Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Ian McKinley  

AMC's Represented artist, composer, conductor and music educator Ian McKinley OAM has died on 9 May, at the age of 90, after a long illness. Ian is remembered for his work for music education in many capacities. In addition to working as a Music Lecturer (Mt Gravatt CAE, now part of Griffith University), he was a foundation member and later National Secretary and Treasurer of the Australian Society for Music Education, an AMEB examiner, member of the Queensland Primary Music Curriculum Committee and, for a term, President of the Queensland Music Teachers' Association.

He conducted several choral groups and was, for seven years until 1993, Director of Music at Christ Church St Lucia. After this, while he continued playing the organ, his chief interest was choral composition. His many compositions and arrangements for the Canticum Chamber Choir, in which he sang, include a setting of Paul Sherman's Triptych of Austral Time.

His other choral compositions include The Secret City: Windows on a Southern Land - settings of six poems by Australian authors for two choirs and organ; and a Mass setting based on Richard Connolly's hymn tune 'Araluen'. In 2002, his choral work The Spirit's Gift was published in the United Kingdom by the Royal School of Church Music, and performed in Westminster Cathedral, London, by massed RSCM choirs.

In June 2007, he was awarded the Medal of the Order of Australia 'for service to music as an educator, singer, organist and composer'.

> Ian McKinley - AMC profile