Christopher Austin signs to Wise Music Group

Wise Music Group has signed an exclusive agreement to represent the work of arranger, conductor and composer Christopher Austin. Austin joins the stellar roster of Chester Music alongside his mentor Peter Maxwell Davies and friend and regular collaborator Joby Talbot. 

Christopher Austin says: 'Joining Chester Music feels like a homecoming. The company has been part of my professional life since the beginning, and Gill Graham, James Rushton and the brilliant team people who work for Wise Music Classical have long supported me in my work in all sorts of ways. To become part of the company that publishes Stravinsky, Lutosławski, Poulenc, Casella, Maxwell Davies, Abrahamsen, Sørensen – the list could go on and on – is both thrilling and humbling at the same time. I look forward to a long and happy creative partnership with Chester Music in the years to come.'

Group Head of Promotion Gill Graham comments: 'I have known Chris, on and off the musical stage, for more than 20 years, which makes me sound old and him prodigious. It’s a pleasure to welcome Chris to the Company and very much look forward to working with his impressive portfolio of skills and talent, not least his ravishing new chamber orchestra versions of Zemlinsky’s Six Songs after Poems by Maeterlinck and his insightful consultation with our rich back catalogue'.


About Christopher Austin
Christopher Austin is an acclaimed conductor of contemporary music and a Tony® Award-winning orchestrator, in demand for his dazzling scores for stage and screen right across the world. As an orchestrator, Austin’s work includes the Tony® and Drama Desk Award-winning score for An American in Paris, orchestrations for Wayne McGregor’s Chroma, and Christopher Wheeldon and Joby Talbot’s critically acclaimed Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland at The Royal Ballet. He contributed orchestrations for Mark-Anthony Turnage’s score for Strapless (2017), orchestrated Frank Moon’s music for The Wind by Arthur Pita, and produced new chamber orchestral versions of Zemlinsky’s Six Songs after Poems by Maeterlinck. Future projects include a new score commissioned by Houston Ballet and choreographer Arthur Pita.

As a conductor, Christopher has worked extensively across Europe with orchestras including the Philharmonia, the Hallé, Orchestre National de Lille, Opera de Rouen, Hungarian Radio Symphony Orchestra, Odense Symphony, Århus Sinfonietta, Athelas Sinfonietta Copenhagen, and the New Music Orchestra (Katowice) to name just a few. He has been a tireless champion for new music, giving world and regional premieres of over 200 works by composers including Hans Abrahamsen, Malcolm Arnold, Diana Burrell, Peter Maxwell Davies, Tansy Davies, Pelle Gudmundsen Holmgreen, Per Nørgård, Morten Olsen, Olga Neuwirth, Joby Talbot, and Li Ying Wu. Austin is also Professor of Composition, Orchestration and Conducting at the Royal Academy of Music, London.