Steve Barry is a pianist, organist, composer and improviser based in Sydney, Australia.
A current PhD candidate in composition at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Steve maintains a busy schedule composing, teaching and performing across Australia, New Zealand and, more recently, Japan and East Asia. His doctoral thesis investigates the uses of pitch class sets, serialism and intervallicism as tools for composition and solo and collective improvisation.
Steve is the recipient of numbers awards, including the Bell Award for Young Australian Jazz Artist of the Year (2013), 2nd place in the National Jazz Awards (2013), and a BBM Travel Scholarship (2011). He was a finalist in the 2017 APRA Professional Development Awards and a nominee for the 2016 Freedman Fellowship.
Steve's albums Puzzles (2014) and Steve Barry (2012), as well as the Australia-Japan collaboration Orbiturtle's Sakura (2015), each received 4 star reviews in The Australian.
Steve has performed with a host of international artists including Jay Rodriquez, Mimi Jones, Camille Thurman, John Hollenbeck, Theo Bleckmann, George Coleman Jr. and Arun Luthra (USA), Michiyo Yagi and Yoshio Suzuki (JPN), as well many prominent Australian musicians and groups - among them The Jazzgroove Mothership Orchestra, Dale Barlow, Jamie Oehlers, Sean Wayland, James Muller, Andrew Dickeson and Andrew Gander.
Steve grew up in Auckland, New Zealand, and began playing the piano at age 4. As a teenager he received the Most Outstanding Musician (2007), Best Pianist (2007), Best Keyboardist (2006, 2008), Best Composition (2008) and Band of Festival (2007, 2008) awards from the Tauranga International Jazz Festival Youth Competition. Relocating to Australia in 2009 to study at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, Steve graduated with a Bachelor of Music (Jazz Performance) with First Class Honours in 2011.