Brian Current

Brian Current studied music at McGill University and UC Berkeley (PhD). His music, lauded and broadcast in over 35 countries, has been awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Barlow Prize for Orchestral Music (USA), the Premio Fedora (Italy) for Chamber Opera, and a Selected Work (under 30) at the International Rostrum of Composers in Paris. Current's pieces have been programmed by all major symphony orchestras in Canada and by dozens of professional orchestras, ensembles, and opera companies worldwide, including his Carnegie Hall debut with the American Composers Orchestra in 2005. His music appears on 10 commercial recordings, including three albums devoted exclusively to his works. The Naxos recording of his opera Airline Icarus earned him a 2015 Juno Award for Best Classical Composition of the Year. 

Current is also an in-demand guest conductor and regularly leads orchestral programs of contemporary music, having championed nearly 100 works by Canadian composers. He has been the main conductor of the Continuum Ensemble since 2011 and has guest conducted with symphony orchestras and ensembles in Canada, the USA, and Italy. Since 2019-20, he has been co-director of New Music Concerts of Toronto and, since 2007, the director of the New Music Ensemble of The Glenn School at The Royal Conservatory. In 2016, Dr. Current won the inaugural Azrieli Commissioning Competition at $50,000, the largest of its kind in Canada and one of the largest in the world. In 2018, his Shout, Sisyphus, Flock won the Jules-Leger Prize for New Chamber Music.