Australian Music Centre | Breaking sound barriers

The establishment of a repertory of Australian orchestral music is a relatively recent phenomenon. Due to Australia’s isolation from the orchestral culture of Europe and the USA, Australian orchestras were not established until the early 1900s. As a result, there were limited opportunities for local composers to write for this genre. It was not until the mid-twentieth century that there was some recognition of an Australian orchestral repertory. 

After the 1950s, the atonal idioms that had developed in Europe gradually emerged onto the Australian compositional scene causing considerable tension between differing aesthetic positions. Most Australian composers writing orchestral music between 1940 and 1960 explored the potential of traditional tonality, whereas the generation of Australian composers that emerged in the 1960s, embraced the modernist aesthetics and experimented with the atonal techniques of their European contemporaries. For example, the Jubilee Symphony competition of 1951 motivated composers of the era to write orchestral works which included music by Robert Hughes, Dorian Le Gallienne, Raymond Hanson, Clive Douglas, Peggy Glanville Hicks and Margaret Sutherland. Post 1960 the composers that followed included Richard Meale, Nigel Butterley, Keith Humble, Helen Gifford and Peter Sculthorpe.

Now, Australian composers are consistently pushing boundaries in all art music forms. Globalisation has been a major influence on Australia’s compositional development as compositional influences from other nations and cultures have become incorporated into Australian orchestral music. This was due to Australian composers studying overseas as well as composers who moved to Australia due to the repercussions in Europe of the Depression and World War 2. Composers who have migrated to Australia include Felix Werder, George Dreyfus, Larry Sitsky and Elena Kats-Chernin. 

Orchestral music has also been introduced to instrumental training programs in schools, private institutions, youth orchestras, tertiary music education, and community orchestras, contributing to a culture of orchestral performance in Australia. Composers benefit from a wider availability of music education, performing ensembles and opportunities to compose at the school level. There are some many Australian composers that have embraced these opportunities and include composers such as: Katy Abbott, Natalie Williams, Matthew Hindson, Iain Grandage, Jessica Wells and Christopher Sainsbury.

Therefore, due to the changing opportunities for orchestral performance so has the approach to composing for this artform. Orchestral composition has evolved in Australia to reflect the experimentation with form, the landscape of Australia and its surrounds as well as the multicultural presence that contributes to the rich and diverse fabric of this nation’s sensibility. Australian orchestral music has become both complex and accessible with the application of atonal and tonal harmonic and melodic constructs accentuated by innovative rhythmic ideas and new approaches to music structures.

In addition to the state symphony orchestras, other orchestras that have been established to ensure that music is being created in all its forms. These include the Australian Chamber Orchestra formed in 1971 and subsequently there are now professional chamber orchestras in several states. Orchestras that accompany other art forms such as opera and ballet include the Australian Opera and Ballet Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria

The term orchestral music has also changed – especially as we witness new ensembles initiated by artists such as Paul Grabovsky with the formation of The Australian Art Orchestra and its tertiary equivalent The Monash Art Orchestra.

In recent years there have been notable projects such the ‘50 Fanfares’ as instigated by the Sydney Symphony which has encouraged the creation of more Australian repertoire for orchestra that have been performed throughout Australia and overseas. Examples of this repertoire include works by Deborah Cheetham Fraillon, Brenda Gifford, Holly Harrison, Maria Grenfell, Anne Cawrse, Liza Lim, Elizabeth Younan and Joseph Twist.