“I tossed my tailcoat into the audience and said ‘Adieu!’”
A conversation with composer Brett Dean “I tossed my tailcoat into the audience and said ‘Adieu!’”A conversation with composer Brett Dean

While Brett Dean played viola in the Berliner Philharmoniker for 14 years, he was also composing and improvising in Kreuzberg clubs. He left the orchestra in 1999 to focus on his international career as a composer. For the 2026/27 season, Brett Dean will be Composer in Residence with his former orchestra. 

Brett Dean, when you walk through the Philharmonie today – how does that feel?

It brings back a wealth of memories. I was very young when I started playing viola with the Berliner Philharmoniker in 1985. The years I spent here were therefore part of my coming of age. They had a decisive influence on the musician I am today.

What was your first experience with the orchestra like?

What struck me most was the sheer physicality of the playing, especially among the string players. I often sat right in front of the bass section – and there was nowhere more physical in the entire orchestra. That just blew my socks off.

Do you remember the atmosphere in the Philharmonie? 

It was strange: when we were playing, there was this great emotional freedom, but backstage everything was much more formal than it is today. There were quite a few elderly colleagues who still came to work in a suit and tie. And then suddenly there I was with my casual Australian demeanour. That must have unsettled some people.

In general, the orchestra was far less international than it is today.

Yes, but that made it easier for me to learn German. Today, everyone wants to speak English. Back then, I had to learn this difficult new language very quickly – not only for working together during rehearsals, but also for the breaks. Because, of course, I wanted to be able to laugh along with all the jokes.

You joined the orchestra during the final phase of the Karajan era. What was it like back then?

Those were the years when Karajan’s powers were fading, and he was increasingly retreating to the standard repertoire – to a few works that no longer really needed rehearsing. I remember one exception, when Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto was on the programme. That was one of the few occasions in my years with Karajan when he worked intensively on a piece – taking it apart and putting it back together again. 

What exactly did he do?

In the music of the Second Viennese School, the distinction between the primary and the secondary voice is very important. Karajan worked on this so that we were always aware where we fit within the overall musical texture. And the orchestral colours were important to him. I found this attention to detail incredibly exciting.

From improvising to composing 

At some point, you developed the idea of becoming a freelance composer. How did that come about?

I really loved my work in the orchestra. The same goes for playing chamber music with my colleagues, many of whom became my friends. But I had the feeling early on that this wasn’t everything I was looking for in my musical life, but rather a chapter of life. At that time, I also met an Australian rock musician named Simon Hunt, with whom I began improvising. That was an incredibly important impulse.

Where did you perform?

We performed in some bizarre clubs in what was still West Berlin, such as the Fischbüro at Schlesisches Tor. For me, those were experiences just as profound as playing Mahler and Bruckner. That was my life back then: first being intensely focused and playing symphonies in a tailcoat, then improvising in front of the Kreuzberg audience wearing their black leather jackets. Simon and I then started working together in the studio, and some of our stuff was even released on a Belgian crossover label. At some point, I knew I had to follow this urge. 

How did you go from improvising to composing on staff paper? 

Simon had moved back to Australia, and we could only work together when I was there during the summer break. So if I wanted to bring ideas to our sessions, I had to write them down.

Composing requires a certain amount of skill. How did you learn that?

When I was studying viola at the Brisbane Conservatory, I took a writing techniques class with Alan Lane, a wonderful composition teacher. He took us through the different compositional strands of thought and techniques from throughout the 20th century. Every week, we were asked to write a piece that would explore some compositional technique or other. For example, I wrote a piece for piano four hands in the style of Morton Feldman, while other works were based on the harmonies of Bartók or Wagner. I really enjoyed that.

Can you say when your actual career as a composer began?

I had a trio with my brother Paul, who is a wonderful clarinettist, and a pianist friend of ours. When we planned a small tour in the early 1990s, I was asked to write a new piece for that tour. At first, I wanted to combine our live performance with pre-recorded music so that we would have seven clarinets and ten violas – just as Simon and I had layered tracks in our studio work. And then I realised, no, this is the time where I write, I use the discipline of the limitations of just the three of us and see what I can make of that. This became my “Opus One”: a trio called Night Window, which I’m pleased to say still gets played now. In my later music, I did combine classical instruments and electronic music.

In 1999, the Berliner Philharmoniker performed one of your works for the first time, with Simon Rattle conducting. How did that come about?

Simon and I have been friends for 40 years, and after my work Carlo for string orchestra was premiered in 1997, I played him a recording of it. Without telling me, Simon put it on his next programme with the orchestra. So I was sitting in rehearsal at some point and thought, “Wow, my own orchestra is playing one of my pieces!” Simon then became a very significant champion of my music and commissioned several works.

