Biographical Note

Douglas Gordon Lilburn (born Wanganui, 2 November 1915; died Wellington, 6 June 2001)

Douglas Lilburn occupied a pre-eminent position in New Zealand. Douglas Lilburn's music,
from the early nostalgic canzonas to his electoacoustic images, has a strong emotional appeal.
It acknowledges the richness of a predominantly European musical heritage while finding a
distinctively New Zealand voice. Two published lectures, A Search for Tradition (1946) and
A Search for a Language (1969), suggest a conscious balance. What binds both the
conservative and innovative elements is personal integrity. Lilburn explained Vaughan
Williams's paradoxical advice to 'cut out all the bits you like best' as meaning 'don't be clever,
don't be silly, don't try to impress - search for what is valid in your intuition, your
understanding, and go from that'.

Lilburn spent his early years on the family sheep station, Drysdale, in the central North Island
of New Zealand. He was the youngest of seven children and there was a five-year gap
between him and his twin brother and sister. Since the children all went to boarding school,
Douglas was effectively an only child during term. Moreover, when he was seven his parents
took off on a two-year trip to Europe. During that period, Douglas was cared for by his
eldest-brother Jack and his wife, both of whom he loved dearly. Lilburn described Drysdale,
which is set amongst native forest and mountains as a 'paradise to roam around in'. He was
also aware of the privilege of his own family.

After their return to New Zealand, his parents retired to quite a grand house in Wanganui.
Although Douglas's elder brothers had all attended the exclusive Wanganui Collegiate, his
father decided to send him instead to Waitaki Boys' High in the South Island where the
headmaster was Frank Milner. Lilburn described him as a 'rabid Imperialist' (ironic, since his
son Ian was later suspected of being a Soviet spy). Lilburn hated it there, though he did well
academically, topping the school in university entrance, which he sat a year early. Instead of
the essay he was told to write on an imperial theme, Lilburn submitted a piano sonata entitled
Opus 1.

On leaving school, Lilburn attended Canterbury College (then a college within the University
of New Zealand) where he enrolled for a Diploma in Journalism - a course of study approved
of by his vocationally-minded father. Lilburn soon realised that a career in journalism was
not for him and went on to complete the requirements for both a BA in History and a BMus,
or at least nearly - he never handed in the final composition exercise (and, in fact, the first
degree ever actually conferred on him turned out to be an honorary DMus from the
University of Otago in 1969).

During a tour of the country in 1936 Percy Grainger offered a prize of £25 for a new New
Zealand composition. Lilburn won (with an orchestral tone-poem entitled Forest) and this
was sufficient to persuade his father (the recipient of a congratulatory letter from the Farmers
Union) that he should be sent to the Royal College of Music for further study. Hence in 1937
Lilburn became a student of Edward Mitchell and Kendall Taylor (piano), Reginald Jacques
(conducting), R. O. Morris and - most importantly - Ralph Vaughan Williams. At the College
in 1939 he won the Cobbett and Ernest Farrar prizes and the Foli Scholarship. With the
outbreak of war, he was (twice) called up for military service but rejected on the grounds of
poor eyesight. He did, however, help fill sandbags and volunteered as an ARP warden.
Returning to New Zealand in May 1940, he headed back to his sister's farm where he spent
nine months living in a tin hut, milking two old cows, and mustering sheep on horseback.

Then the opportunity arose for him to move to Christchurch for a three-month stint as guest
conductor of the NBS String Orchestra. Lilburn remained in Christchurch for six years, a
period in which he enjoyed the friendship and stimulation of other artists - notably poet Allen
Curnow, painter Rita Angus, and novelist Ngaio Marsh (director of five Shakespeare plays
with music by Lilburn). He lived by writing music criticism for The Christchurch Press (an
activity that, by his own account, won him fewer friends than enemies), teaching piano and
harmony, some conducting, and doing a little arranging for the local radio orchestra.

In 1946 he was invited to run a composition class at the first Summer Music School to be
held at Cambridge in the Waikato. This became a Mecca for aspiring New Zealand
composers, a number of whom (notably David Farquhar) went on to establish international
reputations in their own right. And then, in 1947, Frederick Page asked Lilburn to come to
the newly-established music department at Victoria University in Wellington to teach
harmony on a part-time basis for £250 per annum. A full-time lectureship followed two years
later. Lilburn's presence at Victoria established it as something of a centre for New Zealand
composition.

The National Orchestra (now the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra) gave its first concert in
the very month that Lilburn started teaching at Victoria. The presence, at last, of a full-time
professional orchestra (and consequently of a pool of highly skilled musicians) provided new
opportunities for Lilburn. His Song of Islands (1946) was performed by the orchestra in its
first year - and three symphonies followed. The last of these was given its first performance
in 1962. It is a brilliant work written in a spare, serialism-influenced language. It also turned
out to be his last major composition for conventional instruments.

