Scotch College

Vale George Logie-Smith OBE (staff 1959–78)

‘Despite being the only full-time music teacher, Logie-Smith won an uncontested place for music in the School’s curriculum …’

Words: Family and Ian Harrison (Staff 1967–1984) Photography: Scotch College Archives

George Logie-Smith was appointed Music Director of Scotch College in 1959 by the Principal, Richard Selby Smith, following the recommendation of the renowned Melbourne musician, Dr A E Floyd.

George built the Scotch College Music School to pre-eminence with outstanding Foundation Day Concerts, May Concerts to showcase the School’s Musical talent and joint productions of The Messiah with MLC.

He formed the Military Band in 1959 and the Music Auxiliary to build funds to provide music scholarships, and he initiated music tours to New Zealand and South-East Asia.

He attracted leading Melbourne musicians including Roy Shepherd, Henry Touzeau and Les Barklamb to teach at the Music School, and expanded the physical resources of the Music School to fully utilise all of the Mackie Hall premises and accommodate the significant number of students involved.

George was active in sport at Scotch, coaching U16 football, playing in the annual student–staff hockey match and, as the undoubted highlight, coaching the undefeated 1st XV111 to the APS premiership in 1968.

George retired from Scotch at the end of 1978, having developed a love of music in a significant number of Scotch boys

This is an edited transcript of a eulogy by Ian Harrison at George Logie-Smith’s memorial service, held at Scots Church on 7 June. Ian was George’s pupil at Geelong College and his colleague at Scotch and Genazzano FCJ College. Ian was assisted by George’s son, Robert in preparing this eulogy:

‘As a young conducting prodigy, George Logie-Smith had the gifts, charisma and flair – even glamour – to become the Leonard Bernstein of Australia. Circumstances, however, led to his entering the comparatively humble profession of schoolmaster, to become one of the most significant figures in raising the status and quality of music education in Victoria throughout a distinguished 60-year career.

‘Logie-Smith was born in Melbourne to Scottish immigrants, Edgar Smith and Maggie Logie, and educated at Essendon High School, which he was forced to leave before graduation owing to his father losing his job in the Depression. Although he showed extraordinary talent as a sportsman at school and in community cricket, football and hockey teams, he responded to his mother’s driving ambition to focus on developing his musical gifts. At 15, he had conducted his first Messiah at the family’s local church. It was she who arranged for him to be taught piano by Roy Shepherd who had just returned from Paris, having studied under Alfred Cortot.

‘Shepherd was to become the most influential person in determining Logie-Smith’s professional life. Under his new teacher’s guidance, he won piano competitions, shared first prize in the Allan’s Scholarship and gave a number of well-received recitals. It was Shepherd who persuaded the headmaster of Geelong College, Frank (later Sir Francis) Rolland, to appoint this 22-year-old with no academic qualifications or teacher training, as Director of Music.

‘Over the next 20 years, despite being the only full-time music teacher, Logie-Smith won an uncontested place for music in the school’s curriculum and presided over the development of fine choral and instrumental ensembles. His annual production of a Gilbert and Sullivan opera, performed at the city’s largest cinema, became a major event in the city’s cultural life. In 1948, he took a year’s leave to study conducting in England with Sir Adrian Boult and Sir John Barbirolli.

‘In 1959 Logie-Smith was appointed Director of Music at Scotch College, where he built the Music School to pre-eminence over the next 20 years. During that period the teaching of instrumental music grew to the point where up to 70 per cent of boys were learning musical instruments under a greatly expanded sessional staff.

‘The full-time staff also grew as curricular music expanded. Instrumental ensembles proliferated, choral music flourished and the School Orchestra reached a standard that, to the audiences at May Concerts and Foundation Day Concerts, was deemed near enough to professional. There were tours interstate and to South-East Asia and to New Zealand.

‘Maintaining the enthusiasm for sport that he had as a youth, Logie-Smith coached football throughout his time at Scotch, and in 1968 led the 1st XVIII to a premiership.

‘At both Geelong and Scotch, Logie-Smith was a fierce protector of his discipline and of his Music School – a school-within-a-school that he ran with great efficiency. Despite sympathetic and supportive headmasters, he had to fight a prevailing philistinism in the broad society, reflected in schools at that time, for every step in the growth of both curricular and co-curricular music and for every timetable or budgetary allocation in order to facilitate that growth.

‘Logie-Smith’s idiosyncratic teaching style – which could be characterised as jocular intimidation – was relished. Always the performer, he chose to conceal his sensitivity and personal warmth under a formidable persona, but many were the colleagues and students who penetrated it to find the real person.

‘Logie-Smith’s contribution to the broader musical life in both Melbourne and provincial Victoria was an important factor in his being awarded an MBE in 1955 and an OBE in 1970. At various times he was the Musical Director of the Geelong and Ballarat Symphony Orchestra and Choral Societies, the Peninsula Youth Orchestra, the Melbourne Youth Symphonic Band, the University of Melbourne Choral Society and the Lord Somers Camp.

‘He was one of the founders of the Grainger Wind Symphony, a member of the Founding Council of the Victorian College of the Arts, and, as Musical Director of the Astra Chamber Music Society from 1958 to 1978, he brought male members into what had been a ladies’ orchestra and inaugurated the choir. His work with Astra in the early ’60s led the music critics, John Sinclair and Dorian Le Gallienne, to dub him a ‘genius’.

‘On his retirement from Scotch, Logie-Smith’s continued drive and energy led him to give four valuable years to Haileybury as Director of Music, and then to set up a music consultancy business while directing orchestras for the University of the Third Age and at St Margaret’s, Kilvington, and, for 13 years, Genazzano FCJ College.

‘Three generations of former pupils have had their lives enriched by Logie-Smith. Thousands of others have benefited from his judgment and guidance as an Australian Music Examinations Board examiner, and as an adjudicator at numerous eisteddfods and festivals. His name is perpetuated in an auditorium at Geelong College, a music room at Genazzano and the George Logie-Smith Foundation at Scotch.

‘In 1941, he married Enid Buchanan whose equable temperament and serenity complemented his volatility to anchor a very happy marriage until her death in 2002. He is survived by his sons Robert, Geoffrey and Andrew, seven grandchildren and one great grandchild.’ GS