The Jubilee Composers’ Competition of 1951 was one of a number of competitions sponsored by the federal government to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Federation. The various competitions included poetry, novels, radio plays, stage plays, painting, national songs and the symphony competition. It was hoped that the symphony competition would result in the performance of a significant new work that would be premiered in Australia before the end of 1951. During the 1930s and 1940s the importance of the symphony as a genre of concert music reached its peak, especially in the United Kingdom, the USA, Scandinavia and Russia, so…