Martin Wesley-Smith
Australian composer Martin Wesley-Smith was born on 10 June 1945 in Adelaide. He studied composition at Adelaide University and at York University. His teachers included Peter Maxwell Davies and Sandor Veress.
From 1974 until 2000 he taught composition and electronic music at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, founding and directing its Electronic Music Studio. In 1986 he established China's first computer music studio at Beijing's Central Conservatory of Music. He also taught at Hong Kong University (1994-5). From 1976 until 1998 he led watt, the electronic music and audio-visual performing group, which played in regular series of concerts in Sydney, but also internationally.
He was known for the wide range of his compositions, for using satire, irony and for dealing with political and environmental issues. Several works were inspired by the English writer Lewis Caroll, and several works were about East Timor.
Martin Wesley-Smith died in the Kangaroo Valley, South of Sydney on 26 September 2019, aged seventy-four.