E/Prof Roger Smalley

Senior Honorary Research Fellow
Academic Staff (Music)

Contact details

Address

Academic Staff (Music)
The University of Western Australia (M413)
35 Stirling Highway
CRAWLEY WA 6009
Australia

Email

pbenjamin.rsmalley@gmail.com

Qualifications

MA Camb., DMus W.Aust., ARCM, FAHA

Biography

Roger Smalley was born near Manchester, England in 1943. At the Royal College of Music, London, he studied piano with Antony Hopkins and composition with Peter Racine Fricker and John White. He also took private composition lessons with Alexander Goehr and subsequently furthered his studies with Karlheinz Stockhausen on the Cologne Course for New Music.

Widely recognised for his performances of contemporary piano music, Roger Smalley was a prize winner in the International Competition for Interpreters of Contemporary Music (Utrecht, 1966) and received the Harriet Cohen International Music Award for contemporary music performance in 1968. In 1969, together with Tim Souster, he formed Intermodulation, an ensemble specialising in works involving improvisation and live-elelctronics, which performed throughout England and Europe until 1976. He also excelled as a music critic for various publications including The Musical Times and Tempo.

Following his 1968 appointment as the first Artist-in-Residence at King’s College Cambridge he was awarded a 3-year research fellowship. He was invited to the University of Western Australia in 1974 as Composer-in-Residence for three months, returning 2 years later as a research fellow, and subsequently Associate Professor and Professorial Fellow.
In 2001 Roger was awarded an Australian Government Centenial Medal for service to Australian society and the humanities in the study of music and in 2004 proclaimed a Western Australian State Living Treasure.

From 1990 to 2000 Roger was Artistic Director and conductor of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s New Music Ensemble. In 1991 he was the recipient of ArtsWA’s Creative Development Fellowship and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. In 1994 he was awarded the Australia Council’s prestigious Don Banks Fellowship “in recognition of his distinguished contribution to Australian music”. In 1995-96 he was Composer-in-Residence with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra.

New and noteworthy

Roger Smalley’s compositions have been performed and broadcast worldwide. He has been commissioned by many organisations and ensembles, including the BBC, ABC, West German Radio, the Festival of Perth, London Sinfonietta, Fires of London, The Sydney Melbourne and West Australian Symphony Orchestras, Flederman, Nova Ensemble, Seymour Group, and Australia Ensemble. Many works are currently available on CD, on ABC Classics, Tall Poppies, Melba, NMC, and Deux-elles. His Piano Concerto, a BBC commission for European Music Year (1985), was the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s entry in the annual International Rostrum of Composers (UNESCO) in 1987. It won the top recommendation, the first time an Australian entry was declared the “recommended” work.

Current projects

As a pianist Roger continues to perform a wide variety of solo and chamber music. From 1996 to 2001 he was a founder member of the Australian Piano Quartet. He has recorded CDs of Australian piano music, chamber and orchestral works and Schumann song-cycles (with Gerald English).

Roger’s most recent works include works include a Piano Quintet, his Second Piano Concerto commissioned to be played by the winner of the 2004 Sydney International Piano Competition, the first Barbara Blackman commission (Birthday Tango) to celebrate the 30th Birthday of the Australian Chamber Orchestra, and a short Lament for Horn and 4 Tam-Tams to honour the victims of the 2006 Tsunami disaster.

Research profile

Research profile and publications