Brendan Fitzgerald – piano, keyboards, accordion

Commencing classical piano performance studies from eight years age, Brendan holds a Bachelor of Music and a Postgraduate Diploma in Education. Also a competent accordionist and guitarist, Brendan’s influences include jazz, latin, blues, rock, electronic and world music.

Brendan has composed and directed music for many ensembles including Tryst, Hot Cargo and The Groove Merchants. He has collaborated with vocalists, Catherine Lambert, Kerry Reid, Virginia Hyam, Nancy Ruth, Juliana Araias and Hillary O’Neil, and with instrumentalists Alain Valodze, Themis Fernandez and Eduardo Niebla. Brendan has been a member of many groups including Bank of France, Towards the Sun (London), Tjalkuri, Sporting Life and Ah Hum!.

He has worked extensively as a composer/performer and co-writer/music director for Swiss and German theatre productions, “Fantasie-Impromptu” (Geneva), “Workman”, “Karussell”, “Dirty Pleasures” (Nuremberg) and Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol” (Munich). Similarly for Australian theatre productions “Radio Daze”, “All Aboard”, “Carnivalia”, “Welcome to Paradise” and “Un Pugno Di Terra” with Doppio Teatro, Magpie Theatre, Cirkidz and Jumbuck Theatre. Brendan has performed with the Dance Company of New South Wales (Sydney Dance Company), Australian Dance Theatre and the Australian Dancers Company (Perth) who commissioned him as composer for their inaugural production, “Mauritius”. He has lectured in music theory, composition, arrangement and music technology at University of Adelaide, West Australian Academy of Performing Arts (WAAPA) and Gold Coast Institute of TAFE. Operating his own recording facility, eMotion Music Productions, he produces and records artists from a wide range of music styles.

Brendan is researching variable micro tuning (dynamic Just Intonation) systems. He has recorded two CDs of Dave Brubeck’s music with his own quartet plus arrangements of classic tunes from his original production “SWING – The Beat That Shook The World”. His adopted motto for this path of music discovery is: “Look after the music and the music will look after you” (Miles Davis).