This chapter considers evidence of European music making in the early colonial towns of Sydney and Hobart. Two concert series in 1826 show the role of music in reimagining colonial towns as organised and aesthetic cities. The musicians that led the concerts shaped these musical worlds, bringing European instruments, forms of opera and vocal music, chamber, orchestral and solo instrumental music that would continue to develop over the next two centuries in Australia’s urban centres. We trace several key musicians who shaped the early phase of these towns’ music-making, looking to the cultural practices of the British Isles and continental Europe. While contextual evidence from this time reminds us of the ongoing presence of Aboriginal people, there is only an occasional glimpse of the musicians’ awareness that their efforts to import a European musical culture took place on Aboriginal land.

This chapter explores the history and present of the singles charts, and the phenomenon of the number one single, in a specifically Australian context. The history of the Australian singles charts are explored, from their beginnings in Go-Set magazine in 1966, based on sales of physical product, to the present-day situation, where the ARIA singles charts are primarily based on listens on streaming services. The chapter goes on to discuss the ways in which these differing consumption methods over the years affects the composition of the charts. While the charts in Australia often reflect overseas success by international artists, the particular music industry ecosystem in Australia can affect the success of different music.Similarly, the number one singles by Australian artists from the last decade are discussed, suggesting that it is increasingly difficult to have Australian chart success without international success.

Modernist art music of the interwar period takes its place among other early Australian musical modernisms. It developed within an antipodean modernity transformed by new technologies of transport and communication. Mobility – the movement of people, scores, print journalism and recordings – is central here. Using a conceptual framework informed by transnational historical approaches and expanded understandings of the unsettled and contested concept of modernism, this chapter provides a more generous reading of this musical moment long obscured by the concerns and anxieties of a young nation negotiating its complicated ties to Britain and continental Europe while searching for a distinctive culture. After tracing the emergence of a modernist musical discourse in Australia’s popular press, this chapter looks at the output of a group of composers and various forms of modernist musicking to reveal a transnational community of Australian musicians who actively participated in what can be understood as a modernist music world.

Art music in Australia has always reflected the dominant social and cultural values of its time. As with all forms of art, the context of music making significantly influences the evolution of musical practice, from concept and narrative through to techniques and performance. In the twenty-first century, the zeitgeist of ‘our time and place’ is dominated by two global issues: the climate crisis and social justice. Both issues are strongly influencing the evolution of art music in Australia, shaping new directions in creative practice, informing conceptual frameworks, and guiding curatorial and collaborative approaches to programming and mentorship. This chapter will focus on how these issues are influencing curatorial and creative practices in Australian art music today, using works, projects and programs from the 2010s and early 2020s as examples.

Written from the perspective of two people currently involved in experimental and electronic music in Australia, this chapter provides an overview of some of the key movements and works in the genre, from the twentieth century to the present day. Focusing primarily on music that exploits technology and experimental approaches that progress innovation in art music contexts, it highlights some of the diverse practitioners – performers, composers, improvisers, sound artists, and instrument makers – who have pushed the boundaries of what is possible, often blurring the lines between art forms in the process. While it is unable to provide an exhaustive historical or contemporary account of the innovations that have been achieved here, or those responsible, the selected representative survey should serve to contextualise Australia’s contributions to electronic and experimental music, demonstrating our reputation for presenting ‘mavericks’ to the music world.

This Introduction provides an account of how Music in Australia has been conceptualised in previous music histories. It shows that music historians have sought to draw boundaries around what Australian music is by emphasizing the milestones of European settlement, and have often struggled to reconcile Indigenous music making and non-Indigenous music into one account of music in Australia. It explores also the history of cultural institutions in Australia that have built the foundations for music in Australia. Stepping back to look at these cultural institutions and the wide ranging music making in the past and present, the introduction summarises the book’s contents across the themes of Continuities, Encounters, Diversities and Institutions.