One of Australia’s foremost choral conductors, Brett Weymark OAM was appointed Artistic & Music Director in 2003, and he has conducted the Choirs throughout Australia as well as internationally. He has also conducted the Sydney, Adelaide, Queensland, West Australian and Tasmanian symphony orchestras, Orchestra of the Antipodes, Sydney Youth Orchestra, New Zealand Symphony Orchestra and Hong Kong Philharmonic, as well as productions for WAAPA, Pacific Opera and OzOpera, and he has performed with Opera Australia, Pinchgut Opera, Australian Chamber Orchestra, The Song Company and Musica Viva.

He studied singing and conducting at the University of Sydney and the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, continuing his conducting studies with Simon Halsey, Vance George, Daniel Barenboim and Sir John Eliot Gardiner, amongst others.

His repertoire at SPC has included Bach’s major choral works, the Mozart, Verdi, Duruflé and Fauré requiems, and Orff’s Carmina Burana. He champions Australian composers, and has premiered works by Elena Kats-Chernin, Matthew Hindson, John Peterson, Daniel Walker, Rosalind Page, Peter Sculthorpe, Andrew Schultz and Ross Edwards. In 2011 he premiered his own work Brighton to Bondi with the Festival Chorus. He has also conducted musical theatre programs such as Bernstein’s Candide, which won multiple BroadwayWorld Sydney awards.

Under his direction, SPC received a Helpmann Award for Oedipus Rex and Symphony of Psalms, directed by Peter Sellars, and was nominated for a Limelight Award for Purcell’s King Arthur.

He was chorus master for the Adelaide Festival productions of Saul (2017), Hamlet (2018) and Requiem (2020) and has prepared choirs for Sir Charles Mackerras, Zubin Mehta, Edo de Waart, Vladimir Ashkenazy and Sir Simon Rattle. He has recorded for the ABC and conducted film scores for Happy Feet, Mad Max Fury Road and Australia.

Recent conducting highlights include Bernstein’s Candide and Joe Twist’s Watershed: The Death of Dr Duncan (Opera Australia), Sondheim’s Sweeney Todd (West Australian Opera), Jandamarra by Paul Stanhope and Steve Hawke (SSO), Michael Tippett’s A Child Of Our Time (Adelaide Festival) and Carousel (State Opera South Australia).

In 2001, he was awarded an Australian Centenary Medal and in 2021 the Medal of the Order of Australia for services to the performing arts through music.

Brett is passionate about singing and the role that music plays in both the well-being of individuals and the health and vitality of a community’s culture. He believes music can transform lives and should be accessible to all.