Graeme John KoehneAO (born 3 August 1956), is an Australian composer and music educator. He is best known for his orchestral and ballet scores, which are characterised by direct communicative style and embrace of tertian harmony. His orchestral trilogy Unchained Melody, Powerhouse, and Elevator Music makes allusions to Hollywood film score traditions, cartoon music, popular Latin music and other dance forms.
He returned to Australia in 1986 and was appointed Lecturer in Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. In the early 1990s he collaborated with librettist Louis Nowra on the chamber opera Love Burns, which was premiered at the 1992 Adelaide Festival.[1] Around this time, he commenced his long and fruitful collaboration with choreographer Graeme Murphy, which included a children's ballet based on Oscar Wilde's The Selfish Giant and the full-length work Nearly Beloved.
As of 2005, Koehne is Head of Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music.[2] Until recently[when?] he also chaired the Music Board of the Australia Council and was a board member of the council.
Graeme is married to former model, now advertising Creative Director of Oranje Creative, Melinda Parent. Graeme and Melinda have one son Willem Lukas Christiaan (born 2007).[3]
Tivoli (2001; Sydney Dance Company/The Australian Ballet co-production)[4]
Chamber music
String Quartet
To His Servant Bach God Grants a Final Glimpse – The Morning Star (1989; also transcribed as organ trio). The work references Spitta's Johann Sebastian Bach: "...so that Bach was henceforth totally blind... On July 18 he suddenly found his eyesight restored, and could bear daylight; but this was life's parting greeting...he died on Tuesday, July 28, 1750..."[5]
Concertos
InFlight Entertainment (2000, oboe concerto)
Orchestral
Rainforest (c. 1982)
Unchained Melody (1991)
Powerhouse (1993)
Elevator Music (1997)
Way Out West (2000)
Sleep of Reason (2008)
Song of the Open Road (2017)
Albums
List of albums, with selected details
Title
Details
String Quartets (with The Australian String Quartet, Richard Mills & Richard Meale)
Released: 1994
Format: CD
Label: ABC Classics (442 347-2)
Inflight Entertainment ∙ Powerhouse ∙ Elevator Music (with Diana Doherty & Sydney Symphony)
In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Koehne was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), "for distinguished service to the performing arts as a composer of chamber, concert and ballet music, and through substantial contributions as an educator and arts administrator."[7]