Photo | Anand Maharaj. Used by permission.
Dean Burry was born in St. John's, Newfoundland in 1972, but grew up in the small town of Gander. As both his parents' families came from small outport communities, he spent a great deal of time by the ocean and out in his father's boat. Music is in the blood of Newfoundlanders, and it was in this environment that Burry began his own artistic journey. Early piano lessons were not completely satisfying, and it wasn't until a teacher encouraged his desire for composition, at age 10, that music became a passion. Theatre was another great interest and soon he was writing plays and music for the school drama club. His first produced script, Good Gods, won the local drama festival in 1987. In 1990 Burry released a pop/rock album, Plant Your Seed, with guitarist/vocalist Brad Davidge.
Following high school, Burry began studies as a saxophone major at Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick. In seeking ways to combine his love of theatre and music, he began composing operas and musicals. In his firsts three years at Mt.A, he wrote, produced and conducted three major dramatic musical works: The Resurrection, Joe and Mary Had a Baby and Unto the Earth: Vignettes of a War.
Shortly after completing composition studies at the University of Toronto, Burry began working in the box office at the Canadian Opera Company while composing incidental music for small theatrical productions. Working in the box office was the opening he needed to begin immersing himself in the Canadian opera world. Most lunches were spent upstairs in the library or chatting with the Education and Outreach Coordinator. He was able to attend rehearsals and learn a great deal about the ways to create successful opera. In 1997, Burry was hired to create and run the Esso Kids After-school Opera Program, a community program designed to expose children to all the elements of opera. The program has met with great success and is now in its eighth season. In 1998, Imperial Oil won the Opera America Foundation of the Year Award, in large part due to their support of this program. Burry has been involved in many other education programs and has taught students from Junior kindergarten to university level.
In 1998, while working as an educator with the COC that he was commissioned to write The Brothers Grimm, an new opera for the annual school tour. The opera was a great success and was the first work to put the composer on a national stage. The Brothers Grimm has been seen by over 90,000 students since 2001 and has been added to the regular touring repertoire of several major opera companies. The Brothers Grimm is believed to be the most performed Canadian opera ever.
Other major works include Under the Night, Rainbow Valley, Home and Away, the film opera Grace, and a major operatic adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit. Burry's second opera for the COC, Isis and the Seven Scorpions recently toured Southern Ontario and was the first opera ever performed in Canada's first and only dedicated opera house, The Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts. The Vinland Traveler, commissioned by Memorial University of Newfoundland, toured 6500 km throughout the province including performances at several Inuit and Innu schools in Northern Labrador. CBC's Musicraft broadcast a complete performance of The Vinland Traveler in November 2006.
Burry is currently working on Children of the Moon, a lost opera libretto written by Robertson Davies in 1983, but never set to music, Pandora's Locker, an opera for high school audiences, Baby Kintyre, a CBC radio opera and several other exciting projects (see Current Projects.)
Dean Burry currently lives in Toronto with his wife Julia, daughters Blythe and Maeve, and Tibetan Terriers, Felix and Annie.
Download Full Resume (PDF - Requires Adobe Acrobat Reader or similar application)