Anne Elizabeth Boyd AM is an Australian composer and emeritus professor of music at the University of Sydney.
Christian Heim is an Australian psychiatrist, composer and public lecturer.
Colin Black is an Australian experimental music composer, sonic media arts practitioner, radio artist and researcher. Black has been awarded the 2015 New York Festivals International Gold Trophy Winner for Sound Art and the 2003 Prix Italia Award for Best Music Radio – Composed Work. Black has also achieved preselection status in the 2010, 2011, 2015, 2016 and 2017 Prix Phonurgia Nova, the 2013 and 2019 Prix Marulić (Croatia), 2018 Grand Prix Nova (Romania), and 2018 UK International Radio Drama Competition. Black's commissions to create major works include the following organisations: Australian Broadcasting Corporation, Český rozhlas, Deutschlandradio, Parramatta Heritage Centre, Lismore City Council and Northern Rivers Performing Arts (NORPA). His works have been selected for events including En Red O 2000 music festival in Barcelona, Spain, the Festival Synthese in Bourges, France, Rencontres Musiques Nouvelles, Lunel France, 60x60 Pacific Basin Regional Concert Los Angeles USA, Zèppelin 2004-Festival de Arte Sonoro in Barcelona, Spain, Hipersonica 2004 in São Paulo, Brazil, The Literature Sound Barrier 2002 in Wien, Austria, Sydney University's Live Wires concerts '97, '98, and Melbourne's Extatic Concert for the Next Wave festival '98. In 2010 he was artist in residence at WORM, a Rotterdam based institute for avant garde music and art.
Rites of Passage is a music theatre work written by the Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe in 1972–73. It is often categorised as an opera, but it does not conform to the traditional concept of opera. It is written for dancers depicting the ritual of initiation of the Aranda people, an indigenous tribe; double SATB chorus singing words from Boethius and others; three percussionists, two tubas, piano (echoed), six cellos and four double basses; but no parts for individual singers. Sculthorpe drew on the approach espoused by Jean-Baptiste Lully, in which dance, drama and music are not separated.
Australian classical music has developed from early years in the Australian colonies, until today. Today, each state has an orchestra and there are many major venues where classical music is performed.
Daniel Rojas is a Chilean-born Australian pianist and composer. Rojas' work as a composer and improviser draws upon indigenous, folk, popular and classical Latin American traditions.
Genevieve Lacey is an Australian musician and recorder virtuoso, working as a performer, creator, curator and cultural leader. The practice of listening is central to her works, which are created collaboratively with artists from around the world. Lacey plays handmade recorders made by Joanne Saunders and Fred Morgan. In her collection, she also has instruments by David Coomber, Monika Musch, Michael Grinter, Paul Whinray and Herbert Paetzold.
Lyle Chan is an Australian composer, known for his unique approach of writing cumulative works with only one work per genre. His AIDS Memoir Quartet chronicles his years years as an HIV/AIDS activist at the height of the epidemic in Australia. John Cage was a major influence on his work, and he is regarded as an authority on the musician.
Simone De Haan is an Australian trombonist.
Peter Knight is an Australian musician, composer and producer. He was the artistic director of the Australian Art Orchestra from 2013 to 2023 and founding member of Melbourne group Way Out West., 5+2 Brass Ensemble and Clocked Out.
The Australian Art Orchestra (AAO) is one of Australia's leading contemporary ensembles. Founded by pianist Paul Grabowsky in 1994, it has been led by composer/trumpeter/sound artist Peter Knight since 2013 and led by pianist/composer/producer Aaron Choulai since 2023. The Orchestra explores relationships between musical disciplines and cultures, imagining new musical concepts that reference how 21st century Australia responds to its cultural and musical history.
Tamara Saulwick is a performance-maker, director and dramaturge from Melbourne, Australia. She makes contemporary performance pieces for theatres and public spaces. Since 2017 she has had the role of Artistic Director of Melbourne arts company Chamber Made, who are creators of original works at the meeting point of sound, music and performance.
Memento Mori (1993) is a composition for orchestra by Peter Sculthorpe. The title refers to the medieval Christian idea of memento mori, and the piece itself makes frequent references to the plainchant setting of the Latin hymn "Dies irae".
Mark Isaacs is an Australian classical and jazz composer and pianist.
Katy Abbott is an Australian composer. Abbott writes music for orchestra, chamber ensemble and voice. Her work reflects her interests in contemporary Australian cultures and often explores notions of home, place, humour and connection.
Callum Watson is an Australian pianist, composer and producer.
Michael Laurence Gordon Barkl is an Australian composer and musicologist.
Claire Olivia Edwardes is an Australian classical percussionist, artistic director, composer and advocate for change in the classical music sector. Edwardes is the co-founder and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring, roles she shared with composer Damien Ricketson until his retirement from the group in 2015. In 2016, she won two APRA Art Music Awards, with one going to Ensemble Offspring for "sustained services to Australian music for 20 years", and Edwardes receiving an individual award "for performance, advocacy and artistic leadership”. She is the only Australian to have won the Luminary Art Music Award for an Individual 3 times. In 2019, Edwardes created and performed the music and dance theatre work RECITAL with dancer Richard Cilli and director Gideon Obarzanek for Dance Massive 2019. Edwardes composed the music and sound design for RECITAL in collaboration with Paul Mac. In 2011 and 2017, Edwardes was a member of the Australian World Orchestra. In 2015-216, Edwardes was the Vice President of the New Music Network. Edwardes has appeared on television as an occasional host of Play School, and as a panelist on Spicks and Specks. In 2021, Edwardes created The Australian Marimba Composition Kit and a comprehensive list of percussion works by female composers. Additionally, Edwardes has composed numerous works for solo waterphone. She is currently on staff as a percussion teacher at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Vincent Plush is an Australian composer. He studied at the University of Adelaide under the composer Richard Meale and founded the Seymour Group in 1976. He has taught at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music and worked for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. Plush was awarded a Harkness Fellowship and spent time at Yale University researching American composers. He writes about classical music for The Australian newspaper and has contributed to Limelight magazine. Baker’s Biographical Dictionary of Musicians describes Plush as a "remarkable Australian composer".
