Produced and directed by Raymond Hoefer and Peter Wyllie
Johnston.
Cinematography by Raymond Hoefer and Oscar Nastri – Edited
by Raymond Hoefer
Script by Peter Wyllie Johnston – Sound by Raymond Hoefer
Music selection and supervision by Peter Wyllie Johnston.
Presented by Hofland Music and The Estate of Geoffrey Tozer
Palace Electric Cinemas – 10th March, 2026.
Reviewed by BILL STEPHENS.
Memories of Paul Keating and Geoffrey Tozer spending quiet
Saturday afternoons over coffee in The School of Arts Café planning renovations
for the conversion of the Queanbeyan Convent into a conservatorium, were
revived by an invitation to attend the Australian premiere screening of a new documentary
film “Pure Genius - The Geoffrey Tozer Story”.
There is little doubt that Geoffrey Tozer was a musical genius,
but to many Canberrans, he was best known as a part-time music teacher at St.
Edmunds College.
Paul Keating's son was attending St. Edmunds in 1987, and it was then that the-soon-to-become Prime Minister first became aware of Tozer, when he saw him performing in a school concert. .
Captivated by Tozer’s extraordinary musical abilities, Keating
became his champion, making it his business to ensure that such musical genius
would not go unrecognised.
 |
| Geoffrey Tozer and Paul Keating. |
In musical circles, Tozer was already celebrated as a pianist of exceptional ability having made his professional debut at the age of eight, playing Bach’s Concerto in F Minor on ABC national television.
In 1968 he became the world’s youngest ever recipient of a
Churchill Fellowship, the first of two he would receive during his career, and had
already given over forty concerto performances in Australia.
By age fourteen, Tozer was competing in piano competitions
overseas becoming a semi-finalist in the Leeds Piano Competition in 1969, winning
First Prize in the Royal Overseas League in London and First Prize in the Alex
de Vries Piano Competition in Belgium, both in 1970.
Also in 1970, Tozer was presented to Her Majesty Queen
Elizabeth 11 and made his debut at the Albert Hall playing Mozart’s Piano
Concerto in B Flat No 15 K450 with the BBC Symphony under Sir Colin Davis.
By age eighteen, in 1973, Tozer was a semi-finalist in the
Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in the United States, including among
the pieces he played, his own composition; Aboriginal Sunrise.
That same year Tozer was awarded a second Churchill
Fellowship, and in 1974 became the first Australian concert pianist to tour
Asia under the auspices of Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and
Musical Viva, with performances in Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Thailand
and Singapore.
Under Keating’s auspices, Tozer’s International career
continued to flourish, and it was Keating who in 1991 secured him a record
contract with Chandos, allowing him to cement his position as one of the
world’s leading concert pianists.
With Chandos Tozer recorded 34 CDs, receiving a 1993 Grammy
Award nomination for his recordings of the complete concertos of Nikolai
Medtner recorded with the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
But in 2009, Tozer died tragically, alone and penniless,
leaving behind a vast catalogue including 150 compositions, musical diaries and
performance notes, both published and unpublished. There are more than a
thousand audio and film recordings of his performances from around the world;
and more than forty commercial releases on Chandos and other labels, in
archives in Australia and more than twenty other countries, most notably in Berlin
where the Akademie der Künste has established the Geoffrey Tozer Archive.
“Pure Genius – The Geoffrey Tozer Story”, produced and
scripted by the executor of Tozer’s estate, Peter Wyllie Johnston, together with
Raymond Hoefer, who is also responsible for the sound, focusses on Tozer’s
massive musical achievements both in Australia and internationally.
The film is an homage to Tozer’s musical genius and a treasury
for music lovers, preserving excerpts from fifty musical performances by Tozer.
Among them, his historic 1982 performances filmed at the Sydney Opera House; his
Hungarian debut in the Vigado Concert Hall in Budapest in 1987, and film of him
in China becoming the first Western pianist to perform the famous Yellow
River Concerto with the Xiamen Philharmonic Orchestra televised to an
audience estimated at more than eighty million.
Narrated by actor, Colin McPhillamy, the film includes cameo
appearances by Hazel Hawke and Jill Goodall, with interviews with friends,
colleagues and supporters who had close associations with Tozer, including Paul
Keating, Patricia Conolly, Pamela Freeman, Ross Gengos, Imogen Burley and
Judith Dowson who recalls her last day with Tozer when she flew from Perth to
be with him in 2009.
“Pure Genius – The Geoffrey Tozer Story”, pays scant
attention to the circumstances surrounding Tozer’s death, preferring to focus
on Tozer’s many triumphs and musical accomplishments.
The suggestion that his demise was brought about by
mismanagement and ill-treatment by the musical establishment, inevitably raises
questions as to the nature of these circumstances.
Some answers are offered in a previous documentary “The
Eulogy”, which focuses on the eulogy given by Paul Keating at Tozer’s funeral, currently
available on streaming platforms, while a comprehensive biography by Peter
Wyllie Johnston is scheduled for publication in 2027.
Following its Canberra showing, “Pure Genius – The Geoffrey
Tozer Story” is expected to be seen in all major Australian film festivals, as
well as overseas film festivals, beginning with the Sydney Film Festival in
June, followed by art house cinema release around Australian and overseas.
This review also published in AUSTRALIAN ARTS REVIEW. www.artsreview.com.au
