Larry Sitsky

Australian composer, pianist, and music educator

Lazar "Larry" Sitsky (born 10 September 1934) is an Australian composer, pianist, and music educator and scholar. His long term legacy is still to be assessed, but through his work to date he has made a significant contribution to the Australian music tradition. Sitsky was the first Australian to be invited to the USSR on a cultural exchange visit, organised by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs in 1977. He has received many awards for his compositions: the Albert H. Maggs Composition Award in 1968, and again in 1981; the Alfred Hill Memorial Prize for his String Quartet in 1968; a China Fellowship in 1983; a Fulbright Award in 1988–89, and an Advance Australia Award for achievement in music (1989). He has also been awarded the inaugural prize from the Fellowship of Composers (1989), the first National Critics' Award, and the inaugural Australian Composers' Fellowship presented by the Music Board of the Australia Council, which gave him the opportunity to write a large number of compositions (including concerti for violin, guitar, and orchestra), to revise his book Busoni and the Piano, and to commence work as a pianist on the Anthology of Australian Piano Music.

Larry Sitsky was born in Tianjin (formerly Tientsin), China, of Russian Jewish émigré parents. He demonstrated perfect pitch at an early age, by identifying notes or chords played in a different room. He had sat for Cambridge University Overseas Matriculation before leaving China. but mainly with Winifred Burston (a student of Ferruccio Busoni and Egon Petri), and composition, graduating in 1955. In 1959, he won a scholarship to the San Francisco Conservatory, where he studied with Egon Petri for two years. Returning to Australia, he joined the staff of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, after being accepted sight unseen based on a recommendation from Petri.

He is married to the Czech born Magda Sitsky.

The Fall of the House of Usher, 1965, Libretto: Gwen Harwood. Premiered 19 August 1965, Theatre Royal, Hobart, conductor Rex Hobcroft
Lenz, 1970, Libretto: Gwen Harwood. Recorded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (Adelaide) 1982, conductor Christopher Lyndon Gee; Lenz, Gerald English, tenor. Fiery Tales, 1975, after Chaucer and Boccaccio. Voices in Limbo, 1977, Libretto: Gwen Harwood. The Golem, 1980, Libretto: Gwen Harwood. Premiered by The Australian Opera under Christopher Lyndon Gee, conductor, in 1993. Commercial CD recording released 2005 by ABC Classics (Polygram), edited from 1993 live performances. De Profundis, 1982, Libretto: Gwen Harwood. Three scenes from Aboriginal life: 1. Campfire scene, 2. Mathina, 3. Legend of the Brolga, 1988

In 1997 the Australian National University awarded him its first Higher Doctorate in Fine Arts. In 1998, he was elected Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities. He is currently a Distinguished Visiting Fellow, as well as Emeritus Professor at the Australian National University. In 2000 he was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia (AM) for service to music as a composer, musicologist, pianist and educator; and in the same year he received the Centenary Medal for service to Australian society through music. In 2017 Sitsky was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia for distinguished service to the arts as a composer and concert pianist, to music education as a researcher and mentor, and through musical contributions to Australia's contemporary culture.