A Juno award-winning conductor and composer, Brian Current has been widely lauded for leading exceptional performances of outstanding repertoire.  Fiercely passionate about detail of gesture, colour and texture, he is known across Canada and abroad for conducting definitive and impactful performances of uncompromising music.

Brian Current has conducted a wide range of repertoire from Mozart to Takemitsu and has championed nearly one hundred works by Canadian composers, including commissioned premieres by Linda Catlin Smith, Brian Harman, Christopher Mayo, So Jeong Ahn, Andrew Staniland, Alice Ho, Robert Lemay and Omar Daniel.  Many of these performances include electronics, non-European influences and the proud celebration of women composers.

Described by the Globe and Mail as a conductor “with assurance and no undue fuss”, Brian Current has been the main conductor of the Continuum Ensemble since 2011 and has guest conducted with Symphony Nova Scotia, the Windsor Symphony Orchestra, City Opera Vancouver, the Thunder Bay Symphony Orchestra, The National Youth Orchestra of Canada, The Ottawa International Chamber Festival, The 21C Festival, The COC noon-hour concert series, New Music Concerts, the Esprit Orchestra, The Glenn Gould School Opera, the Kensington Symphonietta (Calgary), Voca Dell Arte (Italy), Soundstreams (Toronto), the Toronto Centre for the Arts, The Luminato Festival, The New Creations Festival, Maniac Star, CBC's In Performance, The Five-Penny Ensemble (Sudbury), Cbc’s On Stage, The UC Berkeley Symphony as well as the National Arts Centre Orchestra as part of their prestigious conductor training program. In 2012, Brian Current mentored young conductors in a conducting masterclass with the Windsor Symphony Orchestra.

Dedicated to education, Brian Current’s main conducting activities since 2007 have been as director of the New Music Ensemble of the Glenn School (The Royal Conservatory), where he has inspired hundreds of young musicians, many of whom are today working professionally around the world. His duties include programming and leading 3-5 concerts per year for chamber orchestra while nurturing, encouraging and grading students based on their achievements.  Administrative duties include fundraising for the ensemble, the creation of rehearsal schedules, recruiting, overseeing the acquisition of music, creating concert program content, speaking from the stage, ensuring smooth setup changes, applying for commission grants, establishing partnerships and promotion of events in the community. Repertoire has included works by A-list international composers, many of whom have visited for the sessions.

Brian Current holds a PhD in music composition on full scholarship from the University of California (Berkeley) where he studied conducting for three years with Professor David Milnes and Michael Morgan, conductor of the Oakland Symphony. He was assigned the direction of the UC Berkeley symphony orchestra during summer sessions.  He was subsequently awarded a fellowship in the prestigious National Arts Centre conductor training program where he studied under internationally renowned conducting mentor Jorma Panula. He also attended a conducting masterclass in Royaumont, France under the Hungarian conducting luminary Péter Eötvös.

Featured on several commericial recordings, Brian Current conducted the Maniac Star ensemble in his Juno award-winning recording of his opera Airline Icarus, which he also conducted in staged productions in both Toronto (Soundstreams) and Italy (Atelier Voca Del’ Arte with Milan-based musicians).

Brian Current lives in Toronto and is also a highly respected composer. His music has been programmed by all major professional orchestras in Canada and by dozens of prominent symphony orchestras, opera companies and ensembles internationally. He has won numerous distinguished international prizes and his music has been broadcast in over 35 countries.