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MEDIA RELEASE: Mike Nock To Be Honoured by Australia Council
MEDIA RELEASE: Mike Nock To Be Honoured by Australia Council
ABOUT MIKE NOCK Born in New Zealand in 1940 and now living in Sydney, pianist/composer Mike Nock is one of the acknowledged masters of jazz in Australasia. His reputation rests partly on his imposing international experience which includes: Twenty five years working in the USA with many of the worlds top jazz musicians such as Coleman Hawkins, Yusef Lateef, Dionne Warwick and Michael Brecker. A large catalogue of critically acclaimed, internationally released recordings. Leader of the 1970s seminal jazz-rock group The Fourth Way. A substantial body of original compositions in print and on recordings. Mike Nock returned to Australia from the US in 1985 after establishing an international reputation through his many tours and large catalogue of recordings. In 1983 he hosted his own TV series Nock On Jazz and in 1993 was the subject of a TVNZ documentary widely shown in Australasia. From 1996 to 2001 he was music director for Naxos/Jazz. In 1999 he was the recipient of a two-year Australian Arts Council Fellowship and in 2009 he was inducted into the Australian Jazz Hall of Fame. In 2003 he was awarded the New Zealand Order of Merit ONZM and his biography Serious Fun the Life and Music of Mike Nock was published in 2010 (Norman Meehan-Victoria University Press).
ABOUT DON BANKS Don Banks was born in 1923 in Melbourne. The son of a jazz musician, he began studying the piano and musical theory at the age of five. Early in his career he earned his living as a jazz pianist and trombonist with bands such as that of Roger and Graeme Bell, where he gained valuable experience as an arranger and orchestrator. In the 1950s he worked in London as a professional orchestrator and from 1956 he composed commercial music for feature films, documentaries, animated films, television, advertisements, record libraries and theatre. He wrote some of the scores for the Hammer horror films, including Hysteria, The Reptiles and Rasputin,The Mad Monk. He was chairman of the Society for the Promotion of New Music in 1967-68 and after being appointed music director at the University of London Goldsmiths' College in 1969, Banks initiated new courses in conducting, guitar, folk music and jazz, and developed an Electronic Music Studio. Don Banks returned to Australia in 1972 to take up a Fellowship in Creative Arts in Canberra where he gave lectures, attended and directed seminars and adjudicated. He was also invited by the Prime Minister to chair the Music Board of the Australian Council for the Arts. In 1973 he became Head of Composition and Electronic Music Studies at the Canberra School of Music, where he established the Canberra School of Music's Electronic Music Centre, which under his guidance became the most advanced studio complex in the southern hemisphere. In 1977 Banks was appointed Guest Composer at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, and in 1978 became its Head of the School of Composition Studies. In 1980 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia for services to music and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Melbourne. Don Banks died of cancer in September, 1980. His musical estate, consisting of papers, correspondence, manuscripts of most all his works, scores, tapes, discs and books, is preserved in the National Library of Australia in Canberra. The instruments from his electronic studio are preserved in the Powerhouse Museum, Sydney.
Media contact Karen Smith 02 9215 9030 | 0498 123 541 k.smith@australiacouncil.gov.au
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The Australia Council for the Arts is the Australian Governments arts funding and advisory body