Roger Covell The Sydney Morning Herald (1-2 December 2007)

Graeme Skinner’s superb new biography ... [a] meticulously researched book, drawing on copious archival material such as letters and press notices, as well as interviews both with Sculthorpe and many of his associates, has the feel of a grand symphony, its peculiar music made audible by fact rather than intrusive authorial interpolation.

William Yeoman The West Australian (3 January 2008)

Peter Sculthorpe, the Skinner version [is] a 693-page book which its raison d'etre happily concedes is THE accurate story of his life. "I've told everyone that if they find a discrepancy ... then Graeme's [book] will always be right," says the generous artist. The massive Skinner publication is the most detailed account yet of the man that the author describes as Australia's best-known living composer and widely regarded as the country's most important creative spirit.

Alison Andrews The Launceston Examiner (1 December 2007)

Peter McCallum The Sydney Morning Herald (15-16 December 2007)

Robyn Holmes Curator of Music, National Library of Australia
Sprint: National Library Bookshop Newsletter (Summer 2007-2008)

Skinner does important work that documents Sculthorpe's earlier career and music, drawing on interviews, letters and published reviews ... thoroughly researched and Skinner certainly knows the material ...  A book of this importance [is] certain to be used as a reference in years to come ...

Matthew Westwood The Australian (8-9 December 2007)

William Yeoman The West Australian (3 January 2008)

Skinner’s biography chronicles the first half of Sculthorpe’s career ... during which Sculthorpe pioneered an identifiably Australian style of music ... Ultimately, this is the story of a man who wished not just to compose, but to write distinctively ‘Australian music’ – and who succeeded magnificently.

Gleebooks & Readings Summer Reading Guides (Summer 2007-2008)

This work offers a significant authorised biography of Australia's best-known composer featuring more than 60 images. It presents a reflective side of Sculthorpe not previously revealed in print. More than a biography, it examines an episode in Australia's musical past through the eyes of its key player and includes previously unseen personal correspondence spanning two decades. This book has been said to have comparable significance for music as David Marr's biography of Patrick White had for Australian literature ...

Blackwell Online (January 2008)

This superb book is a fitting monument to Peter Sculthorpe’s place in Australian music ... while the book is a meticulously, scholarly and exhaustive account of a life in progress, Skinner has also developed his theme of Sculthorpe's contribution to Australian music ... While the biography presents an expected structure - in the sense that we are told much about Sculthorpe's family background, education and deep attachment to his hone state and city – it is Skinner’s real insight into the struggles Sculthorpe had in finding a distinctive Australian voice that is most illuminating.

Christopher Bantick The Hobart Mercury (23 February 2008)

... one of the great strengths of the book (apart from its comprehensive and meticulous research) is the deft way in which the author interweaves discussion of the music with the details of the composer’s life: our art does emerge from what we are and what we have learned and imagined.

John Carmody The Australian Literary Review (6 February 2008)

In his foreword, Skinner clearly states that the idea in Peter Sculthorpe: The Making of an Australian Composer was to include everything that impacted, either directly or indirectly, on Sculthorpe’s musical development. He is also aware that the book will probably be used as a resource for those studying or writing about the composer’s life and works for some time to come. In that respect, this incredibly detailed and immensely enjoyable book can already be considered indispensable, tracing as it does the artistic development not just of an individual but of a nation as it moves towards a musical maturity both sophisticated and highly distinctive.

William Yeoman Gramophone (UK) (March 2008)

... a meticulously detailed biography not only of the man but also of his almost mythic persona as The Great Australian Composer ... Graeme Skinner has put together a remarkable piece of scholarship which will stand as an invaluable tool for research – not only for aficionados of Sculthorpe’s life and work, but for anyone with an interest in this tumultuous period of Australia’s cultural history.

Elliott Gyger Australian Book Review (March 2008)

Graeme Skinner (editor)
The Composer Speaks: Composers and their colleagues discuss Australian music
(Proceedings of the Australian National Composers’ Conference, 1988); Sydney: Sounds Australian [Australian Music Centre], 1991;
paperback, vi + 198; ISBN 0-646-04851-1.

In 2003, the two Australian authors had the rare opportunity to prepare a modern catalogue and numbering sequence for an ancient Spanish liturgical library, Toledo Cathedral’s collection of 170 indigenously produced manuscript plainsong choirbooks (cantorales). Noone’s discovery and subsequent transcriptions of a series of cathedral inventories (from 1503, 1539, 1580, 1600, 1649, 1790, and 1809) and other key documentation informed Skinner’s codicological analysis of individual volumes, their copying and preservation. Several previous shelving systems dating back to the late sixteenth-century were also taken into account in formulating the new catalogue scheme, organised chronologically (late-15th century to late-19th century) and by genre, and which has been adopted by the Cathedral archive for its own use.

GRAEME SKINNER
“The Peter Sculthorpe papers: from bibliography to biography”
Australian Archives Session, 5 July

The quality and content of the papers displayed a smorgasbord for all palates: from the highly researched, historically grounded and excellently read papers of Graeme Skinner on Peter Sculthorpe's biography and David Pear's paper on the Percy Grainger Museum Collection through to technical papers on new online services.

Daniele Kaleva (State Library of Victoria)
Intermezzo: Newsletter of IAML (Australian Branch) 15/3 (August 2007)