Bevan Leviston

Music

Studied conducting under John Hopkins

Conductor - Ars Nova of Melbourne, Monash University Choral Society, Melbourne University Choral Society, guest conductor for a variety of orchestras and choirs. Associate Conductor for Melbourne Symphony Orchestra for several concerts and recordings

Founder and Director of Ars Nova of Melbourne

Organist - St Kilda Methodist Church, St David-s Arncliffe, Camberwell Congregational Church

Discography

• Pastime With Good Company (Bonn Recording Enterprises)
• Grainger The Warriors (HMV/ABC) - associate conductor to John Hopkins with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra
• Various recordings for ABC Radio-s In Quires and Places

Selection of significant works conducted

• Stravinsky Les Noces (staged version)
• Orff Carmina Burana, Catulli Carmina
• Varesé Ionisation
• Hovhaness Magnificat
• Lambert The Rio Grande
• Britten A Ceremony of Carols, Saint Nicolas
• Colin Brumby Euripides (world premiere)
• Copland Fanfare For The Common Man
• Ives From the Steeples and Mountains
• Janáček Octe Nas
• Holst Psalm 86
• Vaughan Williams Mass
• Fauré Requiem, Cantique de Jean Racine
• Dvořák Mass
• Gounod St Cecilia Mass
• Mozart Requiem
• Haydn Nelson Mass, Mass in Time of War, Thersa Mass
• Bach St John Passion (first Australian performance with period instruments), various cantatas
• A. Scarlatti St Cecilia Mass
• Biber Salzburg Mass in 53 voices (for 2 eight-part choirs, 16 soloists and 6 orchestras - largest-scale extant Baroque composition)
• Purcell Come Ye Sons of Art, Welcome to all the Pleasures, Funeral Music for Queen Mary
• Tallis Spem in Alium (40 part motet)
• Monteverdi Vespers of 1610 (polychoral cathedral performance with period instruments)
• Numerous smaller scale works from the Middle Ages and Renaissance

Writing

•  Professional classical music reviewer for The Herald for a number of years. Also occasional guest reviewer for The Australian.
• Author of various academic articles on maths, maths education, and computing.
• Writer of over 700 editions of a popular weekly newsletter with over 15,000 loyal followers.
• Author of several hundred articles for the White Hat Website on topics such as Australian history and biographies, Australian inventions, architecture and engineering.
• Researched, scripted, composed music for, and produced numerous video productions mainly associated with Melbourne history.
• Various shorter scripts for Ars Nova of Melbourne including the popular Canonical Instrument Demonstration.

Academic & Training

•  15 years as a tertiary maths lecturer (and later computer co-ordinator) at Coburg State College and Australian Catholic University - Clayton Campus
• Author, facilitator and trainer for numbers of courses for business including topics such as change management, career transition, yield marketing, train-the-trainer, relational database management and machine learning  & artificial intelligence.
• Researched and conducted numerous historical tours of central Melbourne and historical venues such as the Melbourne General Cemetery.

Corporate & Business

•  National Marketing Manager - Barson Computers
• Marketing Manager - Acorn Computers Australia
• Founder & Director - Ars Nova of Melbourne
• Founder & Director - Melbourne Music Calendar
• Co-founder & Director - Black Box Company
• Founder & Director - White Hat Publishing

Computing

•  Programmed various educational software packages such as Quick Cartage Company, Sheep Dog Trial (both Jacaranda), MBJ Graph Plotter, Talkwriter, 6502 Decompiler etc.
• Authored various utility programs for Acorn/BBC, Apple, Econet, Alpha Micro and Acorn ARM/Archimedes environments.
• IT manager for both educational and administrative computing systems.
• Developed and maintained large scale web sites with database back ends.
• Have worked with machine code from 6502 to ARM, COBOL, Fortran, Forth, BASIC, Logo, C family, Python, HTML, JavaScript, CSS, ASP.NET and most recently in AI assisted programming.

Theatre & Performing

•  Have been Musical Advisor for Malthouse Theatre.
• Musical Director for several amateur production of Gilbert & Sullivan.
•  Staging of the original mediaeval songs from the Carmina Burana followed by conducting the Orff Carmina Burana in a sold-out performance at the Melbourne Concert Hall (now Hamer Hall).
• Performed one man show at The Abbey
• Performed a number of lengthy monologues such as The Lai of the Twelve Noble Wives to a variety of audiences.

Some current interests

•  Currently attending lectures at James Cook University in the areas of Archaeology, Geophysics and Graphic Information Systems as well as being an active participant in the Queensland Artificial Intelligence (AI) Cairns Hub and the JCU Founders-In-Residence collective at the JCU Ideas Lab.