Don Kay

Who is Don Kay?

Donald Henry Kay AM is an Australian classical composer.

Don Kay attained a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Melbourne after which he taught music at Colac High School, Victoria, 1957-59. He then went on to teach music at Peckham Manor Comprehensive School for Boys, London, UK 1959-64 and was Director of Music there 1962-64. He studied composition privately at this time with Malcolm Williamson. His first publication was in 1964-65 with Songs of Come and Gone for choir, flute, piano and string orchestra.

Kay returned to Tasmania in 1965 with a young family of two daughters as Lecturer of Music, Hobart Teachers College; in 1967 he was appointed Lecturer of Composition and Music Education, Tasmanian Conservatorium of Music. He received his first commission in 1966, Organ Sonata, broadcast on ABC national radio by John Nicholls, the Hobart City Organist, in 1967. Active as a music tutor from the late 1960s to the middle 1970s with the Tasmanian Youth Theatre, Secheron House, Battery Point, Kay also composed a number of scores for production by the Tasmanian Puppet Theatre as well as Theatre Royal professional productions e.g. Richard II, The Imaginary Invalid, the Wakefield Miracle Plays at that time. In 1984 Kay wrote an opera The Golden Crane with a libretto from Gwen Harwood.