Person

ABERCROMBY, Duncan

Duncan Abercromby was born near Glasgow and moved as a child to Dornoch in the far north county of Sutherland, Scotland, where his father was employed as a peripatetic school dentist. Around 1964 he took up the clarinet, mastering “Stranger on the Shore”, a career that petered out until some years later.

The family moved to Tasmania in 1965 and Duncan took up the clarinet again aged 16. He moved to Sydney in 1969 and boarded in a boys’ hostel in Randwick. He attended Sydney Conservatorium for half a year, but withdrew in order to concentrate on his clarinet practise with teacher Don Westlake.

Duncan auditioned for the National Training Orchestra and was accepted, despite his limited ability to read music, a skill he quickly learnt. He secured augmenting work as second clarinet with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and the Elizabethan Trust Orchestras in both Sydney and Melbourne, playing for operas and ballets.

In 1971 he sent an audition tape for the second clarinet position in the West Australian Symphony Orchestra which he won and worked sitting next to Jack Harrison until 1979.

In 1979 he was soloist with WASO in the Series 29 concerts. In 1979 he augmented the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra’s tour to Greece and Israel with the Australian Ballet. He stopped via Perth and learnt, whilst there that he had won the Principal Clarinet position with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra replacing Greg Blackman who had moved to the Adelaide Symphony.

Sylvia Leviston was appointed second clarinet where she played for three years until she retired, when the position was filled by one of his many students Chris Waller. He also taught other professional players including Kate Travers and Nick Harmsen who both still play with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra and Catherine McCorkill an ex-member of the Australia ensemble and Principal Clarinet with the Sydney Opera House Orchestra.

Duncan retired from TSO in 2011 and Andrew Seymour won the Principal clarinet chair.

Duncan sold his clarinets 6 weeks after he retired and replaced them with a boat, sailing around the Whitsundays and close to his home on the Huon River.

His wife, Stephanie Boys, is a pianist and French horn player and daughter Kirsten played bassoon and is now head of Criminal Defence with Legal Aid in Devonport.

He still lives in the Huon Valley in Tasmania, is an enthusiastic competition Bridge player and intends to write a book one day entitled “100 uses for a clarinet reed that don’t include playing the clarinet”.

Students

McCorkill, Catherine

Instruments

Clarinet

Years

1971

Person

ELLIOT, Andrew

Andrew has played the clarinet since the age of nine and attended Churchlands Senior High School where he was taught by Wayne G’Froerer and Catherine Cahill.

At this time he was the recipient of the 2012 CASSWA ATAR Jack Harrison Award presented to him by Allan Meyer.

He continued lessons with Catherine Cahill and also with Allan Meyer and went on to graduate from the UWA Conservatorium of Music with an Honours degree in Music Performance in 2017 and was a recipient of the Wesley Music Scholarship in 2016.

Andrew currently works as an instrumental music teacher with the Instrumental Music School Services (IMSS) program, providing clarinet tuition to students across Perth. He has also worked as a private clarinet tutor at a range of private schools. Alongside his teaching, Andrew contributes to CASSWA through his work coordinating the organisation’s social media and website.

Andrew remains actively involved in Perth’s musical community, performing with various community orchestras and ensembles. His professional performance highlights include collaborating with Theatre 180s production Arthur Haynes and the Smoking Gun, as well as regularly performing with OpusWA at Government House Ballroom.

Instruments

Clarinet

Person

BURROWS, Don

By 1942, aged 14, Burrows had begun playing clarinet and quit school. He began appearing at Sydney jazz clubs, and appeared on The Youth Show, a Macquarie Radio show. In 1944 he was invited to play and record with George Trevare’s Australians. He became well known in Sydney jazz circles and was performing in dance halls, nightclubs and radio bands. He was a member of Jim Gussey‘s ABC Dance Band for five years.

Jazz man defer to pipes

Australian jazz legend Don Burrows celebrated his 74^th birthday at Scotch College to the sounds of pipes and drums. He took time out from classic swing to listen to the school band with his WA mat, musician Jack Harrison and Kevin Hunt, one of Australia’s most highly regarded jazz pianists. On Saturday, Don held a jazz workshop for Scotch music students. Don and Jack have been friends for 49 years after a spontaneous meeting in Sydney.

On his honeymoon, Jack called Don, whom he had not met, to ask where he was playing. Don had heard Jack playing his clarinet on the Young Australia Show and told him to stand outside his hotel in King’s Cross with his clarinets and he would pick him up. They have been friends ever since. Jack said “Burrows is still the same Mr Nice Guy I met all those years ago, his enthusiasm for his profession has never waned.” Jack, who was a student at Scotch in the 1940s said he and Don still shared a passion for music, and for passing it on to young musicians. He said he and Don had sat like two grumpy old men playing jazz to the accompaniment of a computer program called Band in a Box. Claremont Nedlands Post August 31 2002 Vol. 28 No. 35

Jay Harrison, Don Burrows, Marcia and Kim Harrison at 11 Dodonia Gardens.

During the 1960s and 1970s Burrows had many engagements in Australia and the United States, including six years performing at the Wentworth Hotel in Sydney in quartets with Ed Gaston, George Golla, and various drummers. It was this association which made his name the “most familiar in Australian jazz”. In 1972, he was invited to perform at the Montreux Jazz Festival and later the Newport Jazz Festival.

