Bryan Griffiths is a conductor with extensive experience across professional, educational and community music spheres. Specialising in wind ensembles, he is also proficient in orchestral and chamber music, having conducted the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, the Band of the South Australian Police, the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Wind Symphony, the Adelaide Hills Chamber Players and the Adelaide Summer Orchestra of which he was co-founder. In 2019, he was appointed Music Director of the Adelaide Wind Orchestra, who record for Brolga Music Australia and are scheduled to release their debut album in April 2024. Under his direction, the Adelaide Wind Orchestra has been invited to perform at the 2024 International Conference of the World Association for Symphonic Bands and Ensembles in Gwangju-Gyeonggi, South Korea.
Beginning in January of this year, Bryan was appointed Director of Music Performance at Pembroke School, where he leads in all aspects of the school's ensemble and instrumental programs. Prior to this appointment, Bryan worked extensively as a casual lecturer in classical performance at the University of Adelaide, which included the directorship of the Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra and Brass Ensemble. He continues his long-standing relationship with the University as a part-time member of the conducting faculty and as PhD candidate in music performance. Under the supervision of Prof. Charles Bodman Rae and Dr. Luke Dollman, his doctoral research focuses on Australian wind ensemble repertoire. Extending his passion for this genre’s artistic advancement and recognition also led Bryan to found the Adelaide Wind Band Festival, successfully launched in June 2023 and presented in partnership with ABODA SA and the Elder Conservatorium of Music.
Bryan’s emergence as a versatile conductor and educator began in 2012 through what would become a decade-long professional relationship with the Adelaide Youth Orchestras; there, he has held various positions, often concurrently, including those of Associate Conductor, director of the Adelaide Youth Wind Orchestra and mentor of chamber ensembles. During this time, he received regular invitations to conduct for the South Australian Music Camp and has returned there to conduct as recently as 2021. In 2015, Bryan was invited to conduct, teach and perform at the Federal University of Santa Maria’s Festival Internacional de Inverno held in Southern Brazil.
His reputation as a passionate and well-rounded instructor has further been consolidated through his presentation of workshops and masterclasses, developed at the request of such bodies as the Australian Band and Orchestra Directors' Association (ABODA). In addition to regularly adjudicating for ABODA's SA School and Band Festival, Bryan has adjudicated the annual state band championships for the South Australian and New South Wales Band Associations. He will further adjudicate the Yamaha Australian National Band Championships later in 2024.
Since completing his Master of Music (conducting) at the Sydney Conservatorium in 2018, Bryan’s corresponding research on Nigel Butterly has been published in the international academic journal Estudios bandísticos, alongside work by his former supervisor Dr. John Lynch. His other mentors have included Dr. Alan Maddox and Nicholas Braithwaite, Conductor Laureate of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra. He is fortunate to have also trained in the context of masterclasses led by H. Robert Reynolds, Mallory Thompson, Joseph Swensen and Gerard Schwartz.
Before focusing on conducting, Bryan performed as a horn player with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Sydney Sinfonia, the Adelaide Art Orchestra and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, where he served in a full-time position from 2010 until 2015. As a soloist, he performed with the Elder Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra, the Adelaide Youth Orchestra and Unley Symphony Orchestra. His principal horn teachers were Philip Hall, Philip Paine and Nelson Green.