Another Dean work, the much praised Carlo , was also performed. At the last minute, an ACO violist took ill and Dean found himself in the unsettling position of sight-reading his own composition. In November, the Sydney Symphony will play Carlo under the baton of American conductor Marin Alsop. In June, the orchestra will perform another Dean composition, Ariel's Music , which won the 1999 International Rostrum of Composers award in Paris. Alongside the ACO, it is the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, however, that appears to be the great Australian-based champion of Dean's works.
Nobody likes being slagged off in the papers.
But thankfully I've had more than my share of good crits. And strangely enough, when my pieces haven't been received favourably, that hasn't stopped the piece going on to have a life of its own anyway. Dean's biggest risk-taking venture is probably still to come. Although nothing has yet been set in concrete, it is believed his debut opera, based on the Peter Carey novel Bliss , has been pencilled into Simone Young's 2004 Opera Australia diary. And Sydney writer Wendy Beckett has replaced Helen Garner as the rumoured likely librettist.