Australian clarinettist Paul Dean was made to make music.
"I was born into a house that seemed to ooze music. I can't remember a time when the record player wasn't going, or someone wasn't playing the piano and singing," the 43-year-old clarinet maestro says from his home in Brisbane.
"My mother was a successful amateur musician before she had us three kids and Dad, apart from being tone deaf, was an avid collector from the World Record Club," Dean says.
"My two brothers learned instruments from an early age, so the whole discipline of practising was second nature to me by the time I took up the clarinet at nine."
His older brother is Australian composer Brett Dean and the pair regularly collaborate.
The composer dedicated his award-winning clarinet concerto Ariel's Music to his younger sibling.
"That was a very special time," Paul Dean recalls.
"Ariel's Music was the first orchestral piece my brother wrote. I was a part of several of his early pieces and to think that he has now won the Gravemeyer Award - the equivalent of the Nobel Prize for composition - is really quite amazing.
"Ariel's Music is a truly amazing piece of music and it won the Paris Rostrum award for best composition in 1997.
It was also a very special time for me, as I seemed to start my move out of orchestral playing following the success of this piece.
"The composition process was incredible, as I used to get faxed fragments every morning. Then I would record them on to a cassette tape and post them back to him.
"It brought us together quite significantly as brothers, as well. Brett moved to Berlin when I was 17 and lived there for 15 years. This was an important rebuilding of our relationship as brothers."
It is surprising to learn, then, that the Dean brothers tend to avoid talking shop at family get-togethers.
"We tend to talk about our other passions; like cricket and the Brisbane Lions football," Paul Dean says.
"The best Christmas we had was in 2006, when we all met at Brett's place in Melbourne. It was a truly memorable family day and then on Boxing Day we all went to the first day of the Ashes cricket test at the MCG. Warnie [former Australian international cricketer Shane Warne] got his 700th test wicket that day, which made it even better."
An early epiphany for Paul Dean was attending the National Music Camp in Adelaide in 1985.
"[That was] the moment I realised that I just had to pursue music as my life," he says.
"I actually really wanted to play the bassoon. Probably because I loved the pictures of it and was entranced by the grandfather theme in Peter and the Wolf. However, I was too small, in the opinion of my music teacher, so the clarinet it became, with the thought that I would move over to the bassoon later."
But the switch never came.
"I fell in love with the clarinet's sound and the music: Mozart, Brahms and Weber and particularly the opening to [Gershwin's] Rhapsody in Blue," Dean says.
"I never moved to the bassoon."
Dean's 2002 Dunedin performance was described in the Otago Daily Times as "simply magnificent, a performance of rare quality".
He also toured New Zealand the following year with the Southern Cross Soloists.
"This will be my sixth trip to Dunedin and I really love being there. I love New Zealand, actually. I could be easily persuaded to move there. Great food, great people and amazing scenery.
"It will also be lovely to bond with the orchestra [Southern Sinfonia] again after so many years. I really enjoyed walking the main streets on the Saturday morning last time, pottering around in shops and having coffee. That is not something I ever get the chance to do in Brisbane."
Dean graduated from the Queensland Conservatorium of Music at Griffith University before winning the Australian Clarinet Competition, the Mattara National Concerto Competition, the coveted Coleman Chamber Ensemble Competition in Los Angeles (as a member of the Movellan Wind Quintet) and the Conservatorium Medal for Excellence.
He has performed internationally since the 1980s with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, Grainger Quartet, Australian String Quartet, Queensland Symphony Orchestra, Flinders Quartet and the Tinalley Quartet.
He recently released his latest album, Sublime Mozart: Works for Clarinet.
It follows his 1990 release, From Fire By Fire, with the Queensland Wind Soloists and 1996's Frankel: Chamber Works with the Queensland Symphony Chamber Players.
Dean is looking forward to the concert in the Glenroy Auditorium this weekend, as it will feature one of his favourite works, Weber's Clarinet Concerto No.1.
"The Weber first concerto is one of my all-time favourite pieces for the clarinet. I remember getting the record out from my father's collection as a youngster and loved it. [It's] so operatic. I love it to bits. The clarinet plays all the different roles in a mini opera. Wonderful melody and a bit of fireworks thrown in," he enthuses.
"The Rossini could be best described as wonderful fireworks with a bit of melody thrown in. Great fun for the audience. And for me, too, hopefully."
The concert will be conducted by Werner Andreas Albert.
