Move Records

Ann Ghandar

Ann Ghandar was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1943. From the age of 2 she amused herself by picking out tunes on the piano. When she was 10 she was asked by her English teacher, Miss C. Teesdale Smith, to write some incidental music for a play, and she continued to do this every year for about 10 years, including a number of Shakespeare plays. A disc of some of this piano music was made by her in an Adelaide studio when she was 15. At this time she was self-taught in composition. During the early 1970s she studied composition with Richard Meale and Jonathan Harvey.

Ann Ghandar pursued her interests in music and English literature concurrently until 1969. She gained First Class Honours in English at the University of Adelaide, receiving the John Howard Clark prize in recognition of being the top student, while at the same time taking single studies in piano with Lance Dossor, and violin with Beryl Kimber. While studying for her M.A. in English at the Australian National University she had piano lessons from Larry Sitsky at the Canberra School of Music, and gained the L.Mus. diploma. After tutoring in English at Adelaide University and Flinders University she became a founding member of staff in the Music Department at the University of New England and she has taught composition at that institution since 1974. The focus of her composition teaching is to find musical catalysts that will stimulate creativity in students who have not yet realised that this force exists in them, and to awaken in them a profound love of music together with a disciplined approach to composition.

Recently Ann Ghandar has been working on a refinement and simplifying of her compositional style, which has been assisted by the inspiration she received from Middle Eastern music. Her greatest wish is to give to others the joy that she herself receives from music.

Compositions by Ann Ghandar appear on