Chris Cree Brown is based at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand, where he is a senior lecturer at the School of Music. He is a composer with a diverse range of interests including instrumental concert works, electroacoustic and computer music, music theatre, intermedia art and large-scale musical sculptures designed for public sites.
Chris Cree Brown began his studies at the University of Canterbury, where he attained a B.A. Mus.B (Hons) in 1977 and in 2003 was awarded the degree of Doctor of Music. Early in his career, he was twice awarded the Mozart Fellowship at the University of Otago (1980 & 1983). In the same years he won two prizes in the Wellington Youth Orchestra‘s Young Composers Competition. In 2001 and 2002 he was a finalist in the SOUNZ Contemporary Music Awards for his works Memories Apart for chamber ensemble, and Icescape for orchestra.
Cree Brown maintains an eclectic range of compositional interests. From 1976 and throughout the 1980s, Cree Brown was commissioned to write a number of film scores he also composed for music theatre and was twice appointed Composer-in-Schools. He collaborated with other artists by creating a number of soundscapes to complement their exhibitions, including Margaret Dawson, Ralph Hotere, Cilla McQueen, Andrew Drummond, John Cousins, Colleen Anstey, Mike Sulkowski, and Dennis O?Connor and Mark MacIntyre. In 2001, Cree Brown collaborated with sculptor Fiona Gunn for The Dinner, a mixed media installation and sound work at the Physics Room, Christchurch. Among his recent instrumental compositions is The Watertable for flute (alto/bass) and tape, commissioned by the New Zealand Flute Society for their 2002 convention.
In 1999, he visited Antarctica supported by the Artists to Antarctica programme run under the auspices of Antarctic New Zealand and with the assistance of Creative New Zealand. This trip resulted in his orchestral work Icescape and an electroacoustic work Under Erebus.
Cree Brown is perhaps best known for his interest and research into his design of an Aeolian Harp, which exhibited in the Christchurch Botanical Gardens as part of ‘Scape: New Zealand Community Trust Art + Industry Urban Arts Biennial 2002’.
