Roger Smalley
British-born Australian composer, pianist and conductor Roger Smalley was born in Lancashire, England on 26 July 1943. He studied at London's Royal College of Music - piano with Antony Hopkins, and composition with Peter Racine Fricker and John White. He also studied composition with Alexander Goehr at Morley College and with Karlheinz Stockhausen in Cologne and Pierre Boulez in Darmstadt.
His early orchestral work Gloria Tibi Trinitas won the Royal Philharmonic Society Prize, and his first Piano Concerto, commissioned by the BBC, took first place in the 1987 UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers. He was commissioned by a wide range of organisations, and his music is performed, broadcast and recorded widely.
With Tim Souster, he formed the live electronics group Intermodulation, and toured internationally for six years.
In 1968 he became the first artist in residence at King's College, Cambridge.
Following a successful three-month residency, Smalley took a permanent position at the University of Western Australia's music school in 1976.
As a pianist, he recorded Schumann song cycles and a CD of piano music by Australian composers.
Roger Smalley died in Sydney on 18 August 2015, aged seventy-two, after a long battle with Parkinson's disease.
A selection of articles about Roger Smalley
CD Spotlight. Striking Originality - Chamber music by Roger Smalley, recommended by Howard Smith. '... the performance may be regarded as definitive.'
A Real Treasure House - Dialogues with and about John Cage, reviewed by Patric Standford