Mark Isaacs is an internationally-acclaimed composer, pianist and conductor in classical music and jazz, and also a film composer and songwriter.
Isaacs has composed 134 works, many commissioned by Australia’s most distinguished orchestras, ensembles and musicians. His output includes three symphonies, six concertos, chamber, choral, vocal and solo works. He has received major awards including an Australia Council Fellowship, the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award and the Jean Bogan Prize for Piano Composition.
As a jazz pianist and composer, he has twice been nominated for the ARIA Award for Best Jazz Album, has recorded and toured worldwide including festivals such as Tokyo Jazz Festival and Pori Jazz Finland, working with some of the artform’s most legendary international figures like Roy Haynes, Dave Holland and Kenny Wheeler, and releasing many acclaimed albums on major international and Australian labels such as Naxos and ABC.
As a classical pianist, he has released highly-regarded solo recordings and collaborated with distinguished Australian classical instrumentalists on the concert stage and in the studio. Isaacs has conducted his own concert works and film music with major orchestras and ensembles including the Czech National Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australian Chamber Orchestra, and Omega Ensemble.
He has also written the music and lyrics for releases he has produced of popular-style songs, as well as many orchestral scores for film.
Mark Isaacs was for a decade an accredited voluntary telephone crisis supporter at Lifeline Australia, the nationwide suicide prevention service.
“Your gift is so unusual, because you compose pieces that are light-hearted very well – a bit jazzy, whatever, with harmonies that are not often used and yet you compose a symphony, that’s very serious, and totally different, like a different composer, but as convincing as your short pieces. That’s quite unusual…I enjoyed your symphony very much: a masterful piece, logical in the use of the material and very well orchestrated”
“The work of an artist capable of matching the rich elements of classical composition with the flowing rhythms of jazz … the product of a splendid musical mind.”
“I am delighted to endorse Mark Isaacs as one of the finest contemporary symphonists working in Australia. His symphonies are amongst the most attractive Australian orchestral works of the last decade.”
“Isaacs, with every release, has refined his systematic approach to post-modernity jazz to the point that his sound defines what jazz should sound like at the advent of the 21st Century.”
“This wonderful cycle is highly inventive and inspiring, accessible to children and adults alike. Very enjoyable and touching!”
“With each new [jazz] release Mark finds a new angle of addressing his prodigious talents…there is a sophisticated musicality at work that is special and rare…He is a serious musician looking to solve deep questions.”
“His scoring is highly sophisticated; he can use all the colours of a full orchestra as well as anyone…..resembling Richard Strauss at his most exuberant.”
“Propelled by a winning combination of sharp rhythms and lyrical melodies.”
“Music, at its absolute best, touches the realm of infinity. This is the feeling I have always had with Mark Isaacs’ music, delirious with the beauty and depth of his masterful storytelling, sensitive technique and razor-sharp intelligence.”
“The great modern Australian pianist/composer is no stranger to Moscow audiences….pure, crisp and vehement…I never thought that jazz was still so much alive.”
“Here were dialogues to restore the faith. As the world crumbles into vulgarity, vitriol and worse, one felt blessed—privileged, even—to hear solo performances by pianists of the calibre of Mark Isaacs.”
“At heart, the work of a full-blooded romantic, though one with plenty of rhythmic vitality.”
“In many ways Mark Isaacs’s personality could be compared with that of Leonard Bernstein – the same boundless energy, enthusiasm for a broad range of music, pianistic skills and passionate concern for the performance bring to mind similar impressions to those I received from the few occasions I was lucky enough to work with Maestro Bernstein.”