Music was not Barry Conyngham's first career choice:
at Sydney University he studied Law before turning to music. He graduated
MA and was awarded the University Medal. A Churchill Fellowship took
him to Japan for advanced study with Toru Takemitsu.
His overseas studies, at the University of San Diego, California, on
a Harkness Fellowship, appointment as Visiting Fellow at Princeton University
and a year as composer and researcher-in-residence at the University
of Aix-Marseille lasted until 1975, when he returned to Australia and
to a lectureship at the University of Melbourne.
Conyngham remained at Melbourne University until 1989, rising to the
position of Reader in Music. He was one of the founders of the Computer
Music Research Project. Conyngham actively fostered the development
of contemporary music and was intimately involved with other aspects
of the cultural life of Melbourne, serving on the Board of the Playbox
Theatre and advising the Victorian Ministry for the Arts. Other positions
included that of Deputy Chair of Opera Australia and Chair of the Music
Council of Australia.
He left Melbourne in 1990 to become Head of the School of Creative Arts
at the University of Wollongong and in 1993 he was appointed the inaugural
Vice-Chancellor of the newly-established Southern Cross University,
based in Lismore. He remained there until 1999: in 2000 he was appointed
to the Chair of Australian Studies at Harvard University.
Conyngham is an influential and prolific composer of computer-generated
music and more traditional works. The EMI recording of his orchestral
works Southern Cross and Ice Carving won the 1987 ARIA award for Best
Classical Recording. He has also written chamber music, including concertos
for basho and cello. Fly – An Australian Opera, based
on the life of Lawrence Hargraves, was acclaimed by Nadine Amadio as
a "musical triumph".
