The earliest western musical influences in Australia can be traced to two distinct sources: in the first settlements, the large body of convicts, soldiers and sailors who brought the traditional folk music of England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland; and the first free settlers, some of whom had been exposed to the European classical music tradition in their upbringing. An example of original music by a convict would be an 1861 tune dedicated to settler James Gordon by fiddler constable Alexander Laing. Very little music has survived from this early period, although there are samples of music originating from Sydney and Hobart that date back to the early 19th century. Musical publications from this period preserved in Australian libraries include works by Charles Edward Horsley, William Stanley, Isaac Nathan, Charles Sandys Packer, Frederick Augustus Packer, Carl Linger, Francis Hartwell Henslowe, Frederick Ellard, Raimund Pechotsch and Julius Siede.
History
Isaac Nathan's 1847 Don John of Austria was the first opera to be written, composed and produced in Australia. The establishment of choral societies (c. 1850) and symphony orchestras (c. 1890) led to increased compositional activity, although most Australian classical composers of this period worked entirely within European models and many undertook their training in composition in Europe or the United Kingdom. One of the earliest known composers was George Tolhurst, whose oratorio Ruth was the first composed in the then colony of Victoria in 1864. Some works leading up to the first part of the 20th century were heavily influenced by folk music (Percy Grainger's "English Country Gardens" of 1908 being a good example of this). An estimated 10,000 Australians and New Zealanders traveled to Britain each year from the late 1880s to the early 20th century, and the number doubled between the World Wars. A majority was likely female, often a musician; in 1907 one commentator said that Australia's principal exports to Britain were "frozen sheep and pretty-voiced girls". Success in London was often seen as a prerequisite for fame in Australia for singers such as Nellie Melba, Amy Sherwin, and Ada Crossley.
Australian composers who published classical music during the late nineteenth century include Hugo Alpen, Hooper Brewster-Jones, Thomas Bulch, Alice Charbonnet-Kellermann, George H. Clutsam, Herbert De Pinna, John Albert Delany Guglielmo Enrico Lardelli, Louis Lavater, George Marshall-Hall, Stephen Moreno, George William Torrance, Cesare Cutolo, Christian Helleman and Augustus Juncker.
Even for composers, a trip abroad could make a career: George Frederick Boyle, who was born in New South Wales in 1886, had a great career in Australia as a piano prodigy but did not meet with international success as a composer until he traveled to Europe and the United States.
From the time of Australia's Federation in 1901, a growing sense of national identity began to emerge in the arts, although a patriotic attachment with the "mother country" or "Home", that is Britain, and the Empire, continued to dominate musical taste. European musical training became more available in Australia through migrants like Alice Charbonnet-Kellermann, Fred Werner and as an academic pursuit under emerging conservatory academics like Ernest Truman and George Marshall-Hall. In the war and post-war eras, as the Australian national identity continued to build, composers looked to their surroundings for inspiration. John Antill in his ballet Corroboree, Peter Sculthorpe and others began to incorporate elements of Aboriginal music, Richard Meale drew influence from south-east Asia (notably using the harmonic properties of the Balinese gamelan), while Nigel Butterley combined his penchant for International modernism with an own individual voice.
By the beginning of the 1960s other strong influences emerged in Australian classical music, with composers incorporating disparate elements into their work, ranging from Aboriginal and south-east Asian music and instruments, American jazz and blues, to the belated discovery of European atonality and the avant-garde. Composers like Don Banks, Don Kay, Malcolm Williamson and Colin Brumby epitomise this period. Others who adhered to more traditional idioms include Arthur Benjamin, George Dreyfus, Peggy Glanville-Hicks and Robert Hughes. In recent times composers including Julian Cochran, Barry Conyngham, Brett Dean, Ross Edwards, Gordon Hamilton, Matthew Hindson, Elena Kats-Chernin, Graeme Koehne, Constantine Koukias, Stephen Leek, Georges Lentz, Liza Lim, Richard Mills, Carl Vine, Martin Wesley-Smith, Nigel Westlake, and David Worrall have embodied the pinnacle of established Australian composers.