Life

Ralph Middenway was born in Sydney in 1932 (born Nicholls and then changed to Middenway in 1956). The Blue Mountains provided bush walking and the beginning of his love of the bush and Australian plants.

At Sydney High and later Sydney University he started with languages (a life-long interest), switched to Engineering (useful later for designing and building), then finally got it right with Music, Anthropology and Linguistics. The musical ‘moment of truth’ was when he heard the choir of Sydney University Musical Society rehearsing the stunning Bach motet Singet dem Herrn ein neues Lied.

At university he mixed work and play: studied part-time, sang a lot, wrote stage music for Leo Schofield and Ken Horler, and was in a Uni Revue with Robert Hughes. He got caught up in another, along with Clive James, but it was generally agreed to have been the worst ever and each preferred to forget it.

Out of the blue came an invitation to teach music and drama at Tudor House, Moss Vale – no teaching qualifications needed in those days in private schools. He stayed seven years.

For the next twelve years he worked at Adelaide University Union, ending up as its CEO. He initiated its major rebuilding, a nine-year project he ran as Client. Robert Dickson was the Architect. The building is listed on the State Heritage Register. In 2006 he was invited by the RAIA to its Annual Conference in Adelaide, where the building was acknowledged as the most significant building in South Australia since World War 2.
Then he was head-hunted to set up and manage the Parks Community Centre, a State Government statutory authority. It was the same sort of job as at the Union, although the building project was much more elaborate, and most of the clients were public housing tenants. Colin Norton was the Architect.
For both projects he was Theatre Consultant.
Then he worked as a freelance composer, writer and editor.
And flower farmer: as Executive Chair of the Flower Growers Section of the South Australian Farmers Federation he acted as Client for a Federally-funded review of the industry.

He was active in the musical life of Adelaide from his arrival there, although less so after he moved south to the Inman Valley. In 1965 he started tutoring and lecturing on music and theatre (for Adult Education and WEA, among others), and writing about music for the AU Adult Education journal. In 1966 he conducted a concert series for the Adelaide Festival, and in 1968 another for the SA Art Gallery. In 1979 and 1981 he took part in ABC New Music Workshops. Over fifteen years he was Elder Conservatorium (honorary) opera production manager; for seven on the Music Faculty. He ‘did’ the occasional broadcast. He was an adjudicator in a couple of eisteddfods (eisteddfodau if you’re fussy). He was for a time an arts consultant to the SA Government.

His most conspicuous musical role, over twenty years, was as (sometime Chief) Music and Opera Critic and feature writer for The Advertiser, with a stint on The Australian. Almost by accident he became Founding Chair of the Richard Wagner Society of South Australia Inc., for which he contributed to and co-edited a book of essays on Parsifal.

For him the highlights were performances of his music by the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and the Australian String Quartet, a season of his second opera Barossa, written on commission for the 1988 Australian Bicentennial and later The Sun of Umbria in Hobart.

For twenty years, he lived and worked on his native flower farm in bushland on the Fleurieu Peninsula, wine country – the nearest cellar door half an hour away. But then in December 2008 he moved to Hobart.

A cantata about St Francis of Assisi, The Sun of Umbria (2013), using poetry by Hobart poet and educator Clive Sansom, was written and performed in Hobart. He began in 2012 a PhD (Composition) at the Tasmanian Conservatorium, University of Tasmania, graduating in August 2015, with a folio of compositions and an exegesis about the process of setting words to music.

For the last few years Ralph struggled with the symptoms of Ménière’s disease. The slow loss of hearing meant he could no longer accurately hear music as it was played.

PERIOD POSITION HELD ORGANISATION LOCATION
1955 – 1956 Director & Treasurer CSIRO Ski Club Ltd Sydney (Honorary)
1956 – 1957 Director & Treasurer CSIRO Credit Union (Honorary)
1958 – 1964 Teacher (Music, Drama, Science) Tudor House School Moss Vale
1965 – 1966 Assistant Secretary A U Union Adelaide
1965 – 1966 Assistant Secretary A U Sports Association
1965 – 1967 Conductor A U Choral Society
1965 – 1974 Theatre Manager A U Union
1966 – 1972 Liquor Licensee A U Union
1967 – 1972 Secretary A U Union
1967 – 1975 Nominated Client, Union Project Adelaide University
1968 – 1969 Treasurer A U Staff Association (Honorary)
1968 – 1972 Music & Opera Critic ‘The Advertiser’
1968 – 1974 Theatre Consultant, Union Project Adelaide University
1968 – 1983 Production Manager Elder Con. Opera Group (Honorary)
1970 – 1972 Company Secretary, Union Bookshop Adelaide University
1970 – 1974 Theatre Manager A U Union
1966 – 1972 Liquor Licensee A U Union
1967 – 1972 Secretary A U Union
1967 – 1975 Nominated Client, Union Project Adelaide University
1968 – 1969 Treasurer A U Staff Association
1968 – 1972 Music & Opera Critic ‘The Advertiser’
1968 – 1974 Theatre Consultant, Union Project Adelaide University
1970 – 1972 Company Secretary, Union Bookshop Adelaide University
1970 – 1974 Chief Music and Opera Critic, writer ‘The Advertiser’
1972 – 1977 Warden of the Union Adelaide University
1972 – 1977 Director A U Union Bookshop
1972 – 1977 Students’ Friend (discipline hearings) Adelaide University
1973 – 1974 (de facto) Managing Director A U Union Bookshop
1973 – 1975 President Town and Country Planning Association (SA) Inc. (Honorary)
1974 – 1975 Patron A U Dramatic Society (Honorary)
1974 – 1977 Member, Performing Arts Committee Adelaide University
1976 – 1980 Theatre Consultant Parks Community Centre Inc. Angle Park
1977 – 1978 Theatre Consultant proposed Community Centre Thebarton
1977 – 1980 Nominated Client Parks Community Centre Inc. Angle Park
1977 – 1978 Theatre Consultant proposed Community Centre Thebarton
1977 – 1980 Nominated Client Parks Community Centre Inc. Angle Park
1977 – 1982 General Manager Parks Community Centre Inc.
1982 Guest Conductor AU Choral Society Adelaide (Honorary)
1982 – 1887 Member AU Faculty of Music (Honorary)
1986 – 2002 Founding Chair SA Richard Wagner Society (Honorary)
1976 – 1978 Adelaide Music Critic, writer ‘The Australian’
1978 – 1988 Music & Opera Critic, writer ‘The Advertiser’
1986 Chair ABC New Music Workshop (Honorary)
1986 Chair Lion Arts Centre Project
1990 – 2005 Managing Partner Springhill Flowers Inman Valley
1992 – 1993 Secretary Agricultural Bureau (Honorary)
1992 – 1993 Convenor Dieback Project (Honorary)
1994 – 2003 Industry representative State Flora (Australia) South Australia (Honorary)
2000 – 2001 Member SAFF Horticulture Group (Honorary)
2000 – 2001 Executive Chair SAFF Flower growers Section (Honorary)