Keith Humble

Keith Humble was born in Geelong, Victoria, in 1927. He began the piano at five and, while still at high school, performed with jazz groups. In 1946 he enrolled at the Melbourne University Conservatorium, studying traditional harmony, composition and counterpoint. An AMEB Commonwealth Scholarship took him to Britain in 1950 for study at the Royal College of Music, London, under Howard Ferguson and Paul Steinitz; he gained his Licentiate Diploma before a further scholarship carried him to Paris and the École Normale de Musique, where he studied piano with Madame Bascourret, Alfred Cortot’s assistant. As a private composition student of René Leibowitz he was introduced to serialism.

In 1964 he undertook a lecture–recital tour of colleges and universities in the USA, and visited Australia briefly to present a composers’ workshop widely regarded as the impetus for the Melbourne Branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music. He returned permanently in 1966 as Senior Lecturer at the Melbourne Conservatorium, where he established the Electronic Music Studio at the Grainger Centre, re-established the Opera School and formed the Society for the Private Performance of New Music.

In 1975 he helped found the Australian Contemporary Music Ensemble (ACME) to promote contemporary music and to encourage and perform the work of young Australian composers. He saw it as a national group presenting the best new music with the best available players; he performed with the ensemble and was musical director until 1978.

In 1977 he won the National Critics Award as the most outstanding recitalist working in Australia; in 1982 he was appointed AM for services to music. On retirement from La Trobe in 1989 he was named emeritus professor. He continued work in America and France, including consultancy on New Music Literacy projects for the European Community, and in Australia served between 1988 and 1995 on Deakin University’s Institute of the Arts board, as music consultant to the Victorian College of the Arts, and on Monash University’s Board of Studies in Music.

Keith Humble died on 23 May 1995.