orchestre National du Capitole du Toulouse, the UK’s Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, and almost all of the orchestras in Finland, most notably the St Michel Strings and the Tampere Philharmonic.
In 2000, Vary made his Danish debut with The Danish National Opera (Den Jyske Opera) and the Sønderjyllands Symphony Orchestra conducting Drot og Marsk (The King & the Commander) by the Danish composer, Peter Heise. Composed in 1875, this piece is stylistically akin to Wagner and has nationalistic significance for Danes. Here, Vary worked with the Artistic Director of the Royal Danish Opera, Kaspar Holten.
Returning in the 2001 season, Vary created a new touring production of Puccini’s Tosca with the Aalborg, Odense and Sønderjyllands Symphony Orchestras, collaborating with director Troels Kold and an international cast, receiving rave reviews and standing ovations at most of the 17 performances.
Other operatic works in Vary’s repertoire include Der Schauspieldirektor (Mozart), L’Elisir d’Amore (Donizetti), Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini), The Wandering Scholar (Holst), Trouble in Tahiti (Bernstein), The Medium (Menotti), The Turn of the Screw (Britten), Il Signor Bruschino (Rossini), Eine Nacht in Venedig (J.Strauss II) and La Voix Humaine (Poulenc). Vary also prepared the Brisbane Festival’s 1998 Australian-première production of Thomas Adès’ Powder Her Face, working closely with the composer both in Brisbane and in Minneapolis, USA.
August 2000 saw the release of Vary’s first commercial recording on the Warner Music label, conducting the Queensland Symphony Orchestra in Dance Gundah, the world’s first concerto for didjeridu written by Philip Bracanin. Among other works, Vary has also recorded Bracanin’s Cello Concerto and Piano Concertino with the Kapubändi Orchestra of Helsinki - works that are frequently aired on Australian radio. Autumn 2003 saw him making an EBU recording of Brahms’ Third Symphony with the Norwegian Radio Orchestra.
An active promoter of the contemporary music of Scandinavia as well, Vary was invited by the Finnish Society of Composers to perform with Helsinki’s Zagros Ensemble at the 2000 Nordic Music Days. In autumn 2006, he established his own contemporary group, Ensemble Tjalfi to create the Finnish-première production of Peter Maxwell-Davies’ The No.11 Bus for the Finnish Chamber Opera. Planning is underway for an inaugural season of concerts in 2008/09.
In addition to his conducting, Vary also hopes to complete a book about conducting based on Ilja Musin’s teaching principles. This would include extracts of Musin’s own On Teaching Conducting in their first English translation. Benjamin Vary can communicate additionally in French, German, Italian and Finnish, and resides in Helsinki. He has been awarded the Dalley-Scarlett Memorial Scholarship, a Rotary Foundation Ambassadorial Scholarship, and prizes from the Queen Elizabeth II Trust and the Australia Council.
Photos of Benjamin Bary
© D.R.
