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Breaking the Drought (Book)

By Rita Crews and Jeanell Carrigan

$50.00 Sale

 Biography of Roy Agnew: Composer, Pianist, Teacher

by Rita Crews and Jeanell Carrigan

Foreword by Emeritus Prof. Larry Sitsky AO

Robert (Roy) Ewing Agnew (1891-1944) was a man who dominated the musical scene in Sydney in the first half of the 20th century and his creative talent was admired and recognised by fellow musicians in Australia and abroad. He is remembered as a brilliant, virtuosic, and flamboyant performer who graced the musical stage in England and Australia, and as an important and influential teacher in the private sphere of his home in Ashfield; for many years at Kambala School for Girls and in the last year of his life as a staff member at the NSW Conservatorium of Music. He was celebrated as a composer of great originality who was led to “abandon the limitations of key and tonal relationships.”

This book aims to ‘break the drought’ of apathy towards a composer who bridged the gap that many had not dared before between the compositional trend of the conservative ‘English pastoral style’ and the modern language of Europe. Agnew dared to be scandalous!

Audio downloads (under development)

 ISBN 978 1 876829 84 1

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