The year 1973 was a watershed for Burrows as he received the first gold record for an Australian jazz musician for his record Just the Beginning,[8] instigated the first jazz studies program in the southern hemisphere, at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music (under the direction of Rex Hobcroft) and was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 1979 he was appointed Chair of Jazz Studies at the conservatorium.

Burrows performed to mostly classical music audiences through tours with Musica Viva and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation concert series. He led the nationally televised show The Don Burrows Collection for six years. He had an extensive recording career with his groups and performed on albums by others.

In the 1980s Burrows mentored and was closely associated with James Morrison. He formed the Don Burrows Quartet with George Golla (guitar), Ed Gaston (double bass) and Alan Turnbull (drums). He also worked with Frank Sinatra, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Oscar Peterson, Tony Bennett, Stéphane Grappelli, Cleo Laine, and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

In 1981 Burrows played woodwind on a Play School album, Hey Diddle Diddle: it was his only involvement with the show.

In 2005 Burrows toured with a small band that included the Australian jazz pianist Kevin Hunt. He used his photographic images with his music in a show called Stop, Look and Listen.

Don Burrows and Jack Harrison on a fishing holiday

Don loved fishing, a passion he shared with Jack Harrison.

Burrows had arthritis from age 38. In a 2008 interview with the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Andrew Ford, celebrating his 80th birthday, he said that “arthritis is not the greatest for playing a musical instrument. But playing a musical instrument is very, very good for arthritis”. In later years he had Alzheimer’s disease and lived in a nursing home in northern Sydney. He died on 12 March 2020, aged 91.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Burrows

IS THERE AN AUSTRALIAN who hasn’t heard of Don Burrows? Legendary musician Don Burrows (AO, MBE) has been at the forefront of the jazz world for most of his 60 years in the business. He’s a household name in Australia, renowned for his musicianship and his enthusiastic support for the jazz arts. He’s also highly respected internationally, where he’s toured numerous times to great acclaim annually since 1960.
This superb multi-instrumentalist plays flute, clarinet and all the saxophones, from alto to baritone. He’s a composer and arrange of great note, and one of the world’s finest interpreters of the jazz tradition. A Don Burrows concert is a journey from classic swing and the gentle sway of Brazilian bossa nova to exciting modern jazz.
Did you know that this Living National Treasure (named in 1988 and 1998) was the first Australian jazz artist to win a gold record, the first to play Europe’s famed Montreaux and the USA’s Newport festivals, the first to play in China, the first awarded a Creative Arts Fellowship, the first inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame, the first Director of a Jazz Studies course. He has also found time to host his own television show, The Burrows Collection, for six years on ABC TV, has released close to forty albums, and regularly tours here and abroad, including South and North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. And just look at this who’s who of great recording and concert partners – Oscar Peterson, Dizzy Gillespie, Nat King Cole, Mel Torme, Stephane Grappelli, Tony Bennett, James Morrison, George Golla, Cleo Laine, Frank Sinatra, Kate Ceberano, the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and hundreds more.
Now in his 74th year, Don Burrows has not even begun to think about slowing down. He continues to tour Australia and the world regularly. In the last few years Don Burrows appearances have included China, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Venezuela, Cuba, New Zealand and all the major jazz festivals of Australia. His passion for jazz has seen him embark on several countrywide educational tours in recent years, taking his music and experience to schools in isolated corners of Australia, from Broome to Tasmania.
His 1995 Creative Arts Fellowship, under the auspices of which he tours schools, follows two earlier honours – an Order of Australia and an MBE – in recognition of his generous and unstinting work in promoting jazz. Each year the University of Sydney awards Honorary Degrees to people who have achieved great distinction in their field. On the 25th of May 2000, Don Burrows was awarded the degree of “Doctor of Music” [Honoris causa].
On the second of April 2001, Don Burrows was awarded for the second time the degree of “Doctor of Music” [Honoris causa] from the Edith Cowan University in Perth, Western Australia.
In October 2001, Don Burrows returned to Mexico and South America to perform with musicians from Brazil, Venezuela and Argentina. Recently he headlined the first International Jazz Festival in Nepal.
Don is now in his 60th year as a professional musician.
Throughout a long, varied and successful career Don Burrows has played just about every kind of venue, in front of just about every kind of audience, from nightclubs and festival stages to television studios and outback classrooms. His musicianship and his ability to communicate his passion for the music have become legendary. He remains one of Australia’s pre-eminent artists, veritably a Living National Treasure.

https://australianjazzrealbook.com/artists/don-burrows/

https://www.portrait.gov.au/people/don-burrows-1928

https://celebrating.waverley.nsw.gov.au/nodes/view/73135

https://johnshand.com.au/don-burrows-1928-2020/

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/jazz/features/specials/don-burrows-obituary/12053490

Instruments

Years

1953

Person

HARRISON, Jay

Jay Raymond Harrison was the first child of Jack and Marcia Harrison. The name Jay was inspired by the Alan Jay Lerner of the composition team Lerner and Loewe and Raymond after his Dad’s brother Ramon.

Jay’s early years weren’t without a spot of health problems, having been diagnosed with polio at 9 months old.

