Peter Sculthorpe is Australias best-known living composer and is widely held to be the most important composer the country has yet produced. This, the first biography of the composer, tells the fascinating story of his rise to prominence. Beautifully written and fastidiously researched, this authorised biography provides an insight into Sculthorpes formative years: his quest for a personal voice, and his arrival through many creative friendships and collaborations at a place in the collective heart of the nation. It is also a social history, charting the rise of modernism in Australian music through the eyes of its key player.