George Dreyfus
 George Dreyfus (1995) by Brian Dunlop
|
George Dreyfus AM (born 22 July 1928, Elberfeld (today part of Wuppertal), Germany) is an Australian contemporary classical, film and television composer.
The Dreyfus family moved to Berlin in 1935 to enable a better education for their two sons. Alarmed by the events of the Kristallnacht in 1938, the parents applied for and received immigration assistance for their children who were sent to a boarding school in Melbourne, Australia. The parents followed in October 1939. George studied at Melbourne High School then Melba Conservatorium Victoria as a bassoonist. As a young boy in Melbourne he learnt piano and sang in the synagogue choir.
A portrait of George Dreyfus by artist Brian Dunlop was entered in the 1995 Archibald Prize competition.
He was formerly married to the academic and writer Kay Dreyfus. He has two sons, Federal Labor MP and former Australian Attorney-General Mark Dreyfus, and Jonathan Dreyfus, who has followed in his father's footsteps as a composer.
From 1948 Dreyfus played bassoon in J. C. Williamson's touring orchestra, accompanying opera and ballet companies before joining the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (then known as the Victorian SO) in 1953. He was bassoonist there in 1953/1954 and from 1958 until 1964, having been dismissed by Clive Douglas. A grant enabled him in 1955 to continue his studies at the Imperial Academy of Music in Vienna. He began composing in 1956 but did not concentrate on composition until the 1960s after he left the Orchestra. A UNESCO travel grant allowed him in 1966 to travel to Germany for studies with at the Rheinische Musikschule in Cologne. In 1972 he won the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award.
...
Wikipedia