Ex-pats Kelly Lovelady and Ruthless Jabiru plan to play one of the composer’s final commissions.

It’s just over a year since the passing of Australian composer Peter Sculthorpe, yet it seems that the man whose music inspired so many still has a few surprises up his sleeve. Aussie conductor and founder of the ex-pat ensemble Ruthless Jabiru, Kelly Lovelady, commissioned Sculthorpe back in 2012 and, although the work was never completed, she now hopes to raise the funds to allow what did make it to the page to be heard.

“I can’t remember exactly how my friendship with Peter started but I think I’d decided to write and say hello when I was performing some of his flute music in the 1990s,” says Lovelady. “I’d also read his book Sun Music around that time and his idea of the Pacific delivering peace to every shore that it touched really stayed with me. His string quartet Jabiru Dreaming made a big impression on me and it was Peter’s music that inspired me to initiate a string-based project here in London. For me the way he wrote for strings really connected the sound of the instruments with the wood they were...