B i o g r a p h y
Graham Cox began his professional musical career at the age of 14 as piano accompanist and later conductor of the Australian Boys’ Choir. At Melbourne University he studied piano with Roy Shepherd, organ with Douglas Lawrence and harpsichord with Max Cooke. He continued his studies in Europe with the organist Daniel Roth and baroque specialist Ton Koopman. Whilst still a student, he worked as a church musician and concert organist, and began working as harpsichord continuo player for the Victoria State Opera.
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From 1978 until 1986, he was employed as repetiteur and conductor at the Victoria State Opera in Melbourne and was frequently engaged as organist and harpsichordist by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.
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In 1982 he gave a series of organ recitals in East and West Germany: at the Luebecker Dom, Ulmer Muenster, Kaiser-Wilhelm-Gedaechtnis-Kirche, Berlin and the Merseburger Dom. On his return to Melbourne, he gave one of the first organ recitals in what is now the Hamer Concert Hall.
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In 1984, he was chorus master for the Melbourne performance of Penderecki’s Te Deum conducted by the composer and appeared as guest harpsichordist on the Australian tour of the Polish Chamber Orchestra for Musica Viva.
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In 1986 he moved to Germany, first as repetiteur and conductor at the City Theatre of Osnabrück. Later positions were as guest conductor in Koblenz and Head of Music Staff and conductor in Kiel and Kaiserslautern.
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From 1998 till 2004 he worked as repetiteur at the Deutsche Opera Berlin and was also frequently employed as pianist, harpsichordist and organist by various Berlin orchestras. As guest conductor he gave concerts with the Sing-Akademie zu Berlin and with the Berliner Symphoniker. As jazz pianist he played regularly at the popular Kreuzberg restaurant “Le Cochon Bourgeois”.
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From 2004 till 2008 he was Head of Music Staff at the Nuremberg State Theatre and from 2005 till 2013 was regularly engaged by the Bamberg Symphony Orchestra as keyboarder, with highlights including concerts at the Edinburgh and Lucerne Festivals, and at La Scala, Milan.
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In 2009 he was engaged for the first time by the Vlaamse Opera in Antwerp as assistant conductor to Dmitri Jurowski, and as Studienleiter for the Ludwigsburg Castle Festival. He spent most of 2009 and 2010 as music manager on board AIDA cruise ships.
He has returned regularly to the Vlaamse Opera as assistant conductor, guest chorusmaster and German language coach, and in 2013 and 2014 was principal pianist for the Festival of the Aegean.
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In 2014 he took a 12-month 80% position as Kantor (organist and choirmaster) at two Berlin Lutheran churches, deputising for the young organist on parental leave. With the birth of her second child in 2016, he returned, this time for a two-year contract. With the Kantorei of the churches, he conducted numerous concerts including the first Berlin performances of two cantatas by the German baroque composer Christoph Graupner and, in the presence of the composer, the first Berlin performance of “The Fruit of Silence” by Peteris Vasks.
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In 2019 he guested at the Mecklenburg State Theatre Schwerin as repetiteur and rehearsal conductor for Richard Strauss’ Rosenkavalier, und returned to the Festival of the Aegean as rehearsal pianist and coach for Strauss' Ariadne auf Naxos. He also gave organ recitals in Berlin and Melbourne.
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Since the season 2021-22 he has been engaged as guest repetiteur and rehearsal conductor for the Berlin State Opera, as repetiteur and organist for the Deutsche Oper Berlin, and as orchestral keyboard player for the Hannover State Theatre.
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Throughout the years, he has assisted many well-known conductors, including Philip Auguin, Lawrence Foster, Johannes Fritzsch, Daniel Huppert, Christopher Hogwood, Alexander Joel, Dmitri Jurowski, Mikhail Jurowski, Jiri Kout, Sir Charles Mackerras, Christof Prick, Speranza Scappucci, Klaus-Peter Seibel, Lior Shambadal, Michele Spotti, Christian Thielemann, Marcello Viotti und Lothar Zagrozek. He has also accompanied singing lessons given by such prominent teachers as Karan Armstrong, Grace Bumbry, Irmgard Hartmann-Dressler, Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau, Kurt Moll & Deborah Polaski. Already in Melbourne but especially as repetiteur at the Deutsche Oper and as head of music of the opera studio of the State Theatre of Nuremberg, he has devoted much of his time to coaching and mentoring young singers. He continues this work now in Berlin.