Anne Elizabeth Boyd AM (born 10 April 1946) is an Australian composer and emeritus professor of music at the

University of Sydney The University of Sydney (USYD), also known as Sydney University, or informally Sydney Uni, is a public research university located in Sydney, Australia. Founded in 1850, it is the oldest university in Australia and is one of the country's si ...

Early life

Boyd was born in Sydney to James Boyd and Annie Freda Deason Boyd (née Osborn). Her father died when she was age 3, and her mother sent her to live with relatives on a sheep station (Maneroo) near

Longreach Longreach is a town and a locality in the Longreach Region, Queensland, Australia. It is the administrative centre of the Longreach Regional Council, which was established in 2008 as a merger of the former Longreach, Ilfracombe, and Isisford s ...

, in central Queensland. This intimate experience with the Australian landscape – its expansiveness, its dramatic changes, and its "indescribable energy" – had a profound influence on her future as a composer. She began composing while still at Maneroo, at the age of eight, for the resources she had available: recorder and voice. She moved to

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

aged 11, and although she was pleased to be reunited with her mother, she missed the beauty of the

outback The Outback is a remote, vast, sparsely populated area of Australia. The Outback is more remote than the bush. While often envisaged as being arid, the Outback regions extend from the northern to southern Australian coastlines and encompass a n ...

terrain. In New South Wales, she received her education at

Albury High School , motto_translation = To the stars through difficult and challenging ways , location = Kiewa Street, Albury, New South Wales , country = Australia , coordinates = , established = , type = Gover ...

and

Hornsby Girls' High School Hornsby Girls' High School is a government-funded single-sex academically selective secondary day school for girls, located in Hornsby, a suburb on the Upper North Shore of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Founded in 1930, the school' ...

. Boyd studied music at the University of Sydney, where she was one of

Peter Sculthorpe Peter Joshua Sculthorpe (29 April 1929 – 8 August 2014) was an Australian composer. Much of his music resulted from an interest in the music of countries neighboring Australia as well as from the impulse to bring together aspects of Aborigin ...

's first students. Sculthorpe had a profound influence on her; she said that his music was the first time she had heard music which expressed her experience of the Australian landscape. In the early 1970s she and Sculthorpe were engaged to be married, but they broke the engagement as they believed one composer in a household was enough. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree, she received a PhD in composition from the

University of York , mottoeng = On the threshold of wisdom , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £8.0 million , budget = £403.6 million , chancellor = Heather Melville , vice_chancellor = Charlie Jeffery , students ...

in England.

Career

In 1990, Boyd became the first Australian and the first woman to be appointed to a professor of music at the University of Sydney. Before that Boyd was the foundation head of the Department of Music at the

University of Hong Kong The University of Hong Kong (HKU) (Chinese: 香港大學) is a public research university in Hong Kong. Founded in 1887 as the Hong Kong College of Medicine for Chinese, it is the oldest tertiary institution in Hong Kong. HKU was also the fi ...

(1981–90) and taught at the

University of Sussex , mottoeng = Be Still and Know , established = , type = Public research university , endowment = £14.4 million (2020) , budget = £319.6 million (2019–20) , chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar , vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil , ...

(1972–77). In 1996 she was appointed a Member of the

Order of Australia The Order of Australia is an honour that recognises Australian citizens and other persons for outstanding achievement and service. It was established on 14 February 1975 by Elizabeth II, Queen of Australia, on the advice of the Australian Gove ...

for her contributions to music as a composer and as an educator. Boyd's struggle to maintain funding for music courses in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney was featured in the documentary '' Facing the Music'' (2001). The Department of Music was incorporated into the Sydney Conservatorium at the same university from the start of 2005.

Music

Many of Boyd's compositions have an

East Asia East Asia is the eastern region of Asia, which is defined in both geographical and ethno-cultural terms. The modern states of East Asia include China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan. China, North Korea, South Korea and ...

n influence, especially the music of Japan (such as the wood flute and the

Japanese mode The Japanese mode is a pentatonic musical scale commonly used in traditional Japanese music. The intervals of the scale are major second, minor third, perfect fifth and minor sixth (such as the notes A, B, C, E, F and up to A :ja:ヨナ抜き音� ...

) and Indonesia (such as the

gamelan Gamelan () ( jv, ꦒꦩꦼꦭꦤ꧀, su, ᮌᮙᮨᮜᮔ᮪, ban, ᬕᬫᭂᬮᬦ᭄) is the traditional ensemble music of the Javanese, Sundanese, and Balinese peoples of Indonesia, made up predominantly of percussive instruments. T ...

orchestra and the Balinese modes). Many of her works are of a spiritual or meditative nature, such as the

a cappella ''A cappella'' (, also , ; ) music is a performance by a singer or a singing group without instrumental accompaniment, or a piece intended to be performed in this way. The term ''a cappella'' was originally intended to differentiate between Ren ...

work ''As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams'' (1975). She has written

song cycle A song cycle (german: Liederkreis or Liederzyklus) is a group, or cycle (music), cycle, of individually complete Art song, songs designed to be performed in a sequence as a unit.Susan Youens, ''Grove online'' The songs are either for solo voice ...

s, opera, piano, choral, orchestral and chamber music. Her musical compositions include: ''Goldfish Through Summer Rain'' 1979, ''The Little Mermaid'' 1980, ''Black Sun'' 1990, ''Revelations of Divine Love'' 1995, ''Meditations on a Chinese Character'' 1996, ''A Vision: Jesus Reassures His Mother'' 1999, and ''YuYa'' 2005. Her 2017 orchestral composition ''Olive Pink's Garden'' was inspired by the

Olive Pink Botanic Garden Olive Pink Botanic Garden is a botanic garden in Alice Springs in the Northern Territory of Australia, specialising in plants native to the arid central Australian region. History The 16 ha area that is now Olive Pink Botanic Garden was ga ...

Alice Springs Alice Springs ( aer, Mparntwe) is the third-largest town in the Northern Territory of Australia. Known as Stuart until 31 August 1933, the name Alice Springs was given by surveyor William Whitfield Mills after Alice, Lady Todd (''née'' Al ...

, and her 2022 opera about the life of

Olive Pink Olive Muriel Pink (17 March 1884 – 6 July 1975) was an Australian botanical illustrator, anthropologist, gardener, and activist for Aboriginal rights. Pink spent much of her life agitating and being a passionate advocate for improved rights ...

was premiered there. CDs include: ''Meditations on a Chinese Character'' 1997, and ''Crossing a Bridge of Dreams'' 2000.

Athletic performances

Boyd is an endurance runner and marathoner, who has won her age group in marathons, half marathons and 10 km races. Boyd ran her first marathon after only 18 months training. She has been described as a 'lady of musical and running talents' and an 'inspiring distance runner', running with her daughter and raising money for cancer. She won her age group in the Sydney Striders marathon trophy.

Awards and recognition

* Member of the

(AM),

1996 Australia Day Honours The 1996 Australia Day Honours are appointments to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by Australian citizens. The list was announced on 26 January 1996 by the Governor General of Australia, Bill Hayden. The Australia Da ...

, "in recognition of service as a composer and educator" * Awarded honorary degree by

, 2003 * Recipient of a Special Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music at the APRA/AMC Classical Music Awards in 2005.

Bernard Heinze Memorial Award

The

Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award The Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award, was inaugurated following the death of Sir Bernard Heinze in 1982. The award is in the form of a medallion and is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to music in Australia. The Award ...

is given to a person who has made an outstanding contribution to music in Australia. ! , - , 2014 , , Anne Boyd , , Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award , , , , , -

References

External links

Composer biography Australian Music Centre

on ABC Classic FM'

* "Anne Boyd – A Sense of Something of the Sacred" adio transcript 2008. In ''Talking to Kinky and Karlheinz – 170 musicians get vocal on The Music Show'' ed. Anni Heino, 292–304. Sydney: ABC Books. . * Thérèse Radic (2001). "Boyd, Anne (Elizabeth)", ''

Grove Music Online ''The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians'' is an encyclopedic dictionary of music and musicians. Along with the German-language ''Die Musik in Geschichte und Gegenwart'', it is one of the largest reference works on the history and theo ...

'' * {{DEFAULTSORT:Boyd, Anne 1946 births Living people Australian women classical composers Academics of the University of Sussex University of Hong Kong faculty University of Sydney alumni Sydney Conservatorium of Music faculty Alumni of the University of York Members of the Order of Australia Australian classical composers