Paul Stanhope

Paul Stanhope is an Australian composer, conductor and music educator, known for his choral and instrumental music.

Early life and education Stanhope was a student of Andrew Ford, Andrew Schultz and Peter Sculthorpe, and received the Charles Mackerras Scholarship to study at the Guildhall School of Music in London in 2000.

Composition In May 2004, he won first place at the Toru Takemitsu Composition Award for his work Fantasia on a Theme by Vaughan Williams, and in 2010 was featured composer for Musica Viva, resulting in the following report from artistic director Carl Vine:Paul Stanhope’s contribution as Featured Composer for the 2010 Season set a new benchmark, with every one of his works standing proudly alongside the finest chamber music presented by our touring artists. His music left a powerful and enduring impression upon the year’s concerts, drawing liberal praise from an unprecedented number of our patrons.

A commissioned music-drama for large choir and orchestra premiered in 2014 titled Jandamarra: Sing for the Country, based on the life of a North resistance hero of the Bunuba nation of Western Australia.

Conducting and teaching Stanhope has held the post of musical director with the Sydney Chamber Choir, and guest conductor of Gondwana Voices/Sydney Children's Choir, and since 2014 has been the artistic chair of the Australia Ensemble at UNSW. In 2011 they were re-branded as the Art Music Awards.

Pavel Haas Quartet's String Quartet No. 2 (Stanhope) Work of the Year – Instrumental

Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge and Stephen Layton's Deserts of Exile (Stanhope, Jabra Ibrahim Jabra) Work of the Year – Vocal or Choral Jane Sheldon, Ensemble Offspring and Roland Peelman's The Origin Cycle (Stanhope, Elliott Gyger, Kate Neal, Barry Conyngham, Rosalind Page, Elena Kats-Chernin, Nicholas Vines, Dan Walker) Performance of the Year

ACO2, Australian Chamber Orchestra and Dale Barltrop's Qinoth (Stanhope) Work of the Year – Instrumental

Sydney Chamber Choir and Stanhope's Osanna Mass (Clare Maclean) Work of the Year – Vocal or Choral 2015 Brett Weymark, Simon Lobelson, Yilimbirri Ensemble, Gondwana Choirs and Sydney Symphony Orchestra's Jandamarra - Sing for the Country (Stanhope, Steve Hawke) Orchestral Work of the Year 2016 Goldner String Quartet's "String Quartet No. 3" (Stanhope) Performance of the Year

Vocal / Choral Work of the Year

Performance of the Year 2018 Joshua Davis, West Australian Symphony Orchestra and Asher Fisch's "Concerto for Trombone and Orchestra" (Stanhope) Orchestral Work of the Year 2020 Gondwana Choirs, Luminescence Chamber Singers, Valla Voices, Hunter Singers, Resonance and Lyn Williams' I Am Martuwarra (Stanhope, Steve Hawke) Work of the Year: Choral

Sydney Chamber Choir's Requiem (Stanhope, Oodgeroo Noonuccal, Neela Nath Das, Mary Elizabeth Frye, Emily Dickinson) Work of the Year: Choral

Andrew Haveron and Simon Tedeschi's Machine Codes (Stanhope) Performance of the Year: Notated Composition

Other awards

2004 Winner, Toru Takemitsu Composition Award: Fantasia on a theme of Vaughan Williams 2010 First Prize, Albert H Maggs Composition Award