He studied at the Royal College of Music in London with Antony Hopkins (piano), Peter Racine Fricker and John White (both composition).
[1] In addition, he studied with Alexander Goehr at Morley College, and attended Karlheinz Stockhausen's Cologne Course for New Music in 1965–66, as well as Pierre Boulez's Darmstadt summer course in 1965.
Over the next six years Intermodulation toured widely in the UK, West Germany, Poland, France and Iran, with a repertoire which included not only works by Souster and Smalley, but also music by Cornelius Cardew, Terry Riley, Frederic Rzewski, Karlheinz Stockhausen, Christian Wolff and others.
He received commissions from many organisations including the BBC, ABC Television, West German Radio, Perth International Arts Festival, London Sinfonietta, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Australian String Quartet, Grainger Quartet, Fires of London, Flederman, Nova Ensemble, Seymour Group and Australia Ensemble.
His first Piano Concerto, a BBC commission for European Music Year (1985), was the recommended work in the annual UNESCO International Rostrum of Composers in 1987, the first time an Australian entry succeeded to first place.
[9] Smalley's orchestral piece Birthday Tango (later retitled Footwork) received the APRA Classical Music Award 2007 in the category "Best Composition by an Australian Composer".