IAN SHANAHAN, FORMER LECTURER IN PERFORMANCE AND COMPOSITION, MUSIC DEPARTMENT,
SCHOOL OF CONTEMPORARY ARTS, UNIVERSITY OF WESTERN SYDNEY
Ian Shanahan (born 13/6/1962 at Camperdown, NSW, Australia) is a composer, performer
(recorders, trombone), improviser and educator. Ian enrolled in 1980 for the Bachelor of
Music degree at the University of Sydney, completing a double major in music and pure
mathematics; he graduated in 1986 with first-class honours and the University Medal. Ians
composition teachers were Eric Gross, Peter Sculthorpe and Ian Fredericks (for computer
music). Under the supervision of Anne Boyd, Ian completed during March 2002 a PhD
degree (in composition) at the same institution, where he is also a part-time lecturer in
orchestration, composition and twentieth-century harmony. In February 1996, Ian Shanahan
was appointed lecturer in performance and composition in the Music Department of the
School of Contemporary Arts at the University of Western Sydney.
From 1988 to 1992, Ian was President of the Fellowship of Australian Composers [FAC]
(Australias national composers organisation) and Secretary-Treasurer of the Australian
Branch of the International Society for Contemporary Music. In 1986, and again in 1990,
Ian was the Australian delegate to the annual Asian Composers League
Conference/Festival. He was also a member of the editorial panel of the FACs official
journal, Ossia; a CD which he co-produced, Ossia (Volume 1), was released in 1992.
Ians compositions most of which are now commercially available on CD under the
Evasound, Broad Music, MOVE and Sidereal labels have received several awards and
numerous performances both locally and internationally, to widespread acclaim. For instance,
his recent work [p]s(t)ellor/mnme won the inaugural Sydney Spring International Festival of
New Music Composition Award (1997). Ian was one of only two Australians selected to be a
Composer Fellow at the inaugural Pacific Music Festival (Sapporo, Japan, 1990).
In addition to his compositional activities, Ian has been active as a self-taught recorder player
and promoter of new music for this instrument. He has commissioned composers (both within
Australia and overseas) to write for him, and has given many performances, workshops and
recordings of their works as well as lecturing, broadcasting and writing widely about the rich
possibilities of the recorder. Solo performances have been given by Ian under the auspices
of the 1988 Blue Mountains Festival, the New Music Conference (Brisbane, 1990), the
1994, 1996 and 1997 Sydney Improvisation Festivals, and New Music Forum (Melbourne,
1995); he has also appeared with renowned new-music ensembles such as austraLYSIS,
Symeron and ELISION. During 1987, Ian was invited as a guest composer/performer to the
Asian Composers Forum in Sendai, Japan, where he gave a lecture-recital dealing
primarily with extended techniques for the recorder. In 1988, he was part of the Australian
contingent the only musician that travelled to Bologna, Italy to celebrate the ninth
centenary of Bologna University. At both of these events, he gave highly lauded concerts of
contemporary Australian recorder music.
Although he specialises in post-1960 recorder music and research into new instrumental
capabilities, Ian enjoys regular forays into vernacular, classical, and early musics: he has
been a member of the Van Diemens Bush Band, Plectra, and The Renaissance Players.
Ian also played trombone with the Sydney University Orchestra for ten years, and blew his
horn with a groovy band at St Pauls Anglican Church, Castle Hill; he was a founding
chorister with The Contemporary Singers during the mid to late 1980s.
Ian has recorded and produced several radio programmes that explore diverse aspects of
new music; he has also written a number of scholarly articles for various publications and has
guest co-edited Sounds Australian Journal twice. Outside of music, Ian has a great passion
for chess problems he is a Fellow of the British Chess Problem Society and numerous
other intellectual pursuits.
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