Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Deborah Cheetham AO  

[Updated 22 October - live streaming, ticket allocation.]

Deborah Cheetham AO will deliver the 2019 Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address in Melbourne on Tuesday 22 October on the topic 'In answer to your question'. Free tickets for this event have been made available through the Melbourne Recital Centre website - the allocation has now been exhausted, though a very small number of additional tickets may be released shortly before the event.

The Address will be streamed live on the AMC's Facebook Page following the announcement of the 2019 Paul Lowin Prizes (from 6pm, the Address at approx. 6:40pm).

Deborah Cheetham's topic for her Address is 'In answer to your question'. She writes,

'Above the tumultuous din of excited conversation at countless post-performance functions, questions are shouted at me by the well-meaning. The subjects range from intensely personal to completely banal. Did you ever meet your birth mother? Have you been singing long? As a 21st-century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice, I am constantly called upon to explain myself and justify my place in the world of classical music.

'In answer to your question may be an entertaining day-in-the-life of Deborah Cheetham AO interlude or it may be a tell-all dissection of the Australian arts industry, exposing the practices of exploitation, racism, homophobia and misogyny which hold us back as a nation of music makers. Could it be both? You'll have to come along to find out.'

The 2019 Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address will take place at the Melbourne Recital Centre on 22 October 2019 at 6pm, in conjunction with the awarding of the 2019 Paul Lowin Prizes. This historic occasion will bring together two important events in Australian art music: the Lowin Prizes are among Australia's richest for music composition, awarded every 2-3 years, while the prestigious Peggy Glanville-Hicks Address has been igniting debate and highlighting crucial issues annually since its establishment in 1999.

> Seats for this event are strictly limited - reserve your free seat now using this link.

> The six finalists for the 2019 Paul Lowin Prizes, announced today, are composers Katy Abbott, Brett Dean, Elliott Gyger, Lachlan Skipworth, Luke Styles and Nigel Westlake. Read more on Resonate.

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Deborah Cheetham AO

Deborah Cheetham, Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer and educator has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than 25 years. In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Cheetham was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for 'distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance'.

In 2009, Deborah Cheetham established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of her first opera Pecan Summer. This landmark work was Australia's first Indigenous opera and has been a vehicle for the development of a new generation of Indigenous opera singers.

In March 2015 she was inducted onto the Honour Roll of Women in Victoria and in April 2018 received an Honorary Doctorate from the University of South Australia. In 2019 she received the Merlyn Myer Prize to create a new work for the Melbourne-based ensemble Syzygy. Cheetham's commissions for major Australian ensembles include works for the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Australian String Quartet, West Australian Symphony Orchestra String Quartet, Rubiks Collective, Plexus Ensemble, Flinders Quartet and the Goldner Quartet. In 2020 Deborah Cheetham will accept the position of Composer in Residence with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.