Clive James Cotter (born 1948 in

Geelong Geelong ( ) (Wathawurrung: ''Djilang''/''Djalang'') is a port city in the southeastern Australian state of Victoria, located at the eastern end of Corio Bay (the smaller western portion of Port Phillip Bay) and the left bank of Barwon River, ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

) is an Australian composer currently based in

Canberra Canberra ( ) is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...

. His career has largely been in music for theater, film, and radio. Cotter began his career as Music Director and resident composer for the Canberra Repertory Theatre and has collaborated extensively with Australian playwright

Dorothy Hewett Dorothy Coade Hewett (21 May 1923 – 25 August 2002) was an Australian playwright, poet and author, and a romantic feminist icon. In writing and in her life, Hewett was an experimenter. As her circumstances and beliefs changed, she progressed ...

, most notably writing the music for the musical theater piece ''

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'' and for the children's play Golden Valley. Cotter also wrote the music for Merlinda Bobis' radio play "Rita's Lullaby", which won the Prix Italia in 1998. Cotter began his musical career playing trumpet in trad-jazz bands in Melbourne as a teenager. He moved to Canberra in the late 1960s with his family and continued performing in this tradition but gradually drifted towards more modern forms of jazz and rock and roll. He performed with the Canberra bands, The Bitter Lemons, The Firing Squad, Family Portrait as well as in more experimental collectives with musicians Colin Hoorweg, Dave Kain, Mitch Burns, Christian Wojtowicz and John Tucker. In the early 1970s, Cotter's increasing interest in contemporary music led him to studies with Larry Sitsky and Don Banks at the

Canberra School of Music The ANU School of Music is a school in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, which forms part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of ...

. An Australia Council Young Composers Fellowship enabled him to discontinue his formal studies and take up the position of Music Director at Canberra Repertory Society, pursuing a more practical approach to compositional activities with the full support of his mentors. For the next twenty years, Cotter worked as a freelance composer in theatre, film and radio. In 1992, at the request of Larry Sitsky, he returned to the School of Music, then part of the Australian National University. Since that time, he has been a faculty staff member of the ANU School of Music and is currently the Head of Composition. His students have included

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Michael Sollis Michael Sollis (born 1985 in Canberra, Australia) is an Australian composer and musician based in Canberra, Australia. Sollis is director of The Griffyn Ensemble and a noted collaborator, working with artists such as Jyll Bradley and scientist F ...

, Kate Moore, and Tim Hansen.Tim Hansen
Australian Music Centre. Retrieved 26 December 2011

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cotter, Jim 1948 births Living people Australian male composers Australian composers Australian National University alumni Academic staff of the Australian National University