Burrows was born in Sydney in 1937, a visiting flute virtuoso and teacher, Victor McMahon, played and inspired Burrows to take up the flute. By 1942 Burrows had taken up clarinet. He became well known in Sydney jazz circles and was playing in dance halls, nightclubs and radio bands.
During the 1960s and 1970s, Burrows was one of the best-known jazz musician in Australia and had many engagements in Australia and the United States.
In 1973 Burrows received the first gold record for an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning, started the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music (under the direction of Rex Hobcroft) and was awarded the Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 1979 he was appointed Chair of Jazz Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium.
Burrows hosted the nationally televised show The Don Burrows Collection for six years. He has an extensive recording career in his own right with his groups and has performed on many more albums with other artists.
In the 1980s, Burrows was associated closely with the then young James Morrison.
Awards
Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE), 1973
Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), 1987[8]
Life member of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, 1988
Inducted into the ARIA Music Awards Hall of Fame, 1991
Named one of the Australian Living Treasures, 1989, 1999
Sir Bernard Heinze Award, for his service to Australia, 2000
Honorary Doctorate in Music, Sydney University, 2000
Honorary Doctorate in Music, Edith Cowan University, Perth, 2001
Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music, Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) Awards of 2004
Honorary Doctorate in Education, Central Queensland University, 2004
Queen Elizabeth II Silver Jubilee Medal (1977)
Inducted into the Australian jazz Bell Awards Hall of Fame, 2007
Paul Grabowsky is a pianist, composer, conductor and founder of the Australian Art Orchestra. Born in Papua New Guinea in 1958, and raised in Melbourne Australia, he began classical piano lessons as a five-year-old, studying with Mack Jost from 1965-1978. He began informal studies in jazz around 1976, and devoted his energies fully to improvised music from 1978. Paul lived in Munich, Germany from 1980-1985, where he was active on the local and European jazz scenes, performing and/or recording with Johnny Griffin, Chet Baker, Art Farmer, Benny Bailey, Guenther Klatt, Marty Cook and many others. He returned to Australia in 1986.
In 1983, he formed the Paul Grabowsky Trio, winner of two ARIA awards and still one of Australia’s longest-living and most influential bands. Their latest recording Big Adventure was released in November 2004 on ABC Classics.
As a performer, he became known for his work with the Wizards of Oz, a group he co-lead from 1987-1989 with saxophonist Dale Barlow and Vince Jones, and for whom he was musical director from 1988-89. From 1990-1992 Paul lead the Groovematics, the band on the nightly national television show Tonight Live.
He performs and records regularly with singers Robyn Archer andKatie Noonan (george / Elixir).
In 1994, he founded the Australian Art Orchestra that features the cream of Australian improvising musicians.
Paul produced and presented the television series Access All Areas in 1996, and was Commissioning Editor for ABC Television Arts and Entertainment 1996 -1998.
He is regarded as one of Australia’s foremost screen composers, working with such directors as Fred Schepisi (Empire Falls, Last Orders), Paul Cox (Human Touch, Innocence), John Irvin (The Grooming, Shiner) and Gillian Armstrong (The Last Days of Chez Nous). His television credits are numerous and include the ABC series Phoenix and Janus and the award-winning Channel Ten mini-series Jessica directed by Peter Andrikidis.
His works for the theatre include the operas The Mercenary(1997-99) and Love in the Age of Therapy (2000-2001). His music for the shadow play The Theft of Sita (1999-2000) won a Helpmann award. Before Time Could Change Us – a Song Cycle with lyrics by Dorothy Porter and music by Paul Grabowsky – is scheduled for a 2005 CD release featuring Katie Noonan and the Paul Grabowsky Trio with Scott Tinkler.
In 2004 Tales of Time and Space (Warner) was released to critical acclaim. Paul recorded this in New York with Branford Marsalis,Joe Lovano, Jeff ‘Tain’ Watts, Ed Schuller and Scott Tinkler.
Photo Credit:Â Jeff Wassmann
Recordings
Tinkler Rex Grabowsky Edie (2005)
Tales of Time and Space (2004)