In 1963, while on study leave from Victoria University, Lilburn travelled to Darmstadt,
London, and spent several months working in the electronic music studios at the University
of Toronto. On his return to New Zealand he kept working in this new medium and in 1966
established the Electronic Music Studio at Victoria University - the first of its kind in New
Zealand or Australia. From this point on, he worked almost exclusively in electroacoustic
music until the1980s when, partly because of distress caused by deteriorating hearing, he
virtually stopped composing. (He would quote Copland: 'my ears are not on good'.) Initially,
the appeal of the electroacoustic medium was the opportunity it provided of utilising directly
the natural sounds he so loved. Many of his electronic pieces do evoke the landscape as in
Soundscape with Lake and River (1979), but they cover a wide range. Carousel (1976), for
example, is a technically-accomplished outpouring of wit and exuberance.

He received the Composers' Association of New Zealand (CANZ) citation for services to
New Zealand music in 1978 and in 1988 was awarded the Order of New Zealand (the
country's highest honour). Lilburn's contribution to New Zealand music extended far beyond
his own actual composition. He was a generous and conscientious teacher. Almost every New
Zealand composer has a story to tell about his encouragement and positive support. When
pianist Margaret Nielsen wrote from San Francisco for some of his piano scores, he
responded by sending not only his own works but pieces by other New Zealanders. When the
musical establishment wanted to mark his 80th birthday he insisted that they do so by
presenting concerts of music by younger New Zealand composers.
He was vigilant about issues affecting New Zealand's artistic and intellectual life, leading a
campaign against a misguided copyright act in 1958 and making a number of typically
articulate and intelligent interventions in plans to restructure our National Library in the late
1990s.

In 1967, with the cooperation of D. F. McKenzie, he established Wai-te-ata Press Music

Editions, an imprint which remains (under the directorship now of Jack Body) the major
publishing outlet for New Zealand composition. He was instrumental in establishing the New
Zealand Music Archive at the Alexander Turnbull Library in Wellington. In 1980 he also
established (and personally funded) the Lilburn Trust to further the growth and development
of New Zealand music.

In the last few months, Lilburn made it quite clear to his friends that he did not have long to
live and that he considered his life's work to be over. He was determined to get home from
hospital to his modest house, which is surrounded by native greenery - a surprising haven in
downtown Wellington. He died there a few hours after enjoying what he thought was the best
glass of wine he had had in his life.

- Peter Walls (July 2001)

Lilburn Trust Student Awards

http://www.douglaslilburn.org/biographical_note.html
Short Biography
Douglas Gordon Lilburn (born Wanganui, 2 November 1915; died Wellington, 6 June 2001)

Douglas Lilburn was born in Wanganui, New Zealand, in 1915. He attended Waitaki Boys’
High School from 1930 to 1933, before moving to Christchurch to study at Canterbury
University College (1934-6). In 1937 he began studying at the Royal College of Music,
London. He was tutored in composition by Ralph Vaughan Williams and remained at the
College until 1939.

He returned to New Zealand in 1940 and was guest conductor in Wellington for three months
with the NBS String Orchestra. He shifted to Christchurch in 1941 and worked as a freelance
composer and teacher until 1947. Between 1946 and 1949 and again in 1951, Lilburn was
Composer-in-Residence at the Cambridge Summer Music Schools.

In 1947 Douglas Lilburn shifted to Wellington to take up a position at Victoria University as

part-time tutor in music. He was appointed full-time Lecturer in 1949 and Senior Lecturer in
1955. In 1963 he was made Associate Professor of Music and was appointed Professor with a
personal chair in Music in 1970. In 1966 Lilburn founded the Electronic Music Studio at the
university and was its Director until 1979, a year before his retirement. Lilburn was awarded
an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Otago in 1969 and in 1978 was presented with
the Composers’ Association of New Zealand (CANZ) Citation for Services to New Zealand
Music. In 1988 he was awarded the Order of New Zealand.

Prizes and Scholarships include: Percy Grainger Competition, 1936, for his tone poem
‘Forest’; Cobbett Prize, Royal College of Music, 1939 for ‘Phantasy for String Quartet’; Foli
Scholarship and Hubert Parry Prize, Royal College of Music, 1939; three out of four of the
prizes in the New Zealand National Centennial Music Celebrations Competitions, 1940; the
Philip Neill Memorial Prize 1944. Douglas Lilburn was founder of Waiteata Press Music
Editions in 1967 and founder of the Lilburn Trust of the Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington, 1984. His writings include ‘A search for tradition’, a talk given at the first
Cambridge Summer School of Music in January 1946 (Alexander Turnbull Library,
Wellington 1984) and ‘A search for language’, a University of Otago Open Lecture, March
1969 (Alexander Turnbull Library, 1985).

Douglas Lilburn, described as "the elder statesman of New Zealand music" and the
"grandfather of New Zealand music," died peacefully at his home in Wellington on 6 June
2001. (source: SOUNZ)

Lilburn Trust Student Awards

http://www.douglaslilburn.org/short_biography.html