Peter Tahourdin

Peter Richard Tahourdin (27 August 1928 – 28 July 2009) was an English-born Australian composer. His compositions range from orchestral and chamber music to choral and educational music, as well as music for the opera and ballet. However, his principal contribution was in the field of electronic music.

Peter Tahourdin was born in Bramdean, Hampshire in 1928. He was the second child, and only son, of Major Victor Tahourdin and Veronica Price.

Tahourdin went to Wellington College, and then in 1949 began his music studies at Trinity College of Music in London with Richard Arnell. He graduated in 1952 as a trumpet player and in the following years worked as a performer and broadcaster in England, the Netherlands and Canada.

In 1964, he married writer and editor Barbara Ker Wilson.

With his wife and two daughters, Tahourdin migrated to Australia in 1964. He was appointed visiting composer to the University of Adelaide, on the recommendation of the chief conductor of the then South Australian Symphony Orchestra, Henry Krips, who had conducted his 2nd Sinfonietta. In 1965 he was commissioned by the Australian Ballet to compose the score for Garth Welch's ballet Illyria (1965), which was produced at the 1966 Adelaide Festival.

In 1966 he spent a year studying a master's degree in electronic music at the University of Toronto in Canada. On returning to Adelaide he became active as a composer, lecturer and broadcaster, and he established the first practical course in electronic music in Australia at the University of Adelaide in 1969. His students there included Martin Wesley-Smith.

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