Peter Rankine
With a background in Celtic music, Peter Rankine's connection to the world of concert music was made in 1980 upon hearing Bartok's Fifth String Quartet. Freelancing since 1987, Rankine has fulfilled commissions for a variety of media including orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo works, theatre, dance and opera, composing for artists locally, interstate and abroad.
With a background in Celtic music, Peter Rankine's connection to the world of concert music was made in 1980 upon hearing Bartok's Fifth String Quartet. He subsequently left B.Sc. studies (mathematics major) to attend the Queensland Conservatorium of Music in 1981 where, in the following years, he studied composition with John Gilfedder and Richard Mills. His student days at the QCM culminated with a performance of his Three Symphonic Etudes conducted by John Curro, with whom he later worked as resident composer of the Queensland Youth Orchestra; the Etudes won the composer the QCM composition prize.
Freelancing since 1987, Rankine has fulfilled commissions for a variety of media including orchestras, chamber ensembles, solo works, theatre, dance and opera, composing for artists locally, interstate and abroad.
Works and collaborations have included From Fire By Fire (1989) for the Queensland Wind Soloists (winning composer and ensemble 1990 Sounds Australian Critics' Awards); Symphonia Dialectica (1988) and Celtic Cross (1990) for the Queensland Youth Symphony Orchestra; Time and the Bell (1990) for Paul Dean and the ABC's Musica Nova Festival (this work won the 1991 Sounds Australian Critics' Award); Surya Namaskar, Chaand Namaskar, for Eurythmist Jan Russell; Time and the Bell (1992 - chamber version) for Perihelion; ballet scores for Expressions and Dance North; and in collaboration with author Jenny Wagner, John Brown, Rose and the Midnight Cat, for QPAT's 1992 Out of the Box Festival, and the opera Bunyip! (1995), for Opera Queensland.
Peter has recently completed a thesis on TS Eliot and Olivier Messiaen for a Masters degree at the University of Queensland, where he studied with Philip Bracanin (composition) and Ann-Marie Forbes (musicology).
Compositions by Peter Rankine appear on
Dreamtracks
Music for clarinet by Australian composers. Celebrating Australia's landscape, its spirit, its music and its composers, 'Dreamtracks' documents some of the best contemporary Australian music written for solo clarinet and piano and a variety of unusual chamber music combinations.
