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by Sarah Motherwell
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| Richard Connolly composed extensively for ABC radio and TV programs, as well as Australian documentaries and film.(ABC) |
Richard Connolly, one of Australia's most prolific composers, has died aged 94.
Connolly is best known for writing the theme song for the children's show Play School, as well as an internationally renowned collection of hymns.
His iconic tune to the long-running series was written overnight while Connolly was working for ABC Education.
Connolly's version, in which he also sang the lyrics by early childhood educator Dr Rosemary Milne, debuted on July 18, 1966.
There's a Bear in There has been re-recorded several times, most recently in 2016 as part of a triple j competition to mark the TV show's 50th anniversary.
But Connolly's original tune remains at the heart of the song, making it one of Australia's best known anthems.
A legacy created in one night
Born on November 10, 1927 in the Western Sydney suburb of Granville, Connolly was the eldest of eight children.
A talented young boy who spoke Latin, he was earmarked early on to become a Catholic priest.
In 1946, he left the shores of New South Wales to study at the prestigious seminary Propaganda Fide in Rome.
He returned four years later unordained, instead choosing to study arts at the University of Sydney.
Connolly's passion for theology led him to his career at the ABC, where he started work in religious broadcasts in 1956.
There he became a go-to man for music, composing extensively for radio and TV programs, as well as Australian documentaries and film.
His daughter, Polly Connolly, said one afternoon he was asked to write the theme song for a new kids TV show, Play School.
"He basically came home and banged it out and had to record it the next day," she told the ABC.
"When I was a little girl, my mum would call me and my little sister inside and say 'come and listen to daddy sing'."
Play School debuted on ABC TV on the morning of Monday, July 18, 1966 with presenters Alister Smart and Diane Dorgan.
The show has outlived the BBC version it was based on, and is now the second-longest-running English-language children's show worldwide.
Dr Milne, the lyricist for There's a Bear in There, also wrote the show's first scripts.
She died of cancer in 2010 aged 83.
Her and Connolly's song was inducted into the National Film and Sound Archive Sounds of Australia collection in 2017.
The collection represents audio that has "cultural, historical and aesthetic significance and relevance, which inform or reflect life in Australia".
Connolly last performed the song for ABC TV show Gruen in 2020.
Libbie Doherty, ABC Head of Children's Production, said Connolly left behind a legacy "like no other".
"Over the past 57 years, countless generations of Australian children have heard and sung Connolly's Play School theme song There's a Bear in There that continues to inspire preschoolers for years to come," Doherty said.
Songs for a new era
Despite its notoriety, the Play School theme was not the music Connolly was most proud of creating.
In the late 1950s, Connolly partnered with Tasmanian poet James McAuley to create a collection of hymns in English.
At the time, the Catholic church was struggling to transition away from singing exclusively in Latin as the new music did not sit well with parishioners.
"There was literally, for about 20 years, a worldwide shortage of suitable music for the Catholic mass," said Noel Debien, family friend and ABC Religion and Ethics senior specialist producer.
"It was pop music basically, and there were a lot of people who didn't want pop music in church, they thought that belonged in concerts.
"And Richard and James gave them a way to have something that was in English — they could go to the new music, but the new music was quality."
The songs, which went on to be sold as the Living Parish Hymn Book, took off across the country and overseas.
Daughter Polly said other than his nine children, her father felt the hymns were his greatest work.
"Anybody who went to Catholic school in the 70s, 80s, 90s, has sung dad's hymns," she said.
"There are many of dad's kids that aren't practising Catholics anymore, but we're so proud of his music; some of them are really beautiful."
Connolly also composed the music for the 1970 visit of Pope Paul VI, the first Pope to visit Australia, and again for the visit of Pope Benedict XVI in 2008.
'Lived and breathed the ABC'
The Catholic church was not the only institution Connolly helped navigate through difficult times.
In 1967, he joined Radio Drama and Features at the ABC at a time when audiences were switching off.
Having studied broadcasters in France, Italy and Germany as part of the Churchill Fellowship in 1971, Connolly returned to transform the department into a "creative powerhouse", friend and former colleague Roz Cheney said.
"One of Dick's great legacies is that he turned ABC Radio, at that time, towards Europe and away from the Anglo-domination of the BBC," she said.
"New ways were found to broadcast wonderful programs that acknowledged other languages and other cultures.
"We were hired by Dick to go into the future."
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| Richard Connolly, right, working at the ABC in 1960.(ABC) |
As head of the department, Connolly oversaw the broadcast of radio plays and book reviews, as well as the reading of epic poems including Aeneid and Beowulf.
"There was not the dead hand of serious dullness on them — they were very lively and energetic," Ms Cheney said.
"He was an inspiring producer."
Polly said her father "lived and breathed the ABC" — and rugby league team the Western Suburbs Magpies.
"It really was an amazing thing to be at Lidcombe Oval with my dad in the '70s, all us kids, while he'd be roaring for the Magpies," she said.
"Literally the next week he'd be in the old radio Forbes Street studios recording the finest international radio programs in Latin."
Connolly retired in 1988 and spent the last few years of his life at Alexander Aged Care in Brookvale, NSW.
He died on May 4, and is survived by his wife Cynthia and his nine children.
His funeral will be held at St Mary's Cathedral in Sydney on May 19.
First published on abc.net.au, May 10, 2022
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