Geoffrey Collins
Geoffrey Collins’s flute has been the voice of much new Australian chamber music. His playing moves from buoyant Mozart quartets to driving Vine sonatas, dreamy Boyd and Westlake colours, and solo works written for him that treat the instrument without cliché.
As principal flute of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and a long-standing member of the Australia Ensemble, he has lived inside Australian chamber writing for decades. Composers trust him with whatever they invent: Vine’s whirligig ostinatos and open-air Flute Sonata, Edwards’s Ecstatic Dances for two flutes, Wesley-Smith’s flute-and-tape theatre, Butterley’s gentle stirrings, Boyd’s modal bridges toward Japan and Bali. With harpist Alice Giles he pairs flute and alto flute against harp in Shankar, Takemitsu, Rochberg and Piazzolla: night sea, autumn fire, tango history. His Mozart flute quartets with the Australia Ensemble are bold and buoyant, carefree without padding, the mix of edge and discipline that made the set a recommended performance. On Spinning, works written for him prove the flute can drive, dream and spin. He is often producer as well as player, shaping how this music reaches the ear.
Geoffrey Collins is featured on the following titles
Spinning: New Australian Flute Music
Geoffrey Collins has single-handedly shaped the Australian flute repertoire, and this is his third solo recording. Five of these works were written for him, and they show how freely composers respond to his playing.
Co-Producer: Co-producer
Enchanted Dreams... Exotic Dances
Geoffrey Collins and Alice Giles have played together since their school days. Their partnership works at an international level, and this carefully chosen programme shows their complete accord while avoiding the clichés often tied to flute and harp.
Producer
Geoffrey Collins is featured on the following titles
Mozart: The Wind Quartets
The Australia Ensemble, with Geoffrey Collins (flute) and David Nuttall (oboe), play Mozart’s four flute quartets and the Oboe Quartet. The recording was the Recommended Performance in the 1995 Gramophone Good CD Guide.
Co-Producer: Co-producer
Performing as Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.
Café Concertino
The Australia Ensemble, Australia's foremost chamber group and in residence at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, presents commissioned and core Australian chamber works.
Performing as Tall Poppies Ensemble
An occasional studio ensemble of Australian chamber musicians, the Tall Poppies Ensemble records Australian chamber music with crisp brilliance and outstanding precision: outback pulse, contemplative stillness, Asian-inflected lyricism and political colour.
Red Earth
A world-premiere recording of important Australian works for instrumental ensemble. Performers and repertoire were hand-selected for the project, which was funded by the Australia Council.
Geoffrey Collins also appears on
There Came a Wind like a Bugle: Chamber Music by Nigel Butterley
Chamber works spanning some thirty years by Nigel Butterley, one of Australia’s finest composers, for soloists, song and choir.
Crossing a Bridge of Dreams
This CD gathers some of Anne Boyd's most enduring works, mostly from the 1980s. Many pieces reflect her passion for Asian music, heard especially in the flute writing. Premiere performers return for the recording, among them John Harding on viola in My Name Is Tian.
Raft Song at Sunrise: Chamber Music, Vol. 2
Following the best-selling first volume of Ross Edwards’s chamber music (TP051), this disc gathers some of his most enduring works, recorded here for the first time.
Carl Vine: Chamber Music, Vol. 2
World premiere recordings of Carl Vine's Second Piano Sonata, played by Michael Kieran Harvey, and Third String Quartet, by the Tall Poppies Quartet (John Harding, Georges Lentz, Esther van Stralen and David Pereira).
An Australian Collection
Nineteen tracks drawn from the Tall Poppies catalogue, chosen to show the range and depth of Australian composition and performance across the label’s first decade.
Awakening
Marshall McGuire is a formidable asset to Australia’s contemporary music scene, and the only harpist specialising in both baroque harp and all forms of modern music. This Tall Poppies disc remains a catalogue best-seller.
Onomatopoeia
Long-awaited performances of Nigel Westlake’s most acclaimed chamber works, with outstanding Australian players. One of Tall Poppies’ most successful releases.
Geoffrey Collins is a member of
Tall Poppies Ensemble
An occasional studio ensemble of Australian chamber musicians, the Tall Poppies Ensemble records Australian chamber music with crisp brilliance and outstanding precision: outback pulse, contemplative stillness, Asian-inflected lyricism and political colour.
Australia Ensemble
The Australia Ensemble, resident at the University of New South Wales since its founding in 1980, is widely recognised as Australia’s leading chamber music ensemble. Seven principal instrumentalists form its core, joined by guests for standard repertoire and unusual combinations.