In 1955, Perth and the broader Western Australian community were in a precarious holding pattern against poliomyelitis (polio). Having survived a devastating, unprecedented epidemic in early 1954—which famously forced authorities to cancel massive royal tour children’s events for Queen Elizabeth II—Perth residents braced themselves as authorities eagerly awaited the highly anticipated, newly developed Salk vaccine. When Perth College shut in late 1955, Marcia’s 14 year old sister Nerida was sent to City Beach to keep her company. In December 1955 Marcia and Jack’s son Jay was diagnosed as having polio, something Marcia took some time to be convinced. One of his legs stopped growing correctly and he suffered chronic bronchitis. He had very specific eating aversions and Mum described his dinners coming back at her in a fountain of vomit.

As a result of polio, Jay was no Polly Farmer, but Mum and Dad noticed that Jay could sing complicated popular songs in tune and in time at an early age.

Jay and brother Kim learnt piano from their grandfather William Edward Harrison.

Marcia dressed Jay as William Tell for the City Beach Primary School Fancy Dress Ball – little did she know how many times he would play the massive cor anglais solo from the Overture with the same name!

1967 Harrisons around the Dodonia piano: Jody, Kim, Jack, Marcia and Jay

Jay learnt clarinet from his father Jack Harrison and from the age of 12 aspired to be an orchestral musician. By the age of 17 Jay had passed his AmusA on clarinet.

At the age of 14, Jay won, as the clarinettist in a Dixieland jazz band called “The Five Saints”, the TV competition Stars of the Future – and travelled to perform in Melbourne as part of the prize.

1972 Jay playing the Dodonia piano with drum machine

In 1973 Jay went to W.A. Secondary Teachers College already accomplished on piano and clarinet and with a lovely tenor voice. He started learning the oboe as a second instrument with the then Principal Oboe of WASO, Peter Randall, who was quite a character.

Jay would turn up to his house of a Saturday morning and he would be in shorts and singlet. He would invariably be cooking up his famous chilli chutney and the smell would waft through the place.

After some lessons with David Theodore in London and only a short time as a full time instrumental teacher of the Clarinet, Oboe and Saxophone with the W.A. Education Department Jay was Principal Oboe in the W.A. Arts Orchestra and also doing casual playing in WASO when they needed an extra player.

Jay was playing second oboe to Robin Powell for a short time and then enjoyed a few visiting Principals such as Neil Stafford and Vicki Phillipson.

April 1979 – NEWS OF THE PLAYERS

Jay Harrison’s appointment as 2^nd Oboe and Principal Cor Anglais was recently confirmed. Jay is one of the few West Australians in WASO and this adds to the pleasure of welcoming him to his Sate’s Symphony Orchestra! He studied the clarinet for ten years with his father (Jack Harrison is our Principal Clarinet) and oboe with Peter Randall. He holds a Diploma of Teaching from the Nedlands College of Advanced Education and is currently completing a Bachelor of Education. Before his appointment to WASO he was Principal Oboe with the W.A. Art Orchestra (three years) and the Melville Symphony (amateur players) for five years. Jay recently spent two months in England, during which time he had lessons from David Theodore. His hobbies away from music include golf – bringing him in to line with many WASO members!

Karl Akers, Jay Harrison, Kent Fisk 1979 WASO Pilbara tour

A young pom called Laurence Frankel – or as WASO knew him, Flossie – was appointed in 1980. His mass of curly hair was as disruptive as his sense of humour and I think a great time was had in the section as a result! Playing casual oboe in WASO gave sister Jody a glimpse into a different side to Jay. Going from the youth orchestra mentality of “face the front and pay attention”, she was astounded to hear the rude mutterings of the wind section (most notably their father Jack Harrison on Principal Clarinet) and also bassoonist, David Adams, making farm animal noises whenever he or Jay missed a note.

Jay’s father Jack Harrison was in WASO for 43 years. He was sometimes rather rude to conductors, which in his early days, Jay wasn’t always happy about. As the years progressed, Jay was capable of a cheeky retort to a conductor when deemed necessary. On one occasion Jay was asked several times by a conductor to play a passage louder and in the end Jay said “That’s all you’re going to get out of me!”

1982 WASO Joel Marangella and Jay Harrison

A new Principal oboe was appointed from America in 1982 – Joel Marangella.

Leanne Glover, Joel Marangella, Jay Harrison

When WASO expanded in 1989, another oboe position was created which was won by the beautiful, Leanne Glover. The orchestra’s woodwind sections then expanded to four players and Renae Stavely joined the section. Luxury for a few years – Jay finally felt like a Principal Cor Anglais.

A significant event Jody shared with Jay at this time was watching the colour of his face change when he was told on the phone by the police that his house was on fire and driving him to the poor blackened house to witness the devastation. There was a melted mound of vinyl and cardboard that used to be his records. Leanne Glover remembered the hideous smoky smell of his tails as she had to sit next to him that night at a performance.

Jay participated in Mostly Baroque concerts, Camp Quaranups, Madrigal singing nights and parties and could contribute on oboe, cor anglais, clarinet, saxophones, piano, recorders or voice with unassuming ease and play anything from Berio to Glenn Miller either reading music or improvising.

Alan Burnfield, Jay Harrison, Bruce Gillam Camp Quaranup

Leanne Glover and Jay playing sax – Jay as the “Skipper” from Gillian’s Island

The most significant moment Jay shared with his family was in 2003 at his sister in law’s 40th dress up party birthday party, when he chose to introduce the love of his life to his brothers and sisters and friends when they were all dressed in outrageous Gilligan Island outfits.

