The British-born modernist who made Perth and Sydney his home passes at 72.

The British-born, Australian composer Roger Smalley has died at the age of 72 after a long battle with Parkinson’s disease. In addition to his work as a noted composer, Smalley was also recognised as a distinguished pianist, particularly acclaimed for his interpretations of contemporary music as well as music of the Classical and Romantic periods.

Roger Smalley was born in Swinton, Lancashire, England in July 1943. By the early 1960s he was at the Royal College of Music in London where his piano teacher was Antony Hopkins while for composition he studied with Peter Racine Fricker and John White. He went on to further tuition with Alexander Goehr at Morley College before making a commitment to the modernist movement that was uppermost in Europe at that time.

In 1965 he attended Pierre Boulez’s Darmstadt summer course while in the same year and the following he was part of Karlheinz Stockhausen’s Cologne Course for New Music. In 1966 Smalley was a prizewinner in the Gaudeamus Competition for interpreters of contemporary music and he won the Harriet Cohen Award for contemporary music performance in 1968.

In 1969, Smalley and British...