About Kent
“Mention must be made of musical director Kent Ross’s contribution for creating a lush full sound with only six musicians, and excellent singing from the entire company.”
Who is Kent Ross?
Kent’s teaching, conducting, composing, arranging and musical director career spans nearly twenty years. His career has taken many twists and turns and has led to a number of what he affectionately refers to as ‘happy accidents’!
Kent was born and raised in Shepparton, located in rural Victoria, Australia. It was here that he received his early piano lessons, starting at the later age of sixteen. He had been pestering his mother for three years before starting music lessons after seeing one of his high school music teachers play piano. When his mother finally gave in and bought an electric piano to have lessons with a local piano teacher, he was determined to make up for lost time. Shortly after starting piano lessons he joined the school choir and from there was recommended to begin singing lessons from which he completed voice as a VCE music subject.
Shortly after completing his secondary school, Kent auditioned for Box Hill College of Music on both piano and voice. To his surprise, he was offered both instruments to start his further music education on. Kent chose his first love which, of course, was the piano but kept up his singing by taking private lessons outside of the college while also joining a number of choirs and musical theatre productions to help further his knowledge in singing.
An early love for Musical Theatre
During his time at Box Hill College, Kent had his first experiences in conducting - making his conducting debut for a local theatre group from his home town of Shepparton in their stage adaptation of Jim Henson’s ‘The Labyrinth’. He was then later asked back to be the musical director for their next show in the following season called ‘Cinderella’. This show proved to be a challenge for the young musical director as he had to orchestrate the entire show from nothing but a piano score, as there was no orchestral version of the show at the time! After this production, however, while Kent musically directed a few smaller shows in Melbourne, he left the musical theatre realm to focus on teaching private piano students.
Education
Box Hill College of Music proved to be a great place for Kent to learn what he needed to know to prepare him for a professional career in music. Under the guidance of his piano teacher Greg Dixon, he went on to complete a Diploma of Music in Jazz/Popular Music, as well as two Advanced Diplomas in Music in Composition and Film Scoring and later, after a three year absence from study, a Bachelor of Music in Composition. While at Box Hill College of Music, Kent was privileged to learn/work with such musicians as Lachlan Wilson, Mario Lattauda, George Papanicolao, Anthony Schultz, Neil Kennedy, Adam Quaife, Peter Hurley, Brett Rosenburg and the late Tomasz Spiewak.
After completing his composition studies at Box Hill College of Music Kent went on to attend the Australian Catholic University (ACU) to study classical piano and choral conducting under such teachers as Anthony Halliday, Roger Hegdney, Geoffrey Cox, Ian Burk, Tim McKenry, and Andrew Walies. While attending ACU, Kent was exposed to liturgical music and the intricacies of how to train choirs for this setting. He would later have his own choir in Newport for five years where he would perform at least one mass with his choir every two weeks. It was also during this time that Kent published a number of his piano works with Melbourne based publishing house Reed Music. Some of these piano works would then find themselves listed in the ANZCA classical piano syllabus in piano grades five, six and seven.
While at ACU, Kent rediscovered his love for conducting orchestras and, in particular: musical theatre. It was at ACU that Kent was given the opportunity to musically direct again after taking a ten-year break from theatre.
Recent Work
The show that started it all off again was Stephen Schwartz’s ‘Godspell’ and from there, Kent has been very busy as a musical director. He has gone on to musically direct a number of shows with various theatre groups around Melbourne whilst also keeping a very busy teaching schedule. Some of these shows include: Grease the Musical, Spamalot, Whistle Down The Wind, Songs for a New World, Blood Brothers, The Wedding Singer, Suessical, Legally Blonde, The Addams Family, The Boy From Oz, and Catch Me If You Can. He was nominated for the award of Best Musical Director by the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria for his work on Spamalot and has also received a commendation from the Music Theatre Guild of Victoria for his work on The Wedding Singer.
Kent was also the musical director for StageArts ‘Titanic the Musical’ that was staged at Chapel off Chapel. Where his work on the project was well received by critics.
“The skilful band, under musical director, Kent Ross, plays Yeston’s rousing music with gusto and the assured, on-stage string quartet is a constant reminder of the valiant band on the Titanic.”
“The music and lyrics by Maury Yeston are wonderfully brought to life by the highly talented band and singers under the proficient musical direction of Kent Ross.”
Conducting
After completing his studies at ACU, Kent continued to pursue his love of conducting through musical theatre. At the same time continuing with private conducting lessons with renowned Australian conductor Graham Abbott. Kent continued with teaching, scoring for short films and indulged in various other projects.
In 2015, Kent returned to Box Hill College of Music to begin his Masters of Music specializing in conducting. His thesis on ‘Training Conductors: An Investigation of how to develop a Conducting Course through Research and Interviewing Working Conductors’ where he developed a conducting course that was to be a part of his exegesis where it could be adapted and implemented for a range of higher education intuitions.
The thesis and exegesis was completed in 2016 and received a high distinction from his assessors.
A man of many genres…
Kent’s experience with different styles/genres of music is not exclusive to musical theatre or film work. Over the years he has also played in a number of ensembles as a keyboardist, rhythm guitarist and has even been the front man for a number of cover bands. He has also written music for such genres as rock, jazz, folk, gothic rock and even heavy metal. He was the keyboardist for Melbourne based metal band “Catwitch” for many years where he was a co-writer of a number of songs as well as back-up vocalist.
In 2019, Kent conducted the Spark Orchestra at the Frankston Arts Centre for Spark Productions’ original dance work ‘Snow and Rose’.
Kent is currently the resident conductor and vice president for the Casey Philharmonic Orchestra and the chief conductor of the Melbourne Mandolin Orchestra while maintaining a very busy teaching practice, pursuing his passion for musical direction, conducting and composition.