Sir Frank Callaway CMG AO OBE 1919-2003

At the Royal Academy of Music he studied conducting, general musicianship and composition, for which he won the Battiston Haynes and Cuthbert Nunn prizes. A Carnegie Travel Grant enabled him to explore music education in the United States, where he met people who shared and shaped his international vision for music education. In 1949 he resumed his work with King Edward Technical College, and also directed a regular series of orchestral concerts and large scale music festivals in Dunedin.

In 1953 Callaway accepted the post of Reader in Music within the Faculty of Education at the University of Western Australia. Six years later he became the university’s Foundation Professor of Music.

Starting with a staff of one (himself), a desk, an upright piano, and a small pile of music, Callaway built up a thriving Department of Music. When he retired at the end of 1984, he was farewelled by 14 full-time staff-members and a large team of part-time teachers. On the way he had developed what is widely regarded as Australia’s finest Music Library – the Wigmore.

Outside his university commitments, Callaway had created and edited Australia’s leading musicological journal, Studies in Music, and other scholarly publications. In association with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra he had organised a series of Composers’ Workshops that attracted many young forward-looking composers. He had been appointed by the prime minister to serve with Bernard Heinze and John Hopkins on the first Advisory Board of the Commonwealth Assistance to Australian Composers scheme, organising national seminars and workshops for young composers. He had been the foundation president of the Australian Society for Music Education, and had edited its journal. He had served for many years on the Festival of Perth committee. For a quarter of a century he had conducted the University Choral Society, making it one of Australia’s finest large choirs. He led it in many memorable performances with the West Australian Symphony Orchestra and visiting soloists, and he had been guest conductor for ABC orchestras in Western Australia and other states. In 1979 and 1984 he was organising chairman of the Indian Ocean Arts Festival in Perth.

Internationally, Callaway had been a member of the International Society for Music Education since it was founded in 1953 by many of the people he had met on his visit to the United States in 1949. He was its president from 1968 to 1972, then its treasurer and, in 1988, was elected honorary president, succeeding the celebrated composers Zoltán Kodály and Dimitri Kabelevsky. He was also founding editor of its journal.

As a member of the Australian Commission for UNESCO, Callaway represented Australia on the International Music Council; in 1980 he followed violinist Yehudi Menuhin as its president, establishing a close and lasting friendship with him. He was elected a life member in 1985. His UNESCO work took him to General Assemblies and Congresses in Moscow, Lausanne, Toronto, Montreal, Bratislava, Prague, Melbourne, Budapest, Stockholm and Dresden. In 1995 he received the UNESCO Medal, which rewards musicians who have contributed to the enrichment and development of music and who have promoted peace and understanding between peoples. Other recipients have included Yehudi Menuhin and Russian composer Dmitri Shostakovich and Indian musician Ravi Shankar. At the time, Callaway was only the second person to be awarded this prize for music education (the other was Nadia Boulanger, in 1979). The organisation’s director-general hailed Callaway as ‘one of the great pioneers and ambassadors of music education in our time’.