JUNO-nominated composer and guitarist Amy Brandon's pieces have been described as 鈥�...gut wrenching and horrific鈥� () and "Otherworldly and meditative ... a clashing of bleakness with beauty ..." (). Recent works include a cello concerto for Jeffrey Zeigler (Simulacra, 2022), and works for JACK Quartet Studio (Lysis, 2023), Orbit Ensemble (Caeli Nullius, 2024), Ensemble ArtChoral (Dust of the Water, 2023), ChromaDuo (plesiosynchronous, 2022), and Polycoro (Aenigmata, 2023; and Night is the Darkest of Weather, 2022).
A prolific composer for guitar, her works have been featured on a number of recordings since her first solo guitar and electronics album, Scavenger, was released in 2016. These works include pieces for Emma Rush (St. Nazaire on A Dream of Colour, 2023), An-Laurence Higgins (Artificial Light on Almost Touching, 2022), Jannis Wichmann (War Games on Guitaristic Cyborx, 2021), Emily Alice Shaw (points of light on In The Night, 2021), Libby Myers (Slancio on Unfettered and Alive, 2021), Joseph Ehrenpreis (Prometheus on New Music for Brahms Guitar Vol. 1, 2020). Her chamber works have also been recorded by Exponential Ensemble (crown of the sun on Matters of Time, 2024), Gillian Smith (Dualisms on En Route, 2023), Jennifer King (Frost Moon on O Mistress Moon Canadian Edition, 2021), and her orchestral recording of Simulacra will be part of her second studio album, Lysis, released on New Focus Recordings in 2024 alongside recordings by Sara Constant, Chartreuse Trio, Julian Bertino, Leah Plave and India Gailey, Quatuor Bozzini with Ensemble Paramirabo, and Alkali Collective.
Future works include a NextGen commission for the Toronto Symphony Orchestra and pieces for Quatuor Bozzini, bassoonist Alex Eastley, as well as an opera-in-progress featuring a libretto by poet David Martin. Her orchestral, chamber and choral works have been performed by a number of Canadian and international ensembles including the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Nova Scotia, Ekmeles, Lidiya Yankovskaya and the Refugee Orchestra, Continuum Contemporary Ensemble, KIRKOS Ensemble, DalChorus, Brandon University Orchestra, Maureen Batt with Halifax Camerata Singers, Upstream Ensemble, Mark Broschinsky, Noppakorn Auesirinucroch, Instruments of Happiness, Cowan-Cicchillitti Duo with 13 Strings, Bonnie Lander, and Yumi Suehiro. She has also created a number of augmented reality and physical installations, including an underwater sound installation in a swimming pool at Memorial University for Sound Symposium 2022. These works have been featured at a number of international festivals and venues including the Gaudeamus Festival, the Winnipeg New Music Festival, Maison symphonique de Montr茅al, the New School (NYC), Wolfensohn Hall at Princeton University (USA), the RE:FLUX Festival, ClusterFest, Chorus Festival (London, UK), Open Waters Festival, Women from Space, the MISE_EN Festival, Hochschule f眉r Musik und Theater (Germany), Trinity College (Dublin) and other venues in the UK, Brazil, Austria, and the USA.
Although no longer performing, she has played acoustic and electric guitar at venues in Canada, the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil. A highlight performance includes playing electric guitar for a performance of Penelope by Sarah Kirkland Snider with musicians from the Winnipeg Symphony Orchestra in 2020, and performing with celebrated improviser and pedal-steel player Susan Alcorn in 2018 (Sound Symposium, Something Else!). She has received a number of Canadian and international composition awards including a JUNO 2024 nomination for Classical Composition of the Year (Simulacra, 2022), the Friends of Canadian Music Award, nominated by Continuum Contemporary Ensemble, the IAWM Clark-Front Prize (2023) and Judith Lang Zaimont Prize (2021), the Official ISCM 2024 Canadian selection (Faroe Islands) for Lysis, an East Coast Music Award for Composer of the Year (2022) and the Leo Brouwer Guitar Composition Competition Grand Prize (2019), which was adjudicated by Leo Brouwer.
Amy currently teaches composition at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and 抖阴Pro in Sackville, New Brunswick. In addition to composition, she writes and presents academic work concerning music cognition, augmented reality, improvisation and the guitar and is completing an interdisciplinary doctorate at Dalhousie University. Her research has been featured in two book chapters 鈥楢ugmented reality guitars鈥� (2023) in 21st Century Guitar 鈥� Evolutions and Augmentations from Bloomsbury Academic, and a chapter in Quand la guitare [s']茅lectrise! from Sorbonne Universit茅 Press. She has also written articles for Musicworks, Soundboard, Just Jazz Guitar, and is the founder and co-director of the new music guitar festival The 21st Century Guitar.
