DR JOY SOTHERAN

Joy Sotheran (BA, DipEd, MMus, MEd, PhD) has been addicted to music since she can remember. As a pre-schooler, she clearly recalls sitting beside her mother who would play nursery rhymes on the piano from music books. First day at school and every other day till her request was granted she asked sister if she could please learn the piano? Her piano teacher was her favourite person. She played excerpts from  La  Boheme and  Traviata for Joy on a portable record player and that was it!

As Head of Music at St Vincent's College, Potts Point, Joy delighted in supporting and encouraging her students to enjoy serious study of music and music making. In addition to the classroom this involved bringing professional performers to the school as well as many excursions to performances. It also involved music students' participation in the life of the school and the local community as composers and performers. One of her students' most popular activities was their involvement in the Opera Australia schools program. What a thrill to hear students arguing over who was the better Dido: Emma Kirkby or Dame Janet Baker!

Later, as Education Director at Opera Australia Joy created diverse activities and resources for teachers and students to learn to love opera. Her aim in developing curriculum materials for teachers was to make it easier for them to include opera not only in the music curriculum, but in drama, art, design & technology, history, English literature, business studies and even mathematics - if she could squeeze it in. Someone must count the takings!

  Joy's own music studies include musicology covering the Western tradition, as well as ethnomusicology, specifically Australian Indigenous music. Her Masters thesis was on the music of Anne Boyd and her Doctoral thesis explored the extent to which musical creativity can be taught and assessed.