Gordon Watson AM (1921-1999), pianist and teacher, taught at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music from 1964 to 1986 and was head of its keyboard department when he retired. Born in Parkes, he studied piano in Sydney before war service with the AIF. Having performed to acclaim for a couple of years, in 1947 he went to Oakland, California, to study piano with the renowned Egon Petri and composition with Darius Milhaud. In the late 1940s and in the 1950s he lived and performed in the UK, premiering modern pieces by Humphrey Searle, Constant Lambert and Milhaud, amongst others. In 1959, while visiting Sydney, he assessed Larry Sitsky and soon helped secure him tuition from Egon Petri. In 1964 he was appointed to teach at the Sydney Conservatorium, where his students included many young stars. Amongst his recordings are the songs of Horace Keats, accompanying Lauris Elms; Benjamin Britten’s Holy Sonnets of John Donne; and Ralph Vaughan Williams’s On Wenlock Edge and The Pilgrim’s Progress.