Amazingly enough, Katherine wasn’t put off by this and much to the family’s delight married Jay in 2004, 5 months before the unexpected death of his mother, Marcia.

In 2010, Jay retired from WASO after 32 years service and after 55 years exposure to WASO. It was the end of an era – the first time in 59 years there wasn’t a Harrison in the WASO.

Jay said “my time in the Orchestra has been very rewarding and I don’t think I would have been as motivated or interested in any other career. I am a bit sad, I guess, but having done this for 32 years, I don’t think it is the job and the performing that I will miss but the comradeship that has built up over the years.”

Instruments

Years

1955

Person

PALLAGI, Benjamin

Hungarian/Australian clarinettist Benjamin Pallagi was born in Perth in 1994. He completed his Bachelor of Music in Perth with Allan Meyer and in Hobart with Frank Celata. A Master of Music Performance at the Franz Liszt Music Academy in Budapest, Hungary followed this, where he studied with Zsolt Szatmári and Csaba Pálfi. He then completed two more Master degrees between 2018 and 2022 in the class of François Benda in Basel, Switzerland.

In Australia Benjamin has played with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, as well as the Australian Youth Orchestra, the Australian International Symphony Orchestra Institute and the Western Australian Youth Orchestra. Living in Europe since 2015, Benjamin has performed with the Hungarian National Philharmonic Orchestra, the Hungarian National Opera Orchestra, the Dohnányi Symphony Orchestra, the Basel Symphony Orchestra, the St. Gallen Symphony Orchestra, CHAARTS Ensemble, Ensemble Phoenix, Swiss Orchestra and with Neues Orchester Basel.

In the 2022/23 season, Benjamin took part in the Bern Symphony Orchestra’s academy program. Subsequently, he was contracted by the orchestra to play 2nd clarinet with bass clarinet for half the 2023/24 season. Following this, in the 2024/25 and 2025/26 seasons he was again contracted to play in Bern, primarily playing bass clarinet.

Winner of the Woodside Concerto Competition in Perth in 2013, Benjamin was selected in 2019 for the prestigious ARD Music Competition in Munich, Germany.Recently, Benjamin has also become interested in conducting, has completed a two-year postgraduate degree in wind band conducting with Bjørn Sagstad at the Music Academy in Basel and is conducting two community wind bands in Switzerland. He is currently undertaking another postgraduate degree, this time in orchestral conducting at the Zurich Academy of the Arts, studying with Christof Brunner. Benjamin has been living in Switzerland for just over 8 years now and is based in Basel. He aims to find a good balance between working as a freelance clarinettist, as well as a conductor. A keen sportsman too, he is a member of a triathlon club in Basel and enjoys hiking and cycling with his partner in the Swiss mountains.

https://buehnenbern.ch/uber-uns/menschen/detail/benjamin-pallagi-38547/

Teacher

Meyer, Allan

Instruments

Clarinet

Years

1994

Person

DRAGON, Christopher

Chris Dragon learnt the clarinet from Allan Meyer.

Australian conductor Christopher Dragon is the Music Director of Greensboro Symphony Orchestra, Music Director of the Philly Pops, former Music Director of the Wyoming Symphony Orchestra and is the Resident Conductor of the Colorado Symphony. He joined the Colorado Symphony in the 2015/2016 Season as Associate Conductor – a position he held for four years. For three years prior, Dragon held the inaugural position of Assistant Conductor with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra, which gave him the opportunity to work closely with Principal Conductor Asher Fisch.

Dragon has a versatile portfolio ranging from live-to-picture performances including Nightmare Before Christmas, Toy Story and Star Wars: Return of the Jedi, a wide variety of collaborations with artists such as the Wu-Tang Clan, Cynthia Erivo and Joshua Bell, to standard and contemporary orchestral repertoire such as Danny Elfman’s Percussion Concerto; all areas of which he has become highly sought after. Christopher has become known for his charisma, high energy and affinity for a good costume, consistently delivering unforgettable performances that has made him an audience favourite.

Recent highlights include his sold-out symphony tour with Gregory Alan Isakov including two performances at New York’s iconic Radio City, with another symphony tour planned in 2026 culminating at the Hollywood Bowl. Other upcoming highlights include collaborations with Jon Batiste, Idina Menzel and his debut with the Boston Pops at Tanglewood.

Christopher is highly sought after as a guest conductor and has worked with the Los Angeles Philharmonic, San Francisco Symphony, National Symphony Orchestra, Cincinnati Pops Orchestra, San Diego Symphony, WDR Funkhausorchester, Singapore Symphony Orchestra, Orquestra Sinfônica de Porto Alegre and the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra to name a few. In Australia, he has guest conducted the Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and West Australian Symphony Orchestras. His 2015 debut performance at the Sydney Opera House with John Pyke and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra was released on album by ABC Music and won an ARIA the following year

He has also conducted at numerous festivals including the Breckenridge and Bangalow Music Festivals, with both resulting in immediate re-invitations. At the beginning of 2016 Dragon conducted Wynton Marsalis’ Swing Symphony as part of the Perth International Art Festival alongside Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra.

