DOCKING, SIMON

Australian-born pianist Simon Docking has performed both as a soloist and chamber musician throughout North America, as well as in Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia and Europe. He studied piano in Australia with Ransford Elsley, and holds a doctorate in piano performance from SUNY Stony Brook, where he worked with Gilbert Kalish, and upon graduation was awarded New York State’s Thayer Fellowship for the Arts. Praised by the Globe and Mail for his “effortless virtuosity” in contemporary music, he has given premières of dozens of new pieces, and collaborated with many composers from around the world, including Anne Boyd, Andrew Ford, Elliott Gyger, Matthew Hindson, Peter Sculthorpe and Ian Shanahan (Australia), Daniel Koontz, Eric Moe, Ralph Shapey and Ricardo Zohn-Muldoon (USA), Jérôme Blais, Chris Paul Harman, Alice Ho, Melissa Hui, Eric Morin, Juliet Palmer and James Rolfe (Canada). Since 2001, he has lived in Halifax, where he is the curator of Kumquat, a new music series co-presented by the Scotia Festival’s Music Room Chamber Music Society, St Cecilia Concert Society, and Dalhousie University’s music department. He has been a founding member of several chamber groups, including the Toronto-based ensemble Toca Loca whose highlights have included a successful year-long residency at Toronto’s Music Gallery, and appearances at the St John’s Sound Symposium, Montreal’s Chapelle Historique du Bon-Pasteur, Toronto’s Cool Drummings Festival and Lincoln Center’s Wordless Music Series in New York City.

COLGRASS, M.: Dream Dancer / MESSIAEN, O.: Oiseaux exotiques / KUCHARZYK, H.: Some Assembly Required (Northern Winds) (Toronto Wind Orchestra, Gomes)	8.572248