Peggy Glanville-Hicks died on 25 June 1990 in Sydney, Australia, at age 77, leaving behind a legacy that continues to support Australian composers through her namesake foundation.
Peggy Glanville-Hicks died on 25 June 1990 in Sydney, Australia, at the age of 77. In her final years she had returned to her native Australia after decades spent in London, Paris, New York, and Athens, where she had built her international career as a composer and critic.
Upon her death, Glanville-Hicks left her Paddington terrace house and estate to establish what became the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Composers' House, a residency program administered in Sydney that provides Australian composers with a period of live-in residency to focus on their creative work, free from financial pressures. This act of philanthropy transformed her personal legacy into an ongoing institution supporting the next generations of Australian musical talent.
Her death marked the end of a remarkable career that had seen her overcome significant barriers as a woman in 20th-century composition and music criticism — fields dominated by men — to become an internationally performed opera composer, a respected critic in New York's competitive musical press, and a bridge-builder between Western and non-Western musical traditions. The Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address, an annual lecture on Australian music and culture, was later established in her honor, ensuring her name remains closely tied to the ongoing conversation about Australian musical identity and achievement.