Biography

Chris Gendall was born in Hamilton, New Zealand and began to develop as a composer in 1999 whilst studying at Victoria University in Wellington where he completed Masters level study in 2004. He has recently completed a DMA in composition through Cornell University in upstate New York.

His works have received performances in New Zealand, Europe, Japan, and the United States by such performers as Arnold Marinissen, Marcel Worms, the University of Miami Percussion Ensemble, and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra. His solo percussion work ‘Dita’ is published by Waiteata Music Press. He is interested in the art music of the twentieth century, as well as being heavily influenced by jazz and funk.

In 2006 Chris won an ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award, as well as the inaugural New Zealand Symphony Orchestra Todd Young Composer Award in 2005 for his orchestral work So It Goes. He has been involved with three Asian Composers League Festivals, including being the New Zealand entrant and prizewinner for the Young Composers Competition in Israel. As well as prizes in 2001 and 2002 he was placed first in the 2003 Lilburn Trust Awards, and was awarded the 2002 Wellington City Council Prize for Music. He received the 2008 SOUNZ Contemporary Award for his work Wax Lyrical.

He was awarded an Edwin Carr Scholarship in 2009 enabling him to further his composition studies in Europe and Canada and is currently the Creative New Zealand-Jack C Richards Composer in Residence at the New Zealand School of Music in 2010/2011.

Chris has been actively involved in a number of festivals and conferences, including the 2009 Britten-Pears Contemporary Composition course, the Wellesley Composers Conference, the Aldeburgh Festival, and the Royaumont Voix Nouvelles course. Select works are published by the Waiteata Music Press and Peer Music Hamburg, and recorded on Atoll Records.

• Works (17)
• Awards (6)