Colin Brumby

Colin Brumby (born 18 June 1933) is an Australian composer and conductor.

He was born in Melbourne and educated at the Glen Iris State School, Spring Road Central School, and Melbourne Boys' High School. He studied at the University of Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, from which he graduated in 1957 with a diploma in education. In 1953 he was a finalist in the Australian Youth Aria competition, eventually winning the Lieder Award. He was organist at St. Oswald's Glen Iris from 1950 - 1953. Before travelling to Europe in 1962 he taught in Queensland schools and was for a time the head of music at Kelvin Grove Teacher's College. He went to Spain to study advanced composition with Philipp Jarnach, and to London to study with Alexander Goehr. On his return to Australia, he joined the staff of the Music Department at the University of Queensland, and has been based in Brisbane ever since. He became Associate Professor with the University of Queensland, from which he retired in 1998. He, along with Philip Bracanin, are two Brisbane based composers who have attained an international reputation, beginning in the 1970s, although more recently, composes such as Gerard Brophy, Stephen Cronin, Robert Davidson, Kent Farbach, Stephen Leek, Peter Rankine and Nigel Sabin have attained renown.

Brumby was Musical Director of the Queensland Opera Company from 1968 to 1971. While there, he conducted the Australian premieres of works such as Joseph Haydn's L'infedeltà delusa and Georges Bizet's Le docteur Miracle. He also wrote a series of children's operettas, including The Wise Shoemaker (1968) Rita and Dita and the Pirate (1969), Rita and Dita in Toyland (1969) and The Prince who couldn't laugh (1969). These operettas toured throughout Queensland by the Queensland Opera Company, and were performed in 400 schools, reaching an audience of 75,000.

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