Artistic Director Iain Grandage leads the Perth Festival into an exciting new period of international excellence and brings to the 2020 — 23 Festivals a commitment to community, learning and participation.
Iain is one of Australia’s most highly regarded and acclaimed collaborative artists and programmers.
He has won seven Helpmann Awards and his long history with Perth Festival began with Black Swan Theatre productions of Merry-Go-Round in the Sea (1997), the theatrical adaptation of Tim Winton’s famous novel Cloudstreet (1998), The Year of Living Dangerously (1999) and Plainsong (2000). He was musical co-director and composer for the 2016 opening event spectacular, Home; arranged and music directed for The Rabbits (2015); won Helpmanns for his Music Direction and composition for the Festival’s co-commission Secret River (2013), and wrote and conducted the opening of the 2012 Festival Dawn:Dusk (2012).
Iain has received Victorian Green Room Awards, the prestigious Sidney Myer Performing Arts Award for an Individual, and the APRA/AMC award for Vocal Work of the Year for his opera based on Tim Winton’s novel The Riders.
As a programmer, he curated the chamber music program for the 2018 Adelaide Festival and was the Artistic Director of the Port Fairy Spring Music Festival from 2016 — 18.
He has been Composer-in-Residence with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and has an extensive track record of collaboration with Indigenous artists across the country. Born in Brisbane and raised in Perth, Iain is a University of Western Australia graduate and the proud recipient of an honorary Doctorate from that institution.
