Roger Smalley

John Roger Smalley (26 July 1943 – 18 August 2015) was an Anglo-Australian composer, pianist and conductor. Professor Smalley was a senior honorary research fellow at the School of Music, University of Western Australia in Perth and honorary research associate at the University of Sydney. Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire, England. He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Antony Hopkins (piano), Peter Racine Fricker and John White (both composition). In addition, he studied with Alexander Goehr at Morley College, and attended Karlheinz Stockhausen's Cologne Course for New Music in 1965–66, as well as Pierre Boulez's Darmstadt summer course in 1965.As a young composer, he was awarded the 1965 Royal Philharmonic Society Prize for his orchestral work Gloria Tibi Trinitas.Smalley was appointed in 1967 as the first Composer in Residence at King's College, Cambridge. In 1969 Smalley and his successor at King's, Tim Souster, formed the live-electronic group Intermodulation. Over the next six years Intermodulation toured widely in the UK, West Germany, Poland, France and Iran, with a repertoire which included not only works by Souster and Smalley, but also music by Cornelius Cardew, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christian Wolff and others. Intermodulation also appeared on the occasions at the BBC Promenade Concerts, where among other works it performed Smalley's Beat Music for electronic ensemble and orchestra, and his Monody for piano and electronics (1974).In 1974 Smalley was invited to take up a three-month residency at the University of Western Australia. He returned two years later to take up a permanent position at the university's music school. Basing himself in Australia, he took Australian citizenship in 1990. On his retirement in 2007, Smalley was named Emeritus Professor at UWA.Roger Smalley was awarded the Centenary Medal in 2001 and appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in the Australia Day Honours of 2011.Smalley died at the age of 72 on 18 August 2015, after a long struggle with Parkinson's disease; at its onset he regretted that he could no longer play the piano, noting that "I know what I have to play, but my fingers won't let me do it".Smalley was married to Sarah Roe, from whom he was later divorced; they had two children.