John Antill

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1950 ballet performance of Antill's best-known work

John Antill OBE (April 4, 1904 – December 29, 1986) was an Australian composer best known for his ballet suite Corroboree.

Antill was born in Sydney, New South Wales, New South Wales in 1904, and was eduated and trained in music at Trinity Grammar School, Sydney^[1] and St Andrew's Cathedral School [1][2]. Upon leaving school in 1920 he became apprenticed to New South Wales Government Railways. He left the railways five years later to study full-time at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music under Alfred Hill. After he graduated he played in both the NSW State Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony, and from 1932 to 1934 he toured with the J.C. Williamson Imperial Opera Company.

In 1936 he became assistant Music Editor with the ABC. He remained with the ABC until his retirement in 1968, having taken up the position of ABC Federal Music Editor in the meantime.

His most famous work, Corroboree, was first performed as a concert suite in 1946. He based his composition on a real Corroboree, which he witnessed in 1913 at La Perouse in Sydney. He had intended the work as a ballet, but it was not performed as such until 1950.

In 1971, Antill was awarded the Order of the British Empire for services to Australian music. In 1985, the year before his death, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong.