Dirk Brossé

Composer Dirk Brossé is widely known, even in anglophone countries, for film music as well as scores in traditional genres. He is a conductor who has been active as far afield as the U.S., South America, and China, often leading concerts devoted to film music. Brossé is a prominent educator as well, teaching at the Royal Conservatory of Ghent, Belgium. He has a substantial discography that includes Elliot Goldenthal: Music for Film, recorded with the Brussels Philharmonic Orchestra and released in 2024.

Brossé was born on February 18, 1960, in Belgium. His birthplace has been variously reported as Ghent and the former municipality of Heusden; the two places are less than ten kilometers apart. He attended the Royal Conservatory of Music in Brussels and took conducting studies in Maastricht in the Netherlands, the Musikhochschule Köln in Germany (where he studied with Volker Wangenheim), and finally the University for Music and Performing Arts in Vienna. Brossé worked as music director for the National Youth Orchestra of Belgium and the Brussels International Youth Orchestra in the 1980s, also beginning his compositional career. Among his early mature works was On Safari for orchestra (1986). Brossé was interested in film music from the beginning, and scored the 1992 Belgian film Daens, which earned an Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. He earned positive attention for his Symphony No. 1 ("Artesia") of 1995; that work was included on the 2011 <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22EMI%22">EMI</a> album Dirk Brossé: A Portrait in Music.

As his reputation as a conductor grew, Brossé began to lead major orchestras including <a href="spotify:artist:5yxyJsFanEAuwSM5kOuZKc">the London Symphony</a>, <a href="spotify:artist:0MvSBMGRQJY3mRwIbJsqF1">the Royal Philharmonic</a> in Britain, and <a href="spotify:artist:79xQdsSFyN4cmMsxtWrvUc">the Rotterdam Philharmonic</a> in the Netherlands. He served for a time as music director of the Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia (for which he composed a Philadelphia Overture in 2014), and as a guest he conducted orchestras as far apart as the Shanghai Philharmonic and the National Orchestra of Ecuador. He often conducted performances of film music by himself and others, including a suite drawn from the scores of six Star Wars films. He has conducted scores for various films, leading the Brussels Philharmonic's for The Good Thief by American composer <a href="spotify:artist:0ObFwq8w8SfMs0xQqafq6y">Elliot Goldenthal</a> (2002). Brossé has continued to compose his own soundtrack music independently, both programmatic and abstract; his some 200 works include songs, orchestral and choral works, and chamber music. In one capacity or another, he has appeared on more than 70 albums. These include Elliot Goldenthal: Music for Film, which appeared on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Silva+Screen%22">Silva Screen</a> label in 2024. ~ James Manheim, Rovi