Christopher began his conducting studies in 2011 and was a member of the prestigious Symphony Services International Conductor Development Program in Australia under the guidance of course director Christopher Seaman. He has also studied with numerous distinguished conductors including Leonid Grin, Paavo and Neeme Jarvi at the Jarvi Summer Festival, Fabio Luisi at the Pacific Music Festival and conducting pedagogue Jorma Panula.

https://www.dragonconducts.com/

Teacher

Meyer, Allan

Instruments

Person

BOON, Neil

Neil Boon was born in the Netherlands in 1936 and came to Australia in 1949.

1953

LISTENERS WILL HEAR GIBSON

An agreement reached between the W.A. Musicians’ Association and the ABC resulted in last Sunday’s Jazz Jamboree (featuring The Bob Gibson Show) being recorded for broadcasting from 6WF. When the ABC heard that ace band leader Gibson would be the guest artist for the second part of Jazz Jamboree, it came to an agreement with organisers Sam Sharp and Harry Bluck for Gibson’s show to be recorded, and also agreed to pay the W.A. Musicians’ Association a fee for the right to record the show. The date of the broadcast will be published shortly. Gibson is now musical director for 2UW. Recently Gibson signed an agreement with the Columbia Recording Company. The first of his releases to be heard in Perth will probably be “Wild Horses” and “My One and Only Heart”. Gibson, who went to England in 1948 and returned in 1950, now favours big band. He records with a 28-piece band, and for concert and radio work he uses anything from 16 to 20 musicians. Two of his most popular programmes, heard from 2UW and Sportsman’s Parade and Musically Yours. Gibson said that any young musicians who hoped to go abroad needed plenty of capital and lucky breaks. He said that there were too many instances of a bandleader casually approaching a popular tune without having any idea of presentation.

Of the orchestra he conducted at the Jazz Jamboree on Sunday night, Gibson commented “They are a first class bunch of musicians. Considering they had such short notice to get together they gave a truly remarkable performance.” The band leader also praised individual performances. He believes that 17 year old Neil Boon could develop into a top line artist. Jack Harrison displayed plenty of versatility and gave a smooth performance, he said. Gibson also praised the responsiveness of the audience. “In modern music there is no greater encouragement” he said.

The Broadcaster Saturday November 7 1953 Vol .20 No. 1023

Young Musician Receives Loud Applause

A saxophone solo by 17-year old Neil Boon was loudly applauded in the Capitol Theatre last night at the final session of the Jazz Jubilee. The young musician, who arrived in Australia from England four years ago with no knowledge of music appeared in an orchestra with the veteran trumpeter Harry Phillips. He played an arrangement by the late Freddy Gardiner of “I’m In the Mood for Love.” Another artist on the same programme was Jack Harrison, who played six instruments in a ten-minute “jam session.” He played the alto and bass saxophone, clarinet, vibraphone, trombone and the piano accompaniment to his sister Jill when she moved from the piano to play the oboe (bassoon!) in “bebop” tempo.

The West Australian Monday 2 November 1953 page 4

1954

Sunday 7 November 1954 – Jazz Concert – George Watson Show

The Capitol Theatre was packed last night when six local bands and a combined band led by George Watson, a former West Australian, gave a jazz concert. Mr. Watson is regarded in Melbourne as one of Australia’s foremost drummers and bandleaders.

The young audience heard jazz classics played by Neil Boon’s Quartet; Cliff Adam’s Show Band; Harry Phillips’ Quartet; Ossie Sanderson’s Trio; Jack Harrison’s Quartet; and the Dixieland Group.

The West Australian Monday 8 November 1954 page 15

1956

BOON WILL BOOM WITH HIS BOOP-BOOP-A-DOO

One night last week I had the pleasure of working with a young musician who has just arrived here from Perth, and I have no hesitation in naming him as one of the most promising clarinettists in town today. He is 19 year old Neil Boon and his very easy style (which shows a distinct Goodman influence) and excellent tone, had the boys in the Joe Marchesani trio very enthusiastic indeed concerning his future prospects in the music game.

The boy’s playing was full of ideas and his technique is a tribute to the thorough teaching of Alan Rule in Perth. Rule was well known to Melbourne theatre audiences as a member of the Regent orchestra for years and built an excellent reputation here as a teacher, before returning to home in the West. He is a big husky fellow and a fine player himself. Another of his prize pupils who is frequently mentioned when swing musicians are discussing the country’s top clarinet men is Jack Harrison of Perth, whose sister Jill was recently appointed to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in the bassoon chair.

The Argus Melbourne Saturday March 31 1956

1971

Neil Boon joined the clarinet section of the West Australian Symphony Orchestra while Jack Harrison was away on a Churchill Fellowship.

https://thewest.com.au/entertainment/art/three-jazzy-decades-ng-ya-301838

1980

April 21 1980 – Octagon Performance

A performance of Sir William Walton’s “Façade Suite” will be given by the Music Society at the Octagon theatre tomorrow night. The brilliantly witty work with Neville Teede reading the nonsense verse of Edith Sitwell, will be accompanied by the Wigmore Ensemble conducted by Graham wood. Those taking part in the ensemble will be Jill Wright (flute), Jack Harrison (clarinet), Neil Boon (saxophone), Kevin Johnston (trumpet), Jill Cole and Sally Talbit (cellos) and Paul Sarcich (percussion). Members of the group will also play the Pastorales de Noel by Andre Jolivet the French composer and musical director of the Caomedie Francaise, the flute, violin and harp trio of Eugene Goosens and Igor Stravinsky’s “Epitaphium” for flute, clarinet and harp.

