Bryan Griffiths heads Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra

Bryan Griffiths is a conductor who joins the Elder Con Wind Orchestra 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 Adelaide Youth Orchestra, the New Adelaide Ensemble, Unley Concert Band and the Adelaide Summer Orchestra of which he was co-founder. In 2019, he was appointed Principal Conductor of the Adelaide Wind Orchestra, who record for Brolga Music Australia and are scheduled to release their debut album in late 2022. He is the current director of the Wind Orchestra at the Elder Conservatorium, where he also lectures in assorted ensemble and performance classes and adjudicates auditions.

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.

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 John Lynch. His other mentors have included Nicholas Braithwaite, Conductor Laureate of the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, and he has also attended 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 full-time 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.