Graeme Koehne(left) - featured Australian composer in the Canberra International Music Festival
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Graham Koehne is one of the busiest and most popular composers working in Australia today. Born into a strongly Lutheran family, with limited access to music, his compositional styles reflect a deep commitment to making music that is meaningful and important to as many people as possible. With a tremendously democratic approach to music making, Graham rails against the exclusionist nature and the purely technical focus of many classical music styles and institutions.
In this interview Graham shares his thoughts on composing, the influence of popular music on his compositions, the prevailing ideologies of modern music, the influence of performance on the meaning of his compositions, and the importance of music's central aim being to communicate.
For me this was a fantastic interview to do. Graham Koehne has such deeply felt notions about music and such a beautiful commitment to making music that is genuinely meaningful to the people who listen to it. I think the line that stands out for me in this interview that sums up what I like about Graham Koehne's compositions is 'why can't it just be a sweet, beautiful thing about your love of your child, it might be an old fashioned notion but I think it's a universal one.'
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