Ivan Bootham: A Brief Biography
| Operas |
| Choral works |
| Works for piano |
| Settings for voice |
| Other works |
| Links |
 |
| Ivan Bootham at the
piano in his home in Wellington. In the early 1960s he won local piano playing competitions
and performed as a soloist but describes his abilities as a pianist as "average". "I continue to practise the piano, albeit not to the extent I did in my youth and early twenties. Composing and writing have taken great chunks out of piano practice times. A pity, in one respect, because through experience my interpretive ability is greater than what it was. I'm now in the situation of my musical sensibility outstretching my technical ability as a performer!" |
IVAN BOOTHAM was born in England and emigrated to New Zealand as a teenager. He lived in provincial New Zealand - Invercargill, Auckland, New Plymouth, Levin, Lower Hutt - before settling in Wellington, where he now lives.
He has worked as a book binding apprentice, farm labourer, shoe salesman, ticket writer/window dresser, radio copywriter, radio programme producer, publicity officer for the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, and in clerical, advisory, administrative and editorial jobs for various Government departments.
Ivan Bootham's formal studies in music started with piano lessons at the age of eight. He made his first attempts at composition in his early teens, a period during which he also learnt the trumpet, which he played in various ensembles. Ivan Bootham is best-known for his opera "The Death of Venus". He has also composed a mass and various works for piano, voice and other musical ensembles.
Ivan Bootham is also a novelist, short story writer and poet. His works are published in New Zealand by RiverStone Books.
