Opportunities for Students and Alumni

Below is a list of relevant career-development opportunities that are currently available for students and recent graduates of the Elder Conservatorium of Music.

hire-elder-hall
  • Alice Farnham Masterclass (Wednesday 2 October 2024)

    Join leading international conductor and pedagogue Alice Farnham as she teaches the conducting students of the Elder Conservatorium of Music in this unique, open masterclass. This is a rare opportunity to see a conducting teacher of this calibre in action, working with high-level young conductors who are drawn from around the country.

    This masterclass will be a great learning opportunity for conductors working with school and community groups, and eligible final-year students and graduates interested in learning more about the art and craft of conducting. A short Q&A session with Alice will follow the masterclass. This masterclass is free for final-year students and graduates (up to five years from final year of study). Places for this exclusive masterclass are strictly limited – bookings essential.

    Presented in partnership with Helpmann Academy.

    Wednesday 2 October 4.00–5.30pm
    Hartley Concert Room


    REGISTER

  • Elder Conservatorium Postgraduate Research Day (Friday 4 October)

    The Elder Conservatorium's Postgraduate Research Day is an opportunity for all our current candidates and supervisors to get together and discuss their research and topics of mutual interest. It's also an opportunity for students who are thinking about applying for a postgraduate research degree (HDR) to find out what it's all about. This fully catered event is open to all candidates, supervisors, as well as prospective candidates.

    Friday 4 October 10.30am–4.00pm
    The Gallery Room, National Wine Centre


    REGISTER

  • Helpmann Academy Elise Ross Regional Award 2025

    Following on from the success of the inaugural Elise Ross Regional Award, the Helpmann Academy is thrilled to offer this opportunity for 2025.

    'I am all too familiar with the obstacles young regional people face when trying to pursue their passion. There just isn't the same access to support or professional development as is available to creatives based in, or around major cities. We want to try and help change this and support emerging regional creatives to chase successful careers in the Arts'
    – Elise Ross

    In 2025 this award assists emerging visual and performing artists based in regional South Australia, to overcome barriers presented by distance and population size, with creative and professional development opportunities.

    The award may also be used by emerging creatives living and working in Adelaide and surrounds, who plan to perform, exhibit, tour or study in regional South Australia. Projects should foster activity, build connections between emerging creatives or create audiences in regional South Australia. You must demonstrate a genuine connection to the region you plan to take your creative project to or undertake your professional development in.

    You can pursue customised professional development programs, develop new creative projects, or do a combination of both. The self-directed programs may encompass a range of activities, such as engaging in residencies, receiving specialised training, participation in long-term workshops, or securing internships with recognised institutions or professional practitioners. Residencies, internships and/or training can be based interstate or internationally. You are encouraged to think big and go for it!

    Brendan Godfrey is the inaugural recipient of this unique award. Brendan is a writer and director living and working in Port Augusta West. He completed a Bachelor of Media Arts (Film and Television) at the University of South Australia. He currently works producing television commercials for regional broadcast. The award assisted Brendan to attend the AFTRS Directing Intensive in Sydney, The Director's Role Mercury Launch Lab, and Marketing & Festivals Mercury Launch Lab.

    'The Elise Ross Regional Award was a great way for me to really elevate my practice as a director. It helped me develop new skills, techniques and gain invaluable insight into what it takes to be a working and successful director. The award allowed me to access opportunities as a regional artist that otherwise might have been out of my reach and helped me connect to both the Adelaide and wider Australian filmmaking community.'
    – Brendan Godfrey, 2024 Recipient

    This award aims to fund meaningful opportunities, that are not currently available in your town or regional hub, and for emerging artists wishing to engage with regional South Australia.

    Whatever direction you take, the opportunity should have a meaningful and vital impact on the development of your artistic practice and/or the community you're engaging with, while empowering you to profess your career.

    Key Dates

    Applications open Monday 19 August 2024
    Applications close Tuesday 8 October at 11.59pm
    For activity occurring between 1 January 2025 and 31 December 2025

    For more information
    Contact Helpmann Academy (08) 7089 0720 / info@helpmannacademy.com.au


    APPLY

  • Call for Papers: Music-Making in Australia

    Transnational and Transcultural Exchange

    A Special Issue of Journal of Musicological Research

    Abstract Deadline: 1 October 2024

    Edited by Rachel Orzech, John Gabriel, and Paul Watt

    Transnational and transcultural exchange have long attracted scholarly investigation, but how to frame and analyse such contact has proved an ongoing challenge. Recently, the idea of 'global music history' has attracted music scholars as a new framework to explore the complex issues surrounding cultural contact, exchange, and entanglement from a decentred, non-hierarchical perspective, but it has also attracted criticism for reviving the problematic legacy of comparative musicology and appropriating approaches long used outside the Anglosphere.

    This special-issue journal welcomes proposals of previously unpublished material that ask what research on Australian music and musicians can contribute to these discussions. For instance:

    • How do Australia's histories of European settlement, racial nationalism, restrictive immigration, forced labour, and multiculturalism expand existing narratives of music, race, migration, and diaspora in other settler-colonial societies, especially the United States and Canada?
       
    • How does music's role in relations between Australia's First Peoples and their Southeast Asian and Pacific neighbours contribute to explorations of global networks not centred on or driven by the West?
       
    • How has the growth and development of musical life in Australia been fostered or impeded by its status as a British colony and/or a belief in British/European cultural authority, particularly in relation to notions of insularity, progress and parochialism?
       
    • What can Australia's position as a British colony that itself engaged in colonialism in Southeast Asia and the Pacific tell us about music and colonialism?
       
    • How does Australia's some-time self-image as an Anglo-Western society located in geographic networks of Southeast Asia and the Indian and South Pacific Oceans disrupt narratives of Western and non-Western cultural contact that centre the West on Europe and North America? How does it disrupt the very concept of 'Western music'?
       
    • What styles, idioms, or genres of music have arisen from transnational and transcultural exchange?

    New scholarship that explores new and emerging concepts and frames of thinking relating to Indigenous music, female participation, popular music, minority groups, and interdisciplinary research are especially welcomed.

    Abstracts of 350 words, due by 1 October 2024, should be emailed to

    Paul Watt, paul.watt@adelaide.edu.au

    Or

    Rachel Orzech, orzechr@unimelb.edu.au

  • REPLA.Y.O

    REPLA.Y.O is a reunion orchestra program for Australian Youth Orchestra alumni, scheduled to take place during National Music Camp in Adelaide from Thursday 16–Sunday 19 January 2025. Hosted by Guy Noble, this event offers a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with fellow alumni, enjoy the thrill of performing, and celebrate through iconic works by Beethoven, Strauss, Tchaikovsky and Wells.

    Register by Thursday 31 October

    MORE INFO AND REGISTER

  • Musicology Society Australia SA Chapter Music Research Day 2024

    MSA/SA members and other music scholars in the community are invited to present their work at the MSA/SA Chapter's Research Day, which will be held from 10.00am on Saturday 16 November in the Madley Rehearsal Studio.

    20-minute presentations on any music research-related topic are invited. To present your work please provide an abstract of no more than 250 words to Gillian Dooley (gillian.dooley@flinders.edu.au) by Monday 4 November.

    If you are a postgraduate student at any SA institution, you may also elect to be considered for the 2024 Naomi Cumming Prize. If you are a postgraduate student at the Elder Conservatorium, you may also elect to be considered for the 2024 Elder Conservatorium Prize for Excellence in Postgraduate Research.
     

    MORE INFO