The Australian composer Graham Koehne studied at the University of Adelaide and
won the 1982 Australian Composer's Award for his orchestral work Rain Forest.
He was at Yale with a Harkness Fellowship from 1984, studying privately with Virgil
Thomson and Louis Andriessen. He returned to teach composition at the University
of Adelaide. In his music he draws on a variety of sources, not least popular
music, in a reaction against the modernism of composers wedded to serialism and
its later developments.
Orchestral Music
Koehne's Inflight Entertainment, with its three movements, Agent Provocateur,
Horse Opera and Beat Girl is scored for amplified oboe and orchestra. His choice
of titles reflects his 'retro' post-modernism.