Don Burrows
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Donald Vernon Burrows, AO, MBE (b. August 8, 1928) is an Australian jazz and swing musician, playing the clarinet, saxophone, and flute. His best-known group is the Don Burrows Quartet: Don Burrows (multiple woodwind), George Golla (guitar), Ed Gaston (bass) and Alan Turnbull (drums). Burrows has played with world-renowned musicians such as Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie and Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, James Morrison, Tony Bennett, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Stéphane Grappelli, and Cleo Laine.
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[edit] Biography
Don Burrows was born in Sydney, Australia on August 8th, 1928. He was invited to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival in 1972 and later the Newport Jazz Festival.
1973 was watershed year for Burrows in which he received the first gold record won by an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning; instigated the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music and was awarded Member of the British Empire (MBE). In 1979 he was appointed as chair of the jazz studies department at the conservatorium.
He has performed to otherwise classical music audiences through tours with Musica Viva and Australian Broadcasting Corporation concert series. Burrows fronted the nationally televised show The Don Burrows Collection for six years. He has an extensive recording career in his own right with his groups, and has performed on many more albums with other artists.
In 2005 he toured with a small band including Kevin Hunt [1], Burrows is using his photographic images with his music, in a show called Stop, Look and Listen.
[edit] Awards
- Member of the British Empire (MBE), 1973
- Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), 1987
- Life member of the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, 1988
- Named one of the Australian Living Treasures, 1988
- Sir Bernard Heinze Award, for his service to Australia, 2000
- Honorary Doctorate in Music, Sydney University, 2000
- Honorary Doctorate in Music, Edith Cowan University, Perth, 2001
- Honorary Doctorate in Education, Central Queensland University, 2004
- Queen Elizabeth Jubilee medal
- Special Ambassador of Photography to Children, Photographic Imaging Council of Australia
[edit] Social matters and interests
Burrows lives near Paynesville in the Gippsland Lakes district of Victoria.
He has had a lifelong hobby of black and white photography, beginning in his 20s as an active participant in the Sans Souci and Caringbah camera clubs in Sydney. He sees the creativity of music and photography having significant similarities.