The Sunday Times April 20 1980

Instruments

Years

1953

Person

AMADIO, Clive

Clive Lyoff Amadio (1904–1983)

by Donald Westlake

This article was published:

in the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 17 , 2007
online in 2007

Clive Lyoff Amadio (1904-1983), saxophonist and clarinettist, was born on 28 February 1904 at Darlington, Sydney, second son of New Zealand-born Harry Henville Taylor, furniture manufacturer and instrumentalist, and his wife Florence Ada, née Beer, who was from New South Wales. Harry had taken the surname of his stepfather, Henry Antonio Amadio. The flautist John Amadio, who was to marry Florence Austral, was Harry’s brother. One of Sydney’s leading musicians, Harry played flute, oboe and clarinet for `The Firm’ (J. C. Williamson Ltd), and also for the New South Wales State Conservatorium of Music orchestra. He gave Clive all his early training, first on the flute and oboe and then on the clarinet, and encouraged him to take the saxophone seriously. Having left school by the age of 13, Clive often practised for eight hours without a break. Eager to become an engineer, he began an apprenticeship but was, he claimed, `forced into the musical world’ by his father.

In his mid-teens, as well as playing in ensembles for silent pictures and musical comedies, Clive was solo clarinettist in both the New South Wales State Military Band and the Manly Municipal Band. At 19 he was touring as solo saxophonist on the Tivoli circuit, in, by his own account, one of the highest paid musical positions in Australia at that time, earning £15 a week. When `the talkies’ arrived, Amadio’s popularity as solo saxophonist in the accompanying show bands blossomed. With slicked-back black hair and dark eyes, he was described in 1929 as `that handsome sheik with the sax’. He had married Gwendolen Marjorie Morgan on 25 August 1928 at St Michael’s Church of England, Rose Bay, but they were divorced after about a year. On 2 October 1935 he married Laurie Mary Walley at the registrar’s office, Annandale.

Amadio played with groups such as the Royal Squadron Syncopators, Nigger Minstrels and Spanish Syncopators, and recorded with Quintrell’s Tivolians. His show-band performances continued until the demise of the bands themselves after World War II, a frenetic period that included two years (1932-34) as principal clarinettist to the Australian Broadcasting Commission’s studio orchestra; membership of an early light music broadcast ensemble, the New Note Octet; the formation of his own quintet, a group that was to survive the end of the war by thirteen years; and solo engagements that proliferated with his burgeoning popularity. He had performed on 1 July 1932, when the ABC assumed control of the national broadcasting service, as saxophone soloist on 2BL.

Late in 1939 the quintet that was to render him a household name across Australia and the South Pacific went to air for the first time. Usually billed in the early years as the Mode Moderne Quintet, its name was changed to the Clive Amadio Quintet after the war and the group was given prime Sunday night listening time with recorded mid-week repeats. Reviews at the time reflected its popularity: `the best light musical combination ever presented on the air in this country’ and `the finest small-ensemble music on the air’. It broadcast on the ABC for almost twenty years, sometimes featuring Australian compositions and guest artists.

Meanwhile Amadio was establishing a reputation as one of Australia’s most accomplished clarinettists and its finest saxophonist. His public performances often included saxophone pieces that have since become standard repertoire: Rapsodie (Claude Debussy); Concertino da Camera (Jacques Ibert); Saxo-Rhapsody (Eric Coates); and works written especially for him by his three arrangers, Dulcie Holland, Henry Krips and Bruce Finlay. Employed by the State Conservatorium of Music (1942-45), he taught the saxophone.

In January 1954 Amadio played for Queen Elizabeth II at a royal banquet and was cited by the Sun-Herald as Australia’s best-known serious musician after (Sir) Eugene Goossens. He took part in the first of a series of chamber music concerts sponsored by the ABC in February 1954. Accompanied by his pianist Olga Krasnik, he left for an overseas tour of some months (1954-55). In Paris they recorded Holland’s Sonata for E♭ Alto Saxophone and Piano and her Musette and Gigue for the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. They gave recitals for the British Broadcasting Corporation and he performed Coates’s Saxo-Rhapsody with the BBC Concert Orchestra conducted by (Sir) Charles Mackerras. Amadio and Krasnik also broadcast for the French, Austrian, Spanish and South African broadcasting services.

In August 1958 Amadio’s contract was not renewed by the ABC. For a time he continued freelancing but by May 1959 he had bought the newsagency in Oxford Street, Woollahra, that, with Olga Krasnik, he would run for the next thirteen years. Divorcing Laurie, Clive married Olga, also a divorcee, on 28 July 1967 at the registrar-general’s office, Sydney. In August 1972 they retired to Nelson Bay. They joined the part-time staff of the State Conservatorium of Music, Newcastle branch, where they taught and performed from 1973 until 1980. In that year he was appointed AM and awarded honorary life membership of the Clarinet Society of New South Wales, the first time this award had been made to an Australian. He collected rare guns, which interested him more for the workmanship displayed than for their performance. He died on 21 October 1983 at Randwick and was cremated. His wife, and the son and two daughters of his second marriage survived him.

