Ross Carey is a composer and pianist. Born in Lower Hutt in 1969, he studied at Victoria University of Wellington and completed a Masters Degree in composition from Elisabeth University of Music in Hiroshima, where he studied on a Japanese Government Scholarship under Jo Kondo.


His works for solo performer, chamber ensemble, orchestra, gamelan and voice have been performed throughout New Zealand and overseas. He also performs his own music, such as at Theatre Utan Kayu in Jakarta in February 2005, where along with pianist Andi Setiawan he performed his own compositions for piano two and four hands.


His music draws on his own experiences and responses to events or places, and is often composed especially for certain performers. This includes collaborations with guitarist Kazuhito Yamashita, pianists Yuji Takahashi, Natsuki Emura, Ananda Sukarlan, Gao Ping and Dan Poynton, violinists Mark Menzies, Kirtley Leigh Paine and Rieko Suzuki, clarinettist Donald Nicholls, bassoonist Ben Hoadley, flutist and taonga puoro performer Alexa Still, Ukranian cello duo “Violoncellissimo”, dancer and choreographer Newton Moraes and Wellington’s Gamelan Padhang Moncar. He is also active composing for community, school and semi-professional musicians. Recently these have included the Greenhill Orchestra of Nelson and Golden Bay, the Kapiti College Trio, the Waitakere City Orchestra, and the SOUNZ Community Commission of 2005 to write for students from the New Zealand Institute for the Blind in Manurewa.


As a pianist Ross performs contemporary piano music from New Zealand and the Asia-Pacific region, but is also comfortable in more traditional repertoire. Since 2004 he has performed solo recitals at the universities of Canterbury (Christchurch) and Hong Kong, at Theatre Utan Kayu in Jakarta and the Indonesia-America Institute in Medan, a Matata flood relief concert in Whakatane, and with violinist Kirtley Leigh Paine as part of the “Paradise Concerts 2007” series in Cairns.