Larry Sitsky
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Larry Sitsky is an Australian composer and pianist.
[edit] General Information
Born in China of Russian-Jewish parents on September 10, 1934, Sitsky travelled to Australia in 1951 and settled in Sydney. He studied piano from an early age and was granted a scholarship to the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music, where he studied piano and composition, graduating in 1955. In 1959 he won a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with Egon Petri for two years. Returning to Australia, he joined the staff of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music. A grant from the Myer Foundation in 1965 enabled him to conduct research into the music of Ferruccio Busoni, on whom he has written extensively. In 1966 he was appointed Head of Keyboard Studies at the Canberra School of Music, was later Head of Musicology and was Head of Composition Studies. He is currently Emeritus Professor of the Australian National University in Canberra.
Larry Sitsky was the first Australian to be invited to the USSR on a cultural exchange visit, organised by the Department of Foreign Affairs in 1977. He has received many awards for his compositions, including the A H Maggs Award (twice), the Alfred Hill Memorial Prize for his String Quartet in 1968, a China Fellowship in 1983, a Fulbright Award in 1988-89, and an Advance Australia Award for achievement in music (1989). He has been awarded the inaugural prize from the Fellowship of Composers (1989), the first National Critics' Award, and the inaugural Australian Composer's Fellowship presented by the Music Board of the Australia Council. This last award gave him the opportunity to write a large number of compositions (including concerti for violin, guitar, and orchestra) and to revise his book Busoni and the Piano, and to commence work as a pianist on the Anthology of Australian Piano Music. Sitsky has also published the two-volume The Classical Reproducing Piano Roll and Music of the Repressed Russian Avant-Garde, 1900-1929, and has recorded a number of CDs of Australian piano music, including the complete sonatas of Roy Agnew.
Sitsky has had works commissioned by many leading Australian and international bodies, such as the ABC, Musica Viva, the International Clarinet Society, the Sydney International Piano Competition, Flederman and the International Flute Convention. His collection of teaching pieces, Century, has been published by Currency Press, and he also has an open contract to publish anything he wishes with his New York publisher, Seesaw Music Corporation.
In recognition of his various achievements, he was made Professor (Personal Chair); the Australian National University also awarded him its first Higher Doctorate in Fine Arts in 1997. In 1998, he was elected Fellow of the Academy of the Humanities of Australia. A biography of Sitsky was published in the USA in 1997.
Works
Operas:
The Fall of the House of Usher, 1965 Libretto: Gwen Harwood.
Lenz, 1970 Libretto: Gwen Harwood.
Fiery Tales, 1975 After Chaucer and Boccaccio.
Voices in Limbo, 1977 Libretto: Gwen Harwood.
The Golem, 1980 Libretto: Gwen Harwood.
De Profundis, 1982 Libretto: Gwen Harwood.
Three scenes from Aboriginal life: 1. Campfire scene, 2. Mathina, 3. Legend of the Brolga, 1988
Incidental music to Faust for solo piano and three sopranos, 1996
