Julian Cochran

Julian Cochran in 1998

Julian Cochran (born 14 June 1974) is an English-born Australian composer.

Cochran's earlier works show stylistic influences from Impressionist music and his later works are more noticeably influenced by Classical music and folk music of Eastern Europe. Cochran's piano compositions, such as the Piano Sonatas, demand considerable virtuosity from the performer. The piano works include Russian Toccata, eight Preludes for Piano Forte, three Scherzi, five Romanian Dances, Animation Suite composed of Tin Sentinel, Fire Dance, Clockwork Doll, Wooden Dolls (Matreshki) and Flydian Galop, five Mazurkas, the two-part impressionistic work Maelstrom and three Piano Sonatas. Cochran also wrote orchestral and chamber music including a trio for violin and oboe trio, sextet for string quartet, oboe and bassoon, the orchestral work Russian Song and choral works.

Cochran renounced the pairing of cultural identity with assumed heritage for artists working in the 21st Century thus rejecting notions of an Australian Musical Style and Cochran developed an individual tonal approach incorporating classical structures. This tonality commonly made effective use unusual scales; for example the scale consisting of alternating tones and semitones as used in Tin Sentinel thought to have first been used in Persian music of the 7th century AD; and the scale of alternating semi-tones and tone-and-a-halves used for Scherzo No. 3.

Cochran's public success began with the reaction to a performance of his music at Carnegie Hall followed by radio broadcasts on ABC Classic FM catalyzing the study of Cochran's works.

External links

• Poster with Cochran's Mazurka No. 1 performed at Carnegie Hall
• Cochran Manuscript Archives