Isaac Nathan

Isaac Nathan was an Anglo-Jewish emigre Australian musician, composer, musicologist, and music educator, who has been called the "father of Australian music", having assisted the careers of numerous colonial musicians during his twenty-year residence in Australia. He is best known for the success of his Hebrew Melodies (1815–1840) in London. He became a composer of popular operatic comedies in the Royal Theatres (1823–1833), introduced below. After emigrating to Australia in 1840, Nathan wrote Australia's first operas Merry Freaks in Troublous Times (1843) and Don John of Austria (1847) Nathan also wrote the Australian Melodies, which entangled fragments of Aboriginal songlines with European musical traditions.