Phyllis Batchelor
Phyllis Batchelor (1915–1999) was an Australian composer, pianist and teacher whose own works featured regularly in her ABC broadcasts from the 1930s onward.
Phyllis Batchelor (1915–1999) was born in Healesville, where her mother taught her piano from the age of three. At seventeen she began playing for the ABC, and by her twenties she was one of the most frequently heard artists on air, often performing her own works.
A composer, teacher and pianist based in Melbourne, she taught piano at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music and later studied composition with Fritz Hart at the Albert Street Conservatorium. She worked as a solo and duo pianist, performed with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and accompanied orchestral members and visiting soloists. In the 1940s she was programme coordinator on the ABC’s 3AR and ran Melodies and Manuscripts, presenting many works by Australian composers, including her own.
She married the Russian violinist Ivan Pietruschka. She was honoured with the Medal of the Order of Australia in 1993.
Compositions by Phyllis Batchelor appear on
Flute Perspectives, Vol. 1
Flautist Derek Jones and pianist Leigh Harrold present this anthology of contemporary Australian flute music, from Sculthorpe’s Torres Strait cycle to solo and duo works by leading local composers.
Unearthly Music: Music by Australian Women Composers
A tribute to twentieth-century Australian women composers, this flute and piano recital gathers lesser-known chamber works in the hope that listeners, performers and programmers will bring the music to a wider audience.
Repose
Beautiful lullabies and cradle songs by Australian composers from 1890–1999. Soprano Linda Thompson and pianist Deviani Segal present world premiere recordings drawn from a century of Australian cradle song.