A Boandik man, Peter Wyllie Johnston is a musician and writer.

He is the composer of the music and lyrics of Moses-the Spirit of Freedom, the additional book of Joanna White's Girl in Pink, and the music, lyrics and book of Tamarama (2024).

His publications include From the Melburnian (2011), The Nick Enright Songbook (2014), Morag Beaton-Her Life and Her Art (2019) and The Australian Musical From The Beginning, published by Allen and Unwin in 2019.

Peter was born in Melbourne, Australia. He learned the piano from the age of five and sang professionally with the Australian Opera (now Opera Australia) from the age of eleven, later also singing with the Victoria State Opera. He wrote his first composition at the age of twelve, and when he was fourteen composed the score of Ian Robert Parker's short feature film Girl on the Boulevard, starring top Australian model Jill Goodall. Since 2010 he has been Director of the Australian Music Theatre Research Institute (TAMTRI).

He is currently working on a new documentary film entitled Pure Genius-The Geoffrey Tozer Story, and a full length biography of Tozer

Publications:

MUSICALS:
Tamarama: the complete book, lyrics and libretto (2024)

Moses-The Spirit of Freedom (2001) Vocal score, complete music and lyrics

BOOKS:

The Australian Musical-From the Beginning [with Peter Pinne] (2019)

Morag Beaton-Her Life and Her Art (2017)

The Craig Christie Songbook (2015) [Foreword, 800 words]

The Nick Enright Songbook (2014)

From the Melburnian: essays and articles 1992-2011 on The Broadway Musical, The Australian Musical, Opera, Classical Music (2011)

SPEECHES:

My Boandik Grandfather' 3000 words, delivered May 31, 2023, as an Official Speaker on the occasion of the 18th Aboriginal Remembrance Service Honouring Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander service men and women', Shrine of Remembrance, 11.00am May 31, 2023.

Voices From a Restless Society 1920-2020: How a Century of Australian Musicals Revealed the Nature of Australian Culture' (8000 words), keynote address delivered July 9, 2022 to the Annual Conference of the Australia New Zealand Literary Society of Japan.

SELECTED FROM A TOTAL OF MORE THAN 70 PUBLISHED ARTICLES:

Australian-ness in musical theatre: a bran nue dae for Australia?
45 Australasian Drama Studies, October 2004, pp.157179.
7,967 words.

The Silent Showman Sir George Tallis, the man behind the world's largest entertainment organization of the 1920s, Victorian Historical Journal, Vol. 79, No 1, June 2008, pp.11-13.
1,187 words.

Bran Nue Dae A Message From the Heart', Bran Nue Dae Official Souvenir Program, Opera Australia, October 2020. [An article commissioned by Opera Australia]

Virtuoso Geoffrey Tozer Obituary'
The Times, London, UK, September 21, 2009

Dream Role Launched Diva on International Stage: Morag Beaton Obituary', The Australian
April 9, 2010

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