Biography

Simon is a composer and bass player from Wellington. He picked up the double bass in his last year of high school, initially as an extension to playing bass guitar in rock and jazz bands. Later that year he got his first lessons in classical bass from NZSO sub-principal Vicki Jones and was accepted into the performance programme at Victoria University three months later. In 2004, after a year of further study with Vicki, he also began studying composition, winning third place in the university composer’s competition that year with Dialogue for two flutes. Encouraged, he went on to complete a Bmus in Performance Double Bass and Composition in 2006, and then a Bmus with first class honours in Composition in the following year.

Simon has had compositions performed by a range of well known performers, including Dutch percussionist Arnold Marinissen and the New Zealand String Quartet. In 2007 Carol Hohauser performed his solo flute piece Wind Chimes as part of a series of lecture recitals on New Zealand music in New York. In 2005 he won first place in the NZSM composer’s competition with Tempest for amplified clarinet, double bass, and piano. Simon was given the Jenny McLeod Orchestral Composition Award in 2007, and as a prize was commissioned to write Aurum for the NZSM Orchestra, which was also performed by the NZSO as part of the NZSO-SOUNZ readings in May 2008.

• Works (5)
• Awards (1)