Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Freddie Hill playing trumpet, 'Water Babies', at Kindlehill School, Wentworth Falls 2017  
© Tomanelli Inc.

I was so touched to read about Freddie Hill's passing in the 2024 July edition of Resonate magazine and wrote a spontaneous message by way of response to the call for comments. This is a longer dedication to a dear friend that I remember, even though we lost touch some time ago when I moved from Sydney to Cologne, Germany.

We met in Bristol, U.K. (near where I lived in South-West England) through a mutual friend during the 1970s, where his jazz sessions as a trumpeter, playing with ensembles at well-known pubs in the city, were re-known. The Bristol Arts Centre, mentioned in his biography and better known as the Arnolfini (still thriving as an important place for the contemporary arts), was an important venue for Freddie. It was there that he met the British composer Oliver Knussen, who dedicated a work - Spiritual for solo trumpet and tape - to him. We continued our friendship when I moved to London to study music during the 1970s. We visited Oliver at his London home and Freddie also introduced me to the London Musicians' Collective, a lively venue for free jazz improvisation.

Freddie moved to Australia a few years before me, possibly because some of his close family lived there. I arrived late in 1980 so we caught up with each other in Sydney and I remember meeting his mother Vera, who worked at the then existing Sydney Opera House library. He became part of a cabaret band, The Weill Bunch, that I formed to play the music of Kurt Weill during the early 1980s. The line-up was clarinet / bass clarinet, trumpet/flugelhorn, trombone, violin/banjo, accordion/piano, percussion and two singers. I arranged some of the songs from Brecht and Weill's Threepenny Opera (1928), including later songs such as Surabaya Johnny and O Moon of Alabama, for the band. There was a strong theatrical element to our performances as each musician/singer took on a character reflected in their costume. Freddie was named 'Prof' and wore over-long tails along with a bowler hat.

Freddie gave me private lessons in orchestration when I became interested in composing my own music. I remember enjoying exercises in arranging piano works from the classical repertory for instrumental ensembles and becoming more familiar with techniques of writing. He was a wonderful teacher. After I left Sydney in late 1987 to study new music theatre composition in Germany, we sadly lost contact. My intended stay of six months developed into a decision to remain in the country once I realised that I could live there happily as a composer.

Looking through Freddie's work list, provided by the AMC, I recall his sense of humour, echoed in titles such as Andante gone troppo for solo guitar (1988). His compositional output was considerable, with a particular fondness for brass and woodwind instruments, an influence of jazz creeping into many of these works. A first performance of his opera The Circumnavigator (1982) was made in 1987. Australian composer Raffaele Marcellino, a former friend and colleague of mine, directed the production. He recalls the following: 'Stephen Malloch was the conductor, for a workshop production of excerpts in 1987 with a group called Opera Mode in their inaugural workshop program. I remember Elke Neidhardt was engaged to appraise the work of the young cast and production team. We had six weeks of rehearsal-time, no production budget and I can't recall the venue'. [N.B. It was The Elizabethan Theatre Trust, East Sydney]. 'I remember going to his house in Birchgrove to talk about the opera'.

I was also struck by a curious coincidence in the fact that another former close friend, singer/composer/performer Josephine Truman, collaborated closely with Freddie as producer, co-artistic director and performer in his magnum opera The Water Babies (2000).

Jo recalls, "We staged The Water Babies between 2016-19. It was funded by a bequest from Vera, Freddie's mother after she died. The first show was really technically a workshop performance. I took on the role of producer and we got a cast of kids together for the two child leads and kids' chorus. I recruited a lovely competent Musical Director called Rowen Fox, who lives in the Blue Mountains, and we also brought in Mara Kiek to play Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, who did a great job." (See review by Lynne Lancaster, Sydney Arts Guide.)

Image: The Water Babies, kids'chorus and Mara Kiek performing Mrs Doasyouwouldbedoneby, Seymour Centre workshop performance 2016. With permission from Tomanelli Inc.

Jo continues, "Freddie and I did agree that we would undertake at least three performances of the work. I contacted the local Steiner School in Wentworth Falls, Kindlehill School, who agreed to a collaborative project. For the next three months we rehearsed The Water Babies with many of their kids. It was a fantastic opportunity for them as it was their first experience of working with professionals in the industry. We had also the wonderful pianist Tony Baldwin and the Musical Director was Freddie's friend and colleague Murray Bishop. The third staging was part of the Kidz Fringe program for the Sydney Fringe Festival, to be performed at the ACA Theatre in Annandale. We got David Kram on board as Musical Director for that show."

Video: The Water Babies. Agreed for inclusion by Tomanelli Inc. Cleared for copyright.

To end this blog on a personal note, I still have an original manuscript copy of a wonderful jazz song that Freddie dedicated to me. It has never been performed so perhaps someone would like to take up the challenge? The anonymous lyrics are as follows:

Spring is sprung, the grass is riz

I wonder where dem boidies is?

The little boid is on the wing

(Ain't that absurd…)

De little wing is on der boid!

Image: Score of Spring in New York by Freddie Hill, 1982. Re-printed by the author.