Ballarat composer Ade Vincent says versatility is the key to making a living in the music industry, and with his current workload involving writing music for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, computer games, advertising and teaching music composition at university and secondary college he's well placed for the future.
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As the MSO's first Young Composer in Residence, Ade is looking forward to the world premiere of his newest composition Forever Singing Winter into Spring at the MSO's Metropolis New Music Festival at the Melbourne Recital Centre in May.
It will be the third piece he has composed for the orchestra, but the first including vocals which renowned Australian singer Lior will perform.
Forever Singing Winter into Spring features not just orchestra and voice but electronic music as well.
"I'm fusing them all, taking elements of contemporary classical orchestral writing, elements of song writing and electronic music writing as well using a digital band, keyboards, samples and digital drum kit.
"I've been working on this piece for about nine months, and I'm currently preparing all the individual instrumental parts for the different instruments," he said.
Ade has loved music for as long as he can remember, has always been writing music and has always wanted to be a musician.
"I grew up in Ballarat with such a strong and vibrant arts culture. I had wonderful music teachers, and Ballarat has got a lot of great teachers, and then head of music at Ballarat Grammar Andrew Dale had a big influence.
"I learned how to perform by playing in Royal South Street and playing at some of the festivals, and for the band side of things some high school friends and I had a band and played in local battle of the bands competitions. There were so many things happening where a young musician was able to develop and get experience and grounding."
Straight after year 12 he decided to "try something else" and did six months of a science degree before switching back to music.
"I'm not really sure why I did the science degree ... I always thought I would be a musician and it took a short detour to show me that's what I want to be doing!"
Alongside his work with the MSO, Ade is a commercial composer who co-founded Kaleidoscope Audio, specialising in music and sound for videogames, plays in the indie-pop quartet The Tiger & Me, teaches at Melbourne University and Scotch College and is completing a PhD in Composition.
"I do sound design for video games, advertising, all sorts of projects. I like to be as versatile as possible as a composer. It's important to me to be involved in the contemporary classical world, writing songs and commercial composing - I like all three worlds very much and I think my writing in each one complements the others.
"In the same way teaching makes me a better composer and composing makes me a better teacher."
The MSO's Young Composer in Residence, a year-long program, has involved writing several pieces of music, sessions with a mentor, in this case renowned Australian composer Brenton Broadstock, sessions with visiting composers and rehearsal time with the orchestra.
The orchestra's annual Metropolis New Music Festival showcases some of Australia's, and the world's finest living composers.
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