Select Bibliography

D. Westlake, From Me to You (1999)
ABC Weekly, 8 June 1946, p 5, 22 June 1957, p 9
Sun-Herald (Sydney), 31 Jan 1954, p 46
Canon, Oct 1956, p 93
SP613/1, series item 7/4/10, parts 1 and 2 (National Archives of Australia)
private information.

Citation details

Donald Westlake, ‘Amadio, Clive Lyoff (1904–1983)’, Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/amadio-clive-lyoff-12131/text21733, published first in hardcopy 2007, accessed online 22 September 2026.

This article was published in hardcopy in Australian Dictionary of Biography, Volume 17, (Melbourne University Press), 2007

https://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/amadio-clive-lyoff-12131

In 1950 during his stay in Sydney Jack Harrison performed with Frank Coughlan’s band in a series of swing concerts at the Trocadero and received an offer to stay with the band as a permanent member. He also received lessons from Clive Amadio.

In Donald Westlake’s book “From Me to You The Life and Times of Clive Amadio” he quotes a letter from Jack written in December 1998:

Sometime in the early 50s, I went East with Dad and met Clive Amadio. I had a little ensemble in Perth similar to his that’s why I was interested. We went to a couple of his recording sessions in an old studio somewhere in the middle of Sydney and then out to his house in Vaucluse for a couple of lessons, lovely chap very friendly. The main thing he talked about was the double embouchure. He was a great one for that. I tried it for a couple of months but couldn’t see any advantage so gave it away. I’ve still got the autographed photograph. He gave me very nice head and shoulder studio photograph. When I got back, I had it framed and hung it over my bed – it was there for years. It says “with sincere regards to Jack Harrison, my young rival from the West. Clive Amadio.”

On Monday 21^st August 1950 Jack Harrison received a letter from Clive Amadio:

27 Towns Road, Vaucluse, 21/09/50.

Dear Jack,

Just a line to let you know I heard your swing broadcast on 14^th(September). I have listened in to several of these sessions in the past few months, (not that I am greatly interested in swing) and I can assure you that yours was the most musical one so far. Although I admire the technical difficulties of be-bop and can enjoy well played Dixieland (this of course excludes Graham Bell) I feel that your set up would give the most pleasure to the greatest number of listeners.

Your clarinet was well in tune and I was wondering if you were using the Buescher? Whoever did your balance made a good job of it, just a little too much echo occasionally and sometimes the band intruded into the vocalist’s microphone (or were you working off one mic?). I think separate mic is absolutely necessary to ensure proper isolation of the vocalist. In passing. I might mention the tenor sax sounded very good. Possibly he, too, could work a little closer to the mic. I don’t like to hear a tenor working hard. One expects that drooling sound nowadays.

Let me know when you are on relay with something more serious and I will endeavour to listen again. As regards the Selmer alto you mentioned, is it silver or lacquer? And what does he ask for it? Is there any chance of getting a couple of snaps of it with your little camera? There are two pre-war models and it is only the later one which suits me. I think I told you that I can get the latest model at a greatly reduced price for advertising concessions to the agents, but it is so rubbishing an instrument that I wouldn’t have it as a gift.

I would not like to purchase an instrument that has been knocked about. Actually, I have had a couple offered to me here, one of them had been played at the Trocadero for a few years and was worn out. Another had been dropped and all the key work strained. Should you be able to take some snaps of the sax, the difference is mainly discernible round about the bell (the guard over the E flat key for instance being differently constructed to the later model).

Tell Dad that it was quite alright to use my name in application and that he was absolutely right about there being another violinist in the quintet, Phyllis MacDonald has been deputising for a month or so, Eddie Cochman having gone away with the Music Viva to New Zealand. Also we have “Al Fresco” (music). I’m afraid it will be difficult to think of something we have not got in our library unless he has a copy of a very old number called “Hors d’oeuvre”?

Give my kindest regards to your dad and thank him for dropping me the note. Just a possibility I might come over about middle of January, either that or Tasmania. It mainly depends how much studio work I can get to help off-set my expenses. I intend taking my boy with me. He wants to see a bit of Australia being just 14 and deeply interested in geography and history. Will probably fly to either of these places as I cannot spare much more than a week or 10 days away from Sydney. Cheerio for the present,

Sincerely

Clive Amadio.

Instruments

Clarinet

Years

1904

Person

WESTLAKE, Donald

DONALD WESTLAKE: 1931 – 2021

Despite his father’s fierce disapproval, Donald Westlake was undeterred in his desire to pursue a career in music from an early age. His mother – a gifted pianist – actively encouraged the young Donald by regularly taking him to concerts by the Perth Symphony Orchestra.

Donald Westlake, principal clarinettist with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.

At age 13, he began clarinet lessons in Perth with Percy Newton and dabbled with dance-band music and jazz until moving east to attend the Melbourne Conservatorium studying under Isobel Carter.

His rise to professional status was meteoric: by the age of 22, in 1953, he had won 1st prize in the ABC’s Concerto Competition; was awarded a commonwealth tour as a featured soloist with the ABC; was appointed principal clarinet with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra; and was then subsequently invited by Sir Eugene Goossens to take up the principal clarinet position with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra (SSO).

