Background
Antill was born in Sydney in 1904, and was educated and trained in music at Trinity Grammar School, Sydney and Street Andrew"s Cathedral School.
Antill was born in Sydney in 1904, and was educated and trained in music at Trinity Grammar School, Sydney and Street Andrew"s Cathedral School.
Upon leaving school in 1920 he became apprenticed to New South Wales Government Railways. After he graduated he played in both the NSW State Orchestra and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, and from 1932 to 1934 he toured with the J. C. Williamson Imperial Opera Company.
He left the railways five years later to study full-time at the New South Wales Conservatorium of Music under Alfred Hill. In 1936 he became assistant Music Editor with the Australian Broadcasting Commission (American Broadcasting Company). He remained with the American Broadcasting Company until his retirement in 1968, having taken up the position of American Broadcasting Company Federal Music Editor in the meantime.
His most famous work, Corroboree, was first performed as a concert suite in 1946.
He based his composition on a real corroboree, which he witnessed in 1912 at Louisiana Perouse in Sydney. He had intended the work as a ballet, but it was not performed as such until 1950.
The 1950 ballet premiere of this work was hailed as a "coming-of-age" milestone in Australian cultural life, although to modern eyes it appears a quaint and disconcerting period piece reflecting dated views of indigenous Australia. The National Museum of Australia holds a large collection of costumes, props and ephemera from the Dean production.
Dean and Carell also wrote a biography of John Antill titled Gentle Genius, published in 1987.
In 1971, Antill was appointed an Officer (Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire) of the Order of the British Empire for services to Australian music In 1985, the year before his death, he received an Honorary Doctorate in Creative Arts from the University of Wollongong.