David Anthony Ahern was an Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

n composer and music critic, who became a prominent artist in the avant-garde

Avant-garde music

Avant-garde music is a term used to characterize music which is thought to be ahead of its time, i.e. containing innovative elements or fusing different genres....

 genre after his best-known work, Ned Kelly Music was released and performed at the Sydney Proms music series.

Born and raised in Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Ahern decided to become a composer in his mid-teens, and studied composition under Nigel Butterley

Nigel Butterley

Nigel Henry Cockburn Butterley AM is an Australian composer and pianist.-Life and career:Butterley learnt to play the piano at the age of five. He attended Sydney Grammar School, but as music wasn't taught at the school at that time, he also sought training from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music....

 and Richard Meale

Richard Meale

Richard Graham Meale, AM, MBE was an Australian composer of instrumental works and operas.-Biography:Meale was born in Sydney and studied piano with Winifred Burston at the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, as well as clarinet, harp, music history and theory, before studying at the University of...

. His first performed work, After Mallarmé, was recorded by the South Australian Symphony Orchestra

Adelaide Symphony Orchestra

The Adelaide Symphony Orchestra was founded as a 17 player radio ensemble in 1936, in Adelaide, South Australia. The orchestra reformed in 1949 as the 55 member South Australian Symphony Orchestra. It reverted to its original and present title, the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, in late 1974, and...

 and was submitted to the International Rostrum of Composers

International Rostrum of Composers

The International Rostrum of Composers is an annual forum organized by the International Music Council that offers broadcasting representatives the opportunity to exchange and publicize pieces of contemporary classical music...

 in Paris. He travelled in Europe in the 1960s, studying under Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen

Karlheinz Stockhausen was a German composer, widely acknowledged by critics as one of the most important but also controversial composers of the 20th and early 21st centuries. Another critic calls him "one of the great visionaries of 20th-century music"...

 in Germany and Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew

Cornelius Cardew was an English experimental music composer, and founder of the Scratch Orchestra, an experimental performing ensemble. He later rejected the avant-garde in favour of a politically motivated "people's liberation music".-Biography:Cardew was born in Winchcombe, Gloucestershire...

 in London.

In 1970, Ahern returned to Australia where, influenced by the Scratch Orchestra

Scratch Orchestra

The Scratch Orchestra was an experimental musical ensemble founded in the spring of 1969 by Cornelius Cardew, Michael Parsons and Howard Skempton....

 co-founded by Cardew, he formed the AZ Music ensemble at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music

Sydney Conservatorium of Music

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is one of the oldest and most prestigious music schools in Australia...

, which included such composers and performers as Roger Frampton

Roger Frampton

Roger Frampton was an Australian jazz pianist, saxophonist, composer, and educator. Based in Sydney, he played a major role in shaping the evolution of Australian jazz...

.