In August of the same year, he married SSO violinist Heather Sumner and they travelled to London where Donald accepted a scholarship at the Royal College of Music in London, studying under Bernard Walton and graduating in 1956. After returning to Australia, he was re-appointed principal clarinet with the SSO, a position he held from 1960 until 1978.

Clarinettist Donald Westlake on the Sydney Symphony Orchestra European Tour in 1974.

As a soloist, he commanded a formidable stage presence and his interpretations of the great concertos by Mozart, Weber, Copland, and Nielsen left music critics grasping for superlatives and frequently garnered standing ovations.

He shared the stage of the Sydney Opera House and Town Hall with numerous musical luminaries of the era, including Igor Stravinsky, Leonard Bernstein, Aaron Copland, Sir Charles Mackerras, Willem van Otterloo and performed the Mozart clarinet concerto under the baton of the legendary Daniel Barenboim on the occasion of the maestro’s very first conducting engagement in 1962.

He was the featured soloist on the SSO’s 1974 European tour, performing the Mozart clarinet concerto in Montreux, Basel, Stuttgart, Braunschweig and Lisbon. His performance in Stuttgart earned no less than seven curtain calls.

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“He can make the clarinet recite poetry with rare eloquence, but then he can launch a sequence of breath-taking pyrotechnics that few other clarinet players can match in speed, clarity, accuracy and range of timbre,” wrote music critic Fred Blanks of Donald’s 1980 performance of Webers second concerto. “No wonder he unleashed an ovation.”

Donald Westlake, clarinettist, guest artist with the Sydney String Quartet when they perform in the forthcoming Mostly Mozart season at the Sydney Opera House on December 23, 1983. Fairfax

As a teacher he was highly revered, with a reputation for delivering brutal honesty and nigh impossible expectations; despite his old school “make it or break it” teaching philosophy, many fine players flourished and went on to pursue professional careers.

When not rehearsing or touring with the SSO, he could be found sailing the Great Barrier Reef, bushwalking in the Blue Mountains, or performing chamber music with his colleagues.

He was a committed environmentalist and actively supported Friends of the Earth by organising a number of benefit concerts during the 1970s.

From 1979 to 1984, he took up the position of Head of Woodwind at the Canberra School of Music at ANU, where he focused on teaching and performing with the Canberra Wind Soloists.

In 1985, following a long battle with tenosynovitis, he was no longer able to play the clarinet and retired to a hobby farm in northern NSW where he wrote several music biographies, most notably From me to you: the life and times of Clive Amadio.

He separated from Heather and married his partner of over 40 years, Laura Danckwerts in 2018.

His recording of the Mozart Concerto with the SSO conducted by Robert Pikler for RCA in 1976 remains perhaps one of his most enduring legacies and still receives regular airplay on classical radio.

“Westlake’s technique is impeccable, his control of phrasing and contrasts of attack quite beyond all carping. I’ve come to love the school of clarinet playing to which Westlake belongs: even, steady in tone, coloured by occasional washes of moonlit lustre,” stated music critic Roger Covell upon the album’s release.

Donald, who died in August, was father to Nigel, Kathryn (deceased), Kristin, a grandfather of six and great-grandfather of four.

Nigel Westlake is a composer, musician and conductor.

Thumbs up! Don Westlake with Jack Harrison

Don Westlake, Jack Harrison with Norman Bourke (right)

https://www.smh.com.au/national/sso-clarinettist-commanded-formidable-stage-presence-20210907-p58phv.html

https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/artist/westlake-donald

Instruments

Clarinet

Years

1931

Person

THOMAS, David

THOMAS, David

David Thomas is one of Australia’s leading orchestral clarinettists and clarinet teachers. He grew up in the Dandenong Ranges near Melbourne and studied clarinet with Phillip Miechel (ex-MSO principal clarinet) at the University of Melbourne and Roger Salander at the Vienna Conservatorium of Music.

His first permanent orchestral position was Associate Principal Clarinet with WASO, joining the orchestra in 1998 with Allan Meyer as his Section Principal Clarinet. Since 2000 he has been Principal Clarinet of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and since 2005 he has taught at the Australian National Academy of Music, helping a whole generation of young Australian clarinettists find their feet professionally.

“Unfortunately I am a little too young to have heard some of the really important pioneering Australian clarinettists in the flesh — Don Westlake in Sydney, Isabel Carter in Melbourne, and Jack Harrison in Perth. But I did get to chat with Jack after WASO concerts he attended, and I’ve heard plenty of anecdotes from musicians who worked with him. For a performance of Mahler’s 1st Symphony towards the end of his playing career, I’m told the WASO clarinet section delighted in loading Jack up with all the possible doublings on his 3rd clarinet part: bass clarinet as well as clarinets in Bb, A, C and Eb. It must have taken him half an hour to pack up after those concerts. My favourite attributed quote is one of reassurance to a young clarinettist colleague addressing perhaps our biggest fear in concert: “If you don’t bust a note occasionally, you’re not trying hard enough”. I am quite sure this doesn’t reflect any sort of lackadaisical attitude from Jack, but rather a wonderfully Australian attitude to work: quality really does matter, but let’s not get worked up if something goes wrong, and let’s make sure to encourage our colleagues to give it their all. In this sense, I am proud to (try to) follow in Jack’s footsteps, and the experience of working in the section he had led so effectively for so many years helped me develop the skills I needed as a section leader in the orchestra of my own home town.”

Instruments

Clarinet