It’s all the more sad that you were no longer in the orchestra when he became chief conductor in 2002.

Of course we talked about it, but he simply said, “This is your time now. You’ve got to do this! You’re going to be a travelling music ambassador.”

Farewell and new beginning

Giving up the security of such a permanent position is not only an artistic but also an economic decision. 

That’s true. We had two young daughters, so I had to think carefully about what that would mean for our family. But my wife Heather, who is a painter and a visual artist, encouraged me because she knew what life as a freelance artist was like. She gave me a very clear message: “Of course it will be tricky – but we’ll make it work. Come on, give it a go!” So I handed in my resignation in 1999.

Did you celebrate your departure from the orchestra in any way?

My last official concert was the New Year’s Eve concert in 1999/2000 with Claudio Abbado conducting. During the final applause, I threw my tailcoat into the audience and said “Adieu!” I was ready to leave. 

What were your expectations when you started your new life?

I had a few commissions lined up and continued to perform as a violist. I still love playing the viola and playing chamber music. These engagements helped me pay the rent and make ends meet.

As a musician, you were now a lone wolf – that must have been an adjustment as well.

It took about a year to sort of get into the swing of it and to realise I had to be my own motivational force. There were times where I just simply missed the social, the familial feel of just being with this wonderful group of people. But once my new life had settled down, I never looked back.

At the same time, there seems to be an echo of your philharmonic years in your music, which often has a very lush, rich sound.

The sound of this orchestra is always still there when I compose, even now, 25 years later. It’s still those experiences that I’m kind of tapping into even as I’ve tried to extend my own possibilities with orchestration and composition more generally. And especially when I write for the Berliner Philharmoniker, it feels like being on home turf.

In addition to this specific sound, it is striking that almost all of your instrumental works have programmatic titles. In some works, these titles relate to environmental destruction – for example, in Fire Music, which the Berliner Philharmoniker performed in 2025 with Marin Alsop conducting. How did this thematic focus come about?

There are social issues that move me. And as a composer of classical contemporary art music, I use what I have at my disposal to express my thoughts about it, but I don’t have any false expectations that it’s going to change the world. When I refer to environmental destruction, it is my humble way of expressing my distress, outrage, and also hope.

So it’s less about the subject itself and more about processing your own feelings and thoughts?

Take Fire Music, for example. We were living in Melbourne when a dreadful bushfire broke out during one of those hot summers. Some weeks later, my wife and I were invited by friends whose neighbourhood had been very badly devastated. It was depressing: burnt-out wrecks of cars were lying everywhere on the side of the road. We went for a walk through the devastated bushland, and suddenly there were these incredibly bright green shoots: new life rising from the ashes. In my piece, I wanted to express how sad the whole thing made me feel – but also that something new can emerge from such a terrible event.

But you don’t want to try to convince anyone?

If you don’t get too preachy and just remain humble in the face of huge questions, then go for it. Just don’t preach. I go to a concert or to the theatre to be stimulated, to have questions raised, but I don’t want to be told what to think.

How important is the main programmatic concept in general when you compose?

It can be a driving force to a certain extent, but it cannot carry the piece on its own. Ultimately, a piece of music has to have its own internal logic. There’s no point having this fascinating backstory to a piece if the music itself doesn’t engage you. The question is: what if you hear a new piece on the radio without knowing the title or having read the programme notes? Even in this case, the music should be inspiring and coherent.

Residency and debut

In your history with the Berliner Philharmoniker, the 2026/27 season will be a special chapter – you will be returning to your orchestra as Composer in Residence. How does that feel for you?

When I was offered this residency, I was incredibly happy and proud. The orchestra has now played many of my works, and even though I am no longer here on a daily basis, this place still feels like home. There’s still a part of the young me here, and it’s nice to see that person again.

Is there a common thread running through the residency programme?

If there is a common thread, then it is probably the different things that I do. I am not only here as a composer. I’ll play the viola, I’ll be working together with young musicians from the Karajan Academy, and I’ll be conducting the orchestra. And they’re part of the various aspects that now make up my life.

A debut as conductor of the Berliner Philharmoniker is always something special. In your case, there is also the added dimension of meeting former colleagues.

Of course, conducting the orchestra is a very particular challenge. And I’ll be the first to admit that if they’d come to me with a standard Philharmonic programme, I would have said, thanks, guys, but I think you need a professional for that. However, a programme that’s built very much around my voice as a composer and pieces of mine that I have conducted before – I feel that’s something I really can share with the orchestra with a great degree of authority. 

How will you feel going into the first rehearsal?

My heart might be racing at the start, but I’m really looking forward to it.