Richard Gill (conductor)

Richard James Gill (4 November 1941 – 28 October 2018) was an Australian conductor of choral, orchestral and operatic works.

He was known as a music educator and for his advocacy for music education of children.

Gill was born and raised in the Sydney suburb of Eastwood where he attended Marist College Eastwood.

Prior to becoming a professional conductor, he was a music teacher at Marsden High School, West Ryde, in Sydney.

One of his students was Kim Williams who later became a lifelong friend.

In 1969, he was the founding conductor of the Strathfield Symphony Orchestra in Sydney.

In 1971 he studied at the Orff Institute of the Mozarteum in Salzburg.

He was later invited to teach at the summer schools in Salzburg; on one occasion he was one of the pianists in the version of Carmina Burana for two pianos and percussion, conducted by Carl Orff himself.

He continued as conductor in 1973–74 and returned in 1979 to conduct the orchestra's 10th anniversary concert.

Gill was on staff at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1975 to 1982.

He was conductor with the Sydney Youth Orchestra Association from 1977 to 1982, conducting the orchestra's tour of Singapore and Hong Kong in 1981.

In 1982, he was invited as a principal presenter to the annual conference of the American Orff Schulwerk Association (AOSA); this led to further workshops and classes throughout the United States.

Other posts include dean of the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts WAAPA (1985–1990) and Director of Chorus at the Opera Australia (1990–1996).

Awards included an Order of Australia Medal in 1994, a Centenary Medal in 2001, the Bernard Heinze Award for services to music in Australia, and an honorary doctorate from the Edith Cowan University of Western Australia for his service to Australian music and musicians.

He conducted the world premieres of Alan John's The Eighth Wonder (1995) and Moya Henderson's Lindy (2002) with Opera Australia, and Jonathan Mills' The Ghost Wife at the Melbourne International Arts Festival in 1999 (and again at London's Barbican Centre in 2002), and The Eternity Man at the Sydney Festival in 2004.

In 2001 he received the Australian Music Centre's award for 'Most Distinguished Contribution to the Presentation of Australian Composition by an Individual'.

In August 2005, Gill founded and was the inaugural artistic director of Victorian Opera.

In December 2005, he was awarded the Don Banks Music Award 2006 by the Australia Council for the Arts.

For the Victorian Opera he conducted the new Australian works The Love of the Nightingale by Richard Mills (2007) and Alan John's Through the Looking Glass (2008).

His work in the concert hall included concerts with all the major Australian orchestras.

In his Discovery and Ears Wide Open series of concerts, he took selected works from the traditional and the contemporary classical music repertoire and analysed the works in a humorous and entertaining manner, trying to find what made the works "tick" and to, as he says, listen to the music "with new ears".

He composed the music for Brisbane Girls Grammar School school song, "Nil sine labore" [Nothing without work].

In 2013, along with Rachael Beesley and Nicole van Bruggen, he established the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra (formerly "orchestra seventeen88").

Gill was the artistic director and principal conductor of the orchestra.

In 2022, the orchestra released its debut album, Perspective & Celebration, featuring Gill conducting Mendelssohn's concert overture The Hebrides.

In 2014, he was appointed to succeed Paul Stanhope as musical director of the Sydney Chamber Choir.

In 2016 he was promoted within the Order of Australia to Officer level.

In February 2017, Gill conducted the inaugural gathering of the Sydney Flash Mob Choir at the City Recital Hall in Angel Place, Sydney, bringing together singers and would-be singers from all walks of life for a monthly 40-minute singalong.

Gill died on 28 October 2018, aged 76, from colorectal and peritoneal cancer.

The day before he died, more than 70 musicians (including a police band) gathered outside Gill's home in Stanmore, in Sydney's inner west, and played for Gill and his family (who were inside the house), including "The Dam Busters March" (reportedly "Gill's favourite song from his favourite movie").

Gill was an advocate for the importance of music, arts and physical education for all children, believing that singing should be the basis of all music education.

Gill was awarded a MOST (Music & Opera Singers Trust) Achievement Award in July 2018 "in recognition of his exceptional contribution to the Arts in Australia as both a conductor and as a music educator".

Two weeks later he was awarded the Arts Leadership Award at the 2018 Creative Partnerships Awards, held at the Art Gallery of New South Wales.

The Australian Music Centre and APRA AMCOS renamed their Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music in 2019 to Richard Gill Award for Distinguished Services to Australian Music.

Prior to his death, plans were well-advanced to establish a music-based primary school in New South Wales in 2020, to be known as the Muswellbrook Richard Gill National Music Academy.

The Richard Gill School, with Gill's former student Kim Williams as chairman, opened (on premises formerly used by the Muswellbrook Council at its chambers) in 2021 with 13 students from Prep and Year 1.

The school curriculum is based around music, physical activity and the STEM subjects (science, technology, engineering and mathematics), making it a STEAM-based school (science, technology, engineering, arts and mathematics).

Students are drawn from the general community and music is seen as a part of the core curriculum for all students (something Gill advocated during much of his life), not just those students exhibiting a gift in the area of music.

The school song "O Come Now My Friends" has words by Gill's son Anthony, and music by Australian composer Nigel Westlake.

Gill's operatic repertoire included performances with Opera Queensland, Opera Australia, the Sydney, Adelaide and Melbourne Festivals, and Windmill Performing Arts.