Biography
Jack Symonds is a composer, conductor and pianist, and Artistic Director of Sydney Chamber Opera. He studied composition at the Royal College of Music, London under Kenneth Hesketh and at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music where he received the University Medal. His stage works represent “a striking and impressive new operatic voice” (Sydney Morning Herald) and he is “one of those performers who seemingly can play anything” (Australian Book Review).
He specialises in the performance of new music, including conducting and playing major stage works by Britten, Benjamin, Janáček, Dusapin, Kurtág, Saariaho, Maxwell Davies, Kancheli, Rihm & Styles, often in their Australian premieres. He has also given the world premieres of Gyger’s Fly Away Peter & Oscar and Lucinda, Finsterer’s Antarctica (with Asko|Schönberg Ensemble) & Biographica, Muhly’s Aphrodite, Ricketson’s The Howling Girls and Smetanin’s Mayakovsky.
His recent performances have shown “masterly musicianship, projecting an engrossingly cogent understanding of complexities and expressive purpose” (SMH), the ability to “draw an emotional throughline so clear that every unexpected melodic or dynamic turn feels comfortable and logical” (Timeout), and is “impressive as ever at the piano, creating a vital palette of carefully gradated tone colours.” (Backtrack).
He has led performances in and/or composed for the Holland, Tokyo, Sydney, Melbourne & Adelaide Festivals, Dark MOFO, Sydney Opera House, Biennale of Sydney, Carriageworks, Melbourne Recital Centre, National Gallery of Australia, Opera Australia, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian String Quartet, Ensemble Offspring, The Song Company, Victorian Opera, Adelaide & Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras, ANAM, JACK Quartet (US), Phoenix Central Park, BIFEM, Australia Piano Quartet & Streeton Trio among others.
His opera Gilgamesh (Opera Australia/ Sydney Chamber Opera/ Australian String Quartet/ Ensemble Offspring/ Carriageworks) won Dramatic Work of the Year and Performance of the Year at the 2025 APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards and Symonds received the NSW Luminary Award for his work in contemporary Australian opera.
He has written extensively for the voice in a variety of stage and chamber music settings, including The Shape of the Earth after Patrick White’s Voss, Climbing Toward Midnight, a chamber opera re-imagining the second act of Wagner’s Parsifal and the Dostoevsky opera Notes from Underground as well as song cycles for Jane Sheldon, Jessica Aszodi, Jessica O’Donoghue, Mitchell Riley, Emily Edmonds & Anna Fraser. He has collaborated extensively with Ensemble Offspring on six pieces, as well as three works for the Australian String Quartet.
CD released on Hospital Hill
SOUNDCLOUD https://soundcloud.com/jacksymonds
Watch Jack play 11 songs and song cycles filmed by Phoenix Central Park
View Sydney Chamber Opera past productions
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JACK SYMONDS 