Anne Boyd

Anne Elizabeth Boyd AM (born 10 April 1946) is an Australian composer and Professor of Music at the University of Sydney.

Early life

Anne Boyd was born 10 April 1946, in Sydney, New South Wales to James Boyd and Annie Freda Deason Boyd (née Osborn).cite encyclopedia| editor = Suzannah Pearce| encyclopedia = Who's Who in Australia Live!| title = BOYD Anne Elizabeth| accessdate = 2007-10-06| date = 2006-11-17| year = 2007| publisher = Crown Content Pty Ltd| location = North Melbourne, Vic]

When she was three years of age her father died, and her mother sent her to live with relatives on a sheep station (Maneroo) thousands of kilometres away near Longreach, 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 aged 11, and although she was pleased to be reunited with her mother, she missed the beauty of the Outback terrain.In New South Wales, she received her education at Albury High School and Hornsby Girls' High School.

Following matriculation from high school, Boyd studied music at the University of Sydney, where she was one of Peter Sculthorpe'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. After receiving her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) degree, she received a PhD in composition from the University of York in England.

Career

Boyd has taught at the University of Sussex, the University of Hong Kong, and the University of Sydney, where she is currently a professor of composition, Arts Music undergraduate coordinator, Co-chair of Composition, and Chair of the Arts Music Unit of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music. She has received the Order of Australia for her contributions to music.

Boyd's struggle to maintain funding for music courses in the Faculty of Arts at the University of Sydney was featured in the television documentary "Facing the Music". Boyd lost the struggle, with the result that the Department of Music was incorporated into the Sydney Conservatorium (a faculty at the same university) from the start of 2005.

Boyd was the recipient of a Special Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music at the APRA/AMC Classical Music Awards in 2005.

Music

Many of Boyd's compositions have an East Asian influence, especially the music of Japan (such as the wood flute and the Japanese mode) and Indonesia (such as the gamelan orchestra and the Balinese modes). She is a deeply religious Christian, and many of her works are of a spiritual or meditative nature, such as the a cappella work "As I Crossed a Bridge of Dreams" (1975). She has written song cycles, and piano, choral, and chamber music.

Musical compositions by Boyd 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. CD's include: "Meditations on a Chinese Character" 1997, and "Crossing a Bridge of Dreams" 2000. Her compositions can be found on Tall Poppies and ABC Classics labels.

References