About Me
Brian Finley continues to pursue a multi-faceted career as a pianist, composer, arranger, director and impresario. As a pianist, he has been guest soloist with orchestras such as the Dallas Symphony, the Kitchener-Waterloo Symphony, the Windsor Symphony and the Calgary Philharmonic. A champion of Canadian music, he has premiered a number of works by Walter Buczynski in addition to premiering John Burge’s Concerto for Piano & Orchestra with the Kingston Symphony. He has appeared at venues ranging from the Olympic Music Festival in Washington, to Wigmore Hall in London, England and the Glenn Gould Studio in Toronto. In addition to performing his own arrangements for piano & orchestra, he has also arranged and performed with such singers such as Mark DuBois, Michael Burgess, Gerald Finley and Donna Bennett. He has appeared in over ten international piano competitions including the 8th International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition in Moscow, and won the third Prize in the AMSA International Competition in Cincinnati as well as the Gina Bachauer Award in Dallas. He enjoyed 10 years as host and Artistic Director of Brian Finley & Friends, a concert series in Cobourg’s Victoria Hall before becoming co-founder and Artistic & Managing Director of the Westben Arts Festival Theatre, Inc. near Campbellford Ontario in 1999. Now enjoying its seventh season, Westben is presenting over 120 guest artists in its 50 events scheduled for 2006. (For more information about the Westben Arts Festival Theatre, please visit www.westben.on.ca).Twice the recipient of the Floyd S. Chalmers Award from the Ontario Arts Council, Brian earned both Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Piano Performance from the University of Toronto, studying with William Aide and Boris Lysenko. Also holding an ARCT, he pursued further studies with Maria Curcio in London, England. He has been a full scholarship student at the Banff Centre and the Victoria International Festival.Brian’s compositions which range from solo piano music to songs, choral works and arrangements for full symphony orchestra have been heard from Victoria to Vienna, and several, including his 70-minute Requiem for a Millennium have been published internationally by Boosey & Hawkes in New York. His several recordings include a collection of solo piano music from Wigmore Hall in addition to many for the CBC and CFMX, and three critically acclaimed CD’s with soprano Donna Bennett, with whom he co-founded Westben. As a stage director, his productions for Westben include fully-staged versions of The Sound of Music (1998), his own Requiem for a Millennium (1999) and his own musical adaptation of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. For Westben in 2001, he wrote the libretto, composed the music, directed and conducted from the keyboard, the fully staged opera-musical SAMSON starring Mark DuBois, Donna Bennett and a cast & crew of 150 Philistines and Israelites. This was followed by his second opera-musical Rapunzel, (produced by Westben and starring Donna opposite Michael Burgess) which premiered in 2005. Together with co-arranger Ken Tizzard, he also produced the premiere cast recording. In 2006, the two collaborated on another musical based on the Christmas portion of Handel’s Messiah interwoven with an original setting of Hans Christian Anderson’s The Little Match Girl. The Little Match Girl Messiah was premiered at Westben in November, 2006.
In 2002, Brian was awarded the Queen Elizabeth Golden Jubilee Medal in recognition of his work within his community and with his fellow Canadians.
