Bruce Rowland

Bruce Rowland

Bruce Rowland (born May 9, 1942 in Melbourne) is a well-known Australian composer. He composed the soundtrack for the 1982 movie The Man from Snowy River, as well as the soundtrack for its 1988 sequel The Man from Snowy River II (which has the United States title of Return to Snowy River, and the United Kingdom title of The Untamed). Both films were based on Banjo Paterson's poem The Man from Snowy River. His other film scores include Now and Forever (1983), Phar Lap (1983), Bushfire Moon (1987), Cheetah (1989), Weekend with Kate (1990), Gross Misconduct (1993), Andre (1994), Lightning Jack (1994), Zeus and Roxanne (1997) and the TV movie Tidal Wave: No Escape (1997). He composed a special Olympics version of the main theme of The Man from Snowy River Suite, as well as conducting the orchestra, for the Opening Ceremony of the 2000 Summer Olympics which were held in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. He also composed special arrangements of some of his music for the 2002 musical theatre production "The Man from Snowy River: Arena Spectacular" (which toured Australian capital cities — twice). The original cast album of the show won the ARIA Award for Best Cast / Show Album). Rowland composed the music to the Oscar nominated animation The Mysterious Geographic Explorations of Jasper Morello (2005). NBC Sports also uses some of the music from The Man from Snowy River soundtrack for their coverage of The Players Championship. Some of his early work was in television, where he was musical director for ATV0's The Go!! Show, Fredd Bear's Breakfast-A-Go-Go and the Magic Circle Club, then Adventure Island for the ABC. Rowland received his education at Caulfield Grammar School in his hometown. He learned piano and was a keyboard player for Australian music groups, and singers. Bruce has just completed new music for the forthcoming The Australian Outback Arena Show on Queensland's Gold Coast, commencing Oct 4, 2009.

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