Q&A with composer, conductor and educator Simon Reade
19 August 2025.
Did you know the TSO has its own publishing arm?
With a strong focus on supporting Australian and Tasmanian composers, we are proud to be expanding the TSO Publishing catalogue of educational music for hire and purchase.
In this Q&A we introduce you to one of our TSO Publishing artists, Simon Reade. You can explore available sheet music for many of Simon's pieces here.
As well as a composer, Simon is a trumpet player and conductor. He is also one of Tasmania’s most experienced and talented music teachers.
Hi Simon, please tell us about your connection to the TSO.
I didn’t come from a musical household, but when I became interested in classical music in my early teens, I was immediately keen to see orchestral music.
As a Launceston boy, that meant seeing the TSO in the Princess Theatre. When I was in grade 9, I was even lucky enough to sing in a Messiah performance with the TSO in the Princess Theatre.
I've been lucky enough to work with the TSO as a conductor – initially through development programs and now professionally, including in TSO Live Sessions gigs and as part of the Australian Composers School, which the TSO plays a leading role in.
It was always my ambition to conduct Tasmania’s own symphony orchestra and I’m rapt that it is now a reality!
What and who has most influenced how you write music?
It has always been my desire to create music for people I know – whether individual musicians, small ensembles or large community organisations.
My time at the Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music studying under composer Don Kay solidified that ambition. I take pride in creating music that I feel meets the needs of the people I'm writing for.
In my conservatorium years, I formed a music ensemble with my colleague and friend Simon Barber and, as I moved out into the workforce I became passionate about conducting choirs, bands and youth orchestras in schools and in the community.
You write both educational music and concert music. What do you find most challenging about writing for each?
Most of my concert music recently is for small ensemble or solo performer, and the challenge is allowing the musician to express themselves through their instrument.
This doesn’t mean my concert music is simple – indeed some of it is quite virtuosic. However, I try to make every piece appropriate to both the instrument and the person playing.
In that way I don’t really find too much difference in composing for educational settings. Most of my educational music has been for concert band or brass band – mediums that I work in daily as a teacher and as a conductor.
In educational music the ideal is to allow the player to express themselves through their instrument in the most natural and idiomatic way possible.
As a teacher of brass and woodwind, I have intimate knowledge of the workings of these instruments and so I find the challenge in this sort of music is to create interest for the developing musicians within their technical capabilities.
Therefore, I essentially find that I write music with the same considerations no matter the context.
Apart from being an accomplished trumpet player, you're also a very fine conductor. How does conducting inform how you write music?
Spending so much time conducting and working with other people's music has given me a great understanding of the reality of orchestration and the construction of form in music.
One of the key difficulties in orchestration is to make the notes that you put on the page sound best on instruments.
Sometimes as a composer we might write a note in a certain octave, which will work in one context for one ensemble but will need to be altered in order to have the same effect in another context.
I don’t write tonal music per say, but I still think in 'key' areas when I’m transcribing one of my pieces into a new context. A good example is my song Hymnus ante Somnus, which I wrote for chorus in 2002. This piece is inspired by medieval music and I composed it without sharps or flats – so in C.
When I came to use this music in my String Quartet of 2023, the sonority of the open string tuning meant that C wouldn’t work, and so the music moves to a tonality of E to make the best sounds I could conjure from this ensemble formation.
My understanding of how and when instruments sound best has been discovered over 30 years of conducting music of all eras and many genres.
Conducting is the best composition lesson you could have!
Tasmanian composers Don Kay and Simon Reade.
What about conducting?
The remainder of my 2025 is full with some great conducting opportunities.
I’m working with the TSO for Live Sessions in Moonah in September as well as the free Concertinos Concert in Federation Concert Hall on 3 October.
I’ll be conducting the combined forces of Hobart Wind Symphony and Derwent Valley Band at City Hall on November 9 in Johan de Meij’s epic Lord of the Rings Symphony.
And, for a total change of pace I’m conducting Messiah for the Argyle Orchestra in a peoples Messiah on November 22.
This is in addition to all my usual concerts for Hobart Wind Symphony, Glenorchy City Brass, UTAS Wind and Hedberg Ensembles, and my many school performances and tours (did I mention I’m MD for the musical Popstars for Hobart City High School!).
It’s a busy life and I’d love a bit more time for composition, but it’s a positive problem to have!
Simon conducting the Glenorchy City Concert Brass in the 2025 national band championships.
Explore Simon's music and the work of other Australian composers at TSO Publishing.
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