Person

Chanter, Arthur, 1866-1950

1866-1950

Born in Melbourne, Australian Arthur Mabey Chanter’s musical career included composing, conducting and teaching. Before university, he studied piano and composition with Louie Pabst. In 1894, he was the second graduate in music (and the first local graduate) from the University of Melbourne, where George Marshall-Hall was one of his teachers. Beside his composing, which included a national anthem for Australia and may other songs, he was organist and choir director at various churches. He also wrote articles, among them “The Singing Master: The Art of Voice Culture.” He was a critic of music education for children, especially singing. He served as adjudicator of an Eisteddod (Welsh-style musical competition) for native-born Australians in Western Australia in 1910, and in 1925 he judged a musical and literary competition in Adelaide. In 1927 he was appointed examiner in Tasmania for London’s Victoria College of Music, an assignment for which he spent a week in Tasmania to conduct exams. Two of the operas he composed and wrote the librettos were: “A Daughter of Italy,” performed in Victoria in 1911 and “The Vintner of Wurgburg,” a comic opera he wrote in 1910 that was performed in 1912. He lived in Brighton, Victoria, where he painted watercolors of the area, many of which were included in an exhibition in 1929.