Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: James Murdoch  

[Update 5 November - links added]

James Murdoch (1930-2010) passed away on his beloved island of Bali on 25 October 2010.

James Murdoch had a distinguished international career in the arts. He contributed to Australian music life in multiple roles, including as music consultant, manager, administrator and writer. Murdoch was the founding director of the Australian Music Centre during the second half of the 1970s. He wrote several books, including Australia's Contemporary Composers (1972), and Peggy Glanville-Hicks - A Transposed Life (2002), and was involved in the making of music documentaries. He was also instrumental in Peggy Glanville-Hicks's return to Australia for the last years of her life.

In the 1960s, in London, Murdoch managed an impressive roster of musicians, including the composers Peter Maxwell Davies, Hans Werner Henze and Harrison Birtwistle, the pianists Roger Woodward and Paul Crossley, and such groups as the Pierrot Players (later known as the Fires of London) and the Budapest Chamber Orchestra.

In 1984 he formed the company James Murdoch & Associates which undertook research projects, provided consultancy services for the Australia Council, Sydney Opera House Trust and other bodies, and managed the Australian tours of visiting musicians and dancers.

Friends are invited to the Peggy Glanville-Hicks House to remember James Murdoch on 8 November at 6:30pm (45 Ormond Street).

Further links

James Murdoch (AMC)
James Murdoch - biography and other resources on the Australian National Library website
James Murdoch - obituary (The Australian 2 November 2010)
'James Murdoch remembered' - Resonate article