Kerian Varaine
Music has only really started engulfing my being in the past 6 years, even though it has always been a big part of my life. With supportive parents churning me through instrument after instrument, I could never settle on just one. I came to composition through writing music for the bands I have performed in.
I fell in love with classical music, especially chamber music when I listened to Shostakovich's and Bartok string quartets, which have been a constant inspiration. Currently playing banjo in the Dunedin based anarcho-jug-band Whiskey and the Wench, I am also starting a collaboration writing the live music for a Super-8 collage and composing a trio for two violins and piano for an upcoming performance.
I am currently the organizer of Chamber Vulgarus, a series of concerts to get local composers' music played by local performers to a new audience in Dunedin.
Kerian was awarded a Lilburn Trust Composition Award (excellence) in 2010 from Otago University.
(Updated February 2011)
