Elder Conservatorium of Music
The Elder Conservatorium of Music, also known as "The Con", is located in the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, and is named in honour of its benefactor, Sir Thomas Elder. Dating in its earliest form from 1883, it has a history in professional training for musical performance, musical composition, research in all fields of music, and music education. The Elder Conservatorium of Music and its forerunners have been parts of the University of Adelaide since the early 1880s. The current Director is Professor Anna Goldsworthy.
History
The Elder Conservatorium of Music was formally constituted in 1898 as the result of a major philanthropic bequest from the will of the Scottish-Australian pastoralist, Sir Thomas Elder, whose statue stands outside Elder Hall. The history, however, goes back further than 1898. An earlier philanthropic donation from Sir Thomas Elder had helped to establish the Elder Professorship of Music in 1883, with the first incumbent taking up the post in 1884. At the same time, Sir Thomas Elder had established endowment funds for the Royal College of Music in London to support the Elder Overseas Scholarship and the Music Board of the University of Adelaide to support the Elder Scholarships in Music. 1883 was also the year in which Berlin-trained pianist Immanuel Gotthold Reimann founded his privately owned and run Adelaide College of Music, of which Cecil Sharp became co-director in 1889. For the first few years the new school of music at the University of Adelaide and the Adelaide College of Music complemented each other. In 1898 the two schools were merged, operating in the college's Wakefield Street premises until 1900, when the North Terrace building was completed. Hermann Heinicke founded the first Conservatorium Orchestra.The Elder Conservatorium of Music is a product of three mergers: one in the late nineteenth century with the Adelaide College of Music; one in the late twentieth century, with the School of Performing Arts of the then South Australian College of Advanced Education; and one at the beginning of the twenty-first century, with the School of Music of the Adelaide Institute of TAFE. Formerly a faculty of the university it is now constituted as a professional School within the Faculty of Arts. Since 2002, it has been an associate member of the Association of European Conservatoires, and is also a partner school of the Helpmann Academy, an umbrella body created by the State Government of South Australia to promote collaboration between various schools of visual and performing arts.
There have so far been seven incumbents of the Elder Professorship of Music, all of whom have also served as Director and/or Dean of the Elder Conservatorium of Music and have provided the artistic and academic leadership for the institution: Professor Joshua Ives ; Professor J. Matthew Ennis ; Professor E. Harold Davies ; pianist and arts administrator, Professor John Bishop OBE ; the tenor, Professor David Galliver AM ; German conductor, Professor Heribert Esser ; and composer, Professor Charles Bodman Rae. Since the late 1970s the administrative position of Director of the Conservatorium has from time to time been occupied by a staff member other than the Elder Professor of Music. In this category can be included: the clarinettist, David Shepherd; the pianist, Clemens Leske AM; the horn player, Patrick Brislan; the pianist, David Lockett AM; the choral conductor, Carl Crossin OAM, and the noted composer, Professor Graeme Koehne AO. On 15 July 2022, pianist and writer Professor Anna Goldsworthy was announced as the new Director, commencing on 18 July 2022.
In 1886, Professor Ives established the first Australian public music examinations system, modelled on that of the Guildhall School of Music in London. This directly led to the establishment of the Australian Music Examinations Board. In 1898, through the Elder Conservatorium, the University of Adelaide was the first in Australia to establish regulations for the degree of Doctor of Music, and in 1902, Edward Harold Davies was awarded the first Australian doctorate of music. In 1918 the university became the first in Australia to award a doctorate in music to a woman, Ruby Davy. In addition to Davies and Davy, recipients of the DMus award have included: Tristram Cary, OAM; Sir Peter Maxwell Davies CBE; Graeme Koehne; Charles Bodman Rae; David Lockett AM; and Ross Edwards AM.
Throughout the Conservatorium's history, many performing musicians, conductors and composers have been members of staff, including: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies ; Ruby Davy ; Professor David Cubbin ; Clive Carey ; Jiří Tancibudek ; Gabor Reeves ; Beryl Kimber ; Clemens Leske ; James Whitehead ; Lance Dossor ; Richard Meale AO MBE ; Tristram Cary ; Janis Laurs ; Keith Crellin OAM ; and Graeme Koehne AO.
From 1978 to 1994 Professor Andrew McCredie held a personal chair in Musicology. The Australian String Quartet was established in 1985 and since 1991 has been Quartet-in-Residence at the Elder Conservatorium.
The Bishop years are generally considered to have been some of the most exciting and progressive in the history of the Elder Conservatorium, with initiatives such as the appointment of the University of Adelaide Wind Quintet, and the establishment of the Adelaide Festival of Arts. In 2005 the Elder Conservatorium received a Classical Music Award for "outstanding contribution by an organisation", in recognition of its music program for the 2004 Adelaide Festival of Arts. In 2011, 2013, 2015, and every year from 2017 thereafter, the Elder Conservatorium has hosted the Australian Youth Orchestra's annual summer school, National Music Camp.
Non-traditional research activities range across performance studies, composition, music curatorial studies, music industry entrepreneurship, and digital arts and related multi-media. The Conservatorium is co-host to two research aggregations: the Sia Furler Institute for Contemporary Music and Media, and the J. M. Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice.
Academic programs
The Elder Conservatorium of Music has been awarding degrees and diplomas in music to both men and women since the end of the nineteenth century. It was originally intended that the degree program be modelled on that at the University of Cambridge. It is true that Professor Ives had graduated with the MusB degree from Cambridge, and the academic robes are based on those from Cambridge, but the degree programs of the University of Adelaide were – and to a large extent still are – based on the Scottish rather than English model. This reflects the fact that most of the founding fathers of the university were Scots. Furthermore, the Cambridge MusB degree was taken as a second, postgraduate degree, whereas the Elder Conservatorium's BMus degree is a first degree award. Whereas women were not able to graduate from the University of Cambridge until shortly after the Second World War, they were graduating from the Elder Conservatorium of Music fifty years earlier.The Elder Conservatorium offers two main Undergraduate programs, with the following specialisations. Postgraduate awards include Graduate Diplomas in Performance and Pedagogy, and Music Performance; Master's Degrees in Performance Studies and Performance and Pedagogy and Graduate Certificate in Music Teaching.
Undergraduate programs
Diploma in Music
- Diploma in Music
- Diploma in Music
Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music
- Bachelor of Music Advanced
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Performance – Classical Voice
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Performance – Classical Performance
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Performance – Jazz Performance
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Creative Arts – Composition
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Creative Arts – Popular Music
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Creative Arts – Sonic Arts
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Research – Musicology
- Bachelor of Music Advanced Research – Music Education
- Bachelor of Music Theatre
Honours
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
- Honours Degree of Bachelor of Music
Postgraduate Programs
Graduate Diploma in Music and Master of Music
- Classical Performance: Brass
- Classical Performance: Conducting
- Classical Performance: Keyboard
- Classical Performance: Percussion
- Classical Performance: Strings
- Classical Performance: Voice
- Classical Performance: Woodwind:
- Jazz Performance
Associate in Music, University of Adelaide
Associate in Music, University of Adelaide was a degree conferred by the university. It was initially introduced in 1900 as a diploma course, predating the formation of the Australian Music Examinations Board in 1918. It was phased out in 1972. Notable graduates included: Maude Mary Puddy, ;Clytie Hine, 1908; and
Arnold Matters, 1926.