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Geoffrey Allen (1927-2021) : Represented Artist

'My objective is to write music that is both playable and interesting for the listener. My approach is essentially melodic, with varied harmonic and rhythmical characteristics, with the main traditions of Western music.'

Random Audio Sample: Nursery rhymes 9 : voice with piano by Geoffrey Allen, from the CD Monday's child


Photo of Geoffrey Allen

Geoffrey Allen was born in the UK in 1927. His musical education was limited to private piano lessons, and consequently he was self-taught in all other aspects of music. Allen began to compose while a teenager, but his ambitions for a career in music were thwarted by parents and teachers, who were opposed to his aspirations. Instead, he studied geography at Oxford University while continuing to compose in his spare time. The first of his acknowledged compositions dates from his university years.

After his graduation in 1951, Allen moved to Sydney, where he taught geography for two years at Trinity Grammar School. At the end of this period, he took up the first of a number of positions in Australian libraries, accepting a place on the staff of the State (then 'Public') Library of NSW. He was a scientific librarian with the CSIRO from 1958 until 1961, when he moved to Perth to work in the library of the University of Western Australia. He later became foundation Librarian of the WA Institute of Technology, and, when this became Curtin University in 1987, the University Librarian. Allen retired in 1992.

While in Sydney in the 1950s, Geoffrey Allen founded the Recording Society of Australia, and acted as its Secretary until 1961. During this period, the Society issued a number of LP recordings of Australian works and performers, on the Brolga label. Allen's own music (Two Lullabies) was recorded by the Society, along with that of other Australian composers, such as Edgar Bainton, Nigel Butterley, Margaret Sutherland and Larry Sitsky.

In 1990 he established the Keys Press for the purpose of publishing contemporary Australian classical music. Between 1990 and 2014 he published over 500 separate titles by around 50 composers, including Roy Agnew, Miriam Hyde, Ann Ghandar, and Larry Sitsky.

After a lull in composing during mid-life, Allen experienced a resurgence of creative drive in the late 1980s and continued to compose for several decades. His body of work includes sixteen piano sonatas, many shorter piano pieces and numerous works for woodwinds, together with songs and a few works for strings.

Geoffrey Allen's style was much influenced by mid-19th century British and French composers. His music is generally melody-driven, and is characterised by chromatic and frequently shifting tonalities with the rare flirtation with atonality. He eschewed serialism and minimalism and believed them to be passing fads.

In 2010s, he collaborated with David Wickham from the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and other Western Australian musicians to produce a number of CD recordings of music he had previously published, including some of his own. These CDs were released in the UK by Stone Records and the details can be viewed on their website.

Geoffrey Allen died on 24 October 2021 after a short illness, at the age of 94.