In the 1840s, Vincent Wallace, Isaac Nathan and other impresarios organized famous overseas singers and musicians to tour Australia and subsidized oratorios, operas and chamber music. At the turn of the century, Deim Nelly Melba became world famous as an opera singer. Other prominent Australian musicians include Peter Dawson, Joan Hammond, Joan Sutherland and John Brownlee (singers), Alfred Hill, John Antill, Percy Granger, Arthur Benjamin and Peter Sculthorpe (composers), Lauri Kennedy (cellist) and Rodger Woodward (pianists), John Williams (classical guitar) and Charles Makerras (conductor). Richard Boning has earned international acclaim as a musicologist and conductor. Richard Meal reworked Patrick White’s novel Voss into an opera (1986). The Sydney Symphony Orchestra has won first place among Australian orchestras and is associated through the organization Symphony of Australia with symphony orchestras in Adelaide, Melbourne, Queensland, Tasmania and Western Australia.
