BRENDAN G CARROLL

Brendan G Carroll is an experienced author, journalist, broadcaster, lecturer, musicologist and marketing consultant to the Arts. A distinguished music & arts graduate, he was born in Southport, Lancashire. Coming from a musical family, Brendan Carroll began playing the piano at the age of three. His great-grandfather was the 19th century composer Alfred Harborough, a pupil of Henselt and a contemporary of Parry and Stanford, later organist and Master of the Music to the Duke of Norfolk at Arundel.

  Brendan studied piano with Richard Smith and organ with Brian Hodge and Noel  Rawsthorne. Following a brief career in teaching, Brendan Carroll has been a marketing consultant since 1980. He has combined this with a career in arts journalism  writing for, among other  distinguished publications, The Musical Times, Opera Now, Classical Music, Gramophone, Opera News (in New York)  and Die Musikforschung.

  In 1976 he became  the youngest ever contributor to The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians  and has considerable experience as a broadcaster - both for BBC Radio 3, the BBC World Service and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. He has recently joined BBC Music Magazine - as a special features writer.

  In 1988, he organised the PR and Marketing for the launch of the restored Albert Dock and Tate Gallery in Liverpool for Merseyside Development Corporation. From 1988 until 1992 he was a main board director of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and handled the marketing for this world famous orchestra's 150th anniversary in 1990.

  Although he no longer teaches, Brendan Carroll  lectures widely on his specialist subject - early 20th century music - and is a regular guest lecturer at the University of Southern California, for its general arts summer school. 

  Brendan Carroll has enjoyed a third career as a specialist advisor to the recording industry. He has been a consultant editor to the renowned Decca recording project Entartete Musik  which has restored many important works to the repertoire that were banned by Nazi Germany - and he is also a consultant to Chandos Records, and the record companies Nimbus, DELOS, CPO, ASV, Carlton,  Hyperion, Koch, and Calig (Weltbild) Verlag (Germany) on various specialist projects.

  In 1997 he published a major musical biography -  The Last Prodigy - a biography of the Austrian composer Erich Wolfgang Korngold, on whom he is the world authority  - which was issued by Amadeus Press in America and has been widely acclaimed in the press. 

'...this biography is so absorbingly readable...'

Film Score Monthly

...Brendan Carroll's book is very readable. Technicalities are minimised but used succinctly and tellingly...

Classical Music Website

An extended and revised German edition is currently in preparation. To read more about Erich Korngold Click here .

Brendan is president of the International Korngold Society (which he co-founded in 1983 with publisher Konrad Hopkins), and has been responsible for no fewer than nine premieres of Korngold's major works in the UK. He has collaborated on numerous international CD projects, including the world premiere recording of Korngold's most important opera, DAS WUNDER DER HELIANE, as part of the acclaimed Entartete Musik project for the Decca label as well as many recordings of Korngold's film symphonies, both modern and historical. He also collaborated with producer/director Barrie Gavin on the production of BETWEEN TWO WORLDS, a major television documentary on Korngold for German Television now being shown throughout the EC and scheduled for North America.

Buy 'The Last Prodigy - A Biography of Erich Wolfgang Korngold'  at Amazon

Among Brendan Carroll's most recent clients for his marketing consultancy services are: Royal Insurance plc, K.I.N.D. (the Children's Charity), the Philharmonia of the Nations, the violinist Ittai Shapira, the English Chamber Orchestra, the pianists Justus Frantz and Marjan Kiepura, the Austrian Cultural Institute (London) and the Moscow Chamber Orchestra.     

  In Spring 1999, he was appointed overall marketing director for the Johann Strauss Centenary Festival organised in London by the Austrian Government. This important Festival (April-July) comprised over 60 events in twenty different venues and was attended by many international guests including the  Mayor of Vienna and Dr Eduard Strauss, head of the Strauss family.

  In 2000, Brendan Carroll was appointed marketing director of Dreamscapes  - a unique multi-arts festival in London (May/June) to celebrate the centenary of Sigmund Freud’s ‘Interpretation of Dreams’ which attracted substantial press interest  and presented numerous premieres of important 20th century works. In October he will supervise the launch of a new American CD label in the UK and Europe, specialising in Polish music.

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