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Research

Research at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music includes creative work in performance and composition and music-related scholarship in the fields of western musicology, ethnomusicology, music education and experimental research in music performance and production.

The Sydney Conservatorium of Music is host to research centre - PARADISEC.

PARