Multi-award-winning composer, Michael Bakrnčev (Bah-Karn-Chev) is one of Australia’s most highly-driven and successful young professionals in that field.
Michael graduated with First Class Honours in Composition from the Queensland Conservatorium, and soon after earnt his Masters with First Class Honours in Composition at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, with the faculty nominating him for Australian of The Year.
Michael’s music has been performed extensively throughout Western and Eastern Europe including Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Scotland, Serbia, Macedonia, Belarus, Spain, Ukraine, and in the USA, Canada and Australia.
Performers have included the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, the Macedonian Philharmonic Orchestra, the Sydney Contemporary Orchestra, the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Queensland Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra, the Melbourne Metropolitan Sinfonietta, The Zelman Memorial Symphony Orchestra, and some of Australia’s best community orchestras, as well as prominent ensembles, chamber groups and soloists.
Michael’s many awards include the Music Teachers’ Association of Queensland (MTAQ) Composition Competition (2011), the June Fox Patron Award (2011), the Vox Novus Fifteen Minutes of Fame prize (New York City, 2011), the Adolph Spivakovsky Scholarship for the Composition of Music (2012), the A G Francis Prize for Composition, the Alan Lane Award for Composition, the Silver Harris and Jeff Peck Award (Composition), and the Piano Trio section of the 2015 Australian New Works Award. Michael was also one of five finalists in the Development Awards section of the Melbourne Prize for Music 2013.
Michael’s music has been recorded in Australia and abroad by ABC Classic FM, the Barega Saxophone Quartet, the Quartertones Flute Quartet, the Macedonian Philharmonic, Dare CD Project and the Southern Cross Soloists.
Michael is a member of the Australian Music Centre, the national organisation through which he is promoted and his music is made available internationally.