Alfred Hill (composer)

Alfred Francis Hill CMG OBE (16 December 186930 October 1960) was an Australian-New Zealand composer, conductor and teacher. Life and work Alfred Hill was born in Melbourne in 1869. His year of birth is shown in many sources as 1870, but this has now been disproven. He spent most of his early life in Wellington before moving to Germany, where he studied at the Leipzig Conservatory between 1887 and 1891 under Gustav Schreck, Hans Sitt and Oscar Paul. Later he played second violin with the Gewandhaus Orchestra, under guest conductors including Brahms, Grieg, Tchaikovsky, Bruch, and Reinecke. While there, some of his compositions were played with fellow students, and several were published in Germany. These included the Scotch Sonata for violin and piano. Hill returned to New Zealand, where was appointed director of the Wellington Orchestral Society. In 1897 Hill returned to Australia, where he taught for a number of years. He married his first wife, Sarah Brownhill Booth, a New Zealander, on 6 October 1897 in Paddington, New South Wales. They were to have three children, who were given the Wagnerian names Isolde, Tristan and Elsa. and a Companion of the Order of St Michael and St Geo