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Robert Ampt : Associate Artist

Often employing traditional forms (eg, ostinato, canon, fugue) and recognisable tonality, I aim to create music which is both emotionally evoking and entertaining. My greatest influences have come from J. S. Bach, Stravinsky, Hakim and all composers of great hymns.

Robert Ampt is the Sydney City Organist, playing regularly on the world-renowned organ in the Sydney Town Hall. He is the organist/choirmaster of Sydney's German Lutheran Church, past president of the Organ Music Society of Sydney and patron of the Organ Historical Trust of Australia. A past organ teacher at the Conservatoriums of Sydney and Wollongong, he teaches organ for the University of Sydney, at the St Andrew's Cathedral School as well as privately, with his students having been frequent prize-winners in the Sydney Organ Competition.

He has published organ and choral music under the Birralee Publishing label as well as a much acclaimed history of the Sydney Town Hall organ. He has written many articles for the Sydney Organ Journal and Organ Historical Trust of Australia News and makes frequent guest-speaker appearances.

Ampt has produced audio recordings on the ABC, Move, Woodward and Priory labels, and a video recording on the Marcom label performing Guilmant's Symphony No.1 in D minor with the SBS Youth Orchestra. ABC Radio programs have included New Sydney Organs and The Improvisation of Chorale Preludes. Both his playing and his compositions feature regularly on Australian radio, and to a growing extent, also in the United States.

Most of Robert Ampt's organ works are intended for concert performance and, following the tradition of City Organists the world over, are often based on familiar melodies. Many of the choral works have Christmas themes and received their initial performances at the City of Sydney's annual Christmas at the Sydney Town Hall, which in recent years has always been sold out. Many of these works, both organ and choral, are available on commercial recordings from Australia, the UK and the US.

Ampt and his wife, Sydney University Organist and Carillonist Amy Johansen, have developed two specialities - the presentation of children's 'Introduction to the Organ' programs and the playing of organ duets.

As both a solo and a duet player, he has performed throughout Australia (including all of the major Town Halls) and internationally.

His additional interests include being a father, gardening, house restoration (he lives in a 1905 weatherboard house in the Blue Mountains) and the Australian Football League (AFL) team, the Greater Western Sydney Giants.


Robert Ampt — current to August 2019

Selected Commissions

  Work Commission Details
Digital sheet music sample Three Trumpet Pieces for Organ : organ solo (2012) Commissioned by Lydia Bushell.