Electronic 60s sounds hit Melbourne at the Grainger Centre

Image for Electronic 60s sounds hit Melbourne at the Grainger Centre

Grainger Museum
Gate 13, Royal Parade
Parkville

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Grainger Museum

grainger@unimelb.edu.au

T: 0383445270

  • Event

Join exhibition curator Dr Heather Gaunt as she guides you through this interactive exhibition chronicling the history of the electronic music machines on display and their pioneers.

The exhibition Synthesizers: Sound of the Future explores the Melbourne scene of electronic music creation focussed on the Grainger Electronic Studio in the late 1960s and early 1970s. Australian composer and educator Keith Humble (1927-1995) led a period of intense creative compositional activity based at the Grainger Museum in this period. Humble’s return to Melbourne in 1966 as Senior Lecturer in Composition at the Conservatorium of Music, after a decade living and working Paris, has been described as a major turning point for contemporary music in Melbourne. Humble chose to make the Grainger Museum the centre of his many activities in musical composition, improvisation, education, and experimentation. He built up an electronic studio in the Museum that included the most cutting-edge analogue synthesizers available in the period, sourced from EMS (Electronic Music Studios), London. With like-minded local musicians and artists, Humble promoted the discussion of contemporary music aggressively, creating a new climate of excitement in Melbourne around the avant-garde. This talk will explore these key themes of the exhibition.

Free event but bookings are essential through Eventbrite.

This public program is part of our latest exhibition Synthesizers: Sound of the Future running from 20 April 2018 until 9 September 2018.

Image: Jean-Charles Francois and Ian Bonighton in the Grainger Museum Electronic Music Studio, 1971, detail from University of Melbourne Gazette, Vol XXVII, December 1971, p. 1. Grainger Museum Archive, 2017/23-4/5