Paul Grabowsky

Paul Atherstone Grabowsky is an Australian pianist and composer, founder of the Australian Art Orchestra. Born in Lae, Papua New Guinea, Grabowsky is a pianist and composer of music for film, theatre and opera. His father Alistair had lived in Papua New Guinea with his wife Charlotte since the 1930s working on oil rigs, building roads, flying planes. Grabowsky described his ancestry as "failed Polish aristocracy". His grandfather was a legitimate Polish Count of the Grabowksi noble family, a descendant of Jan Jerzy Grabowski from where he gets his title; his grandfather was exiled from Poland and lived in Scotland. His older brother Michael took great interest in the young composer and later worked with Paul co-ordinating and producing many of his television and film scores in the 1990s.

Grabowsky grew up in Glen Waverley, Melbourne, Australia, and began piano lessons when he was five years old. He studied the classical repertoire with Mack Jost, senior lecturer in piano at the Conservatorium of Music at the University of Melbourne from the age of seven until his university years. He attended Wesley College and it was that school's jazz band which introduced him to the genre.