In 1976, when Roger Smalley AM (1943-2015) emigrated from England to take up a position at the School of Music at the University of Western Australia he was well established as an internationally renowned composer. Intermodulation, the new music group he co-founded in 1969, described as a “four-person live electronic improvisation type ensemble”, performed regularly throughout Europe in the following seven years. A formidable pianist, Smalley had studied with Stockhausen, given British premiere performances of several of his Klavierstücke, and brought this deep immersion in the European experimental music scene with him to Perth, where he remained teaching, researching, performing and conducting until retirement in 2007.

Smalley had a profound impact on the development of contemporary musical composition in this country. Now, three Perth-based musicians have come together to celebrate and record five works by their “teacher, mentor and friend” composed between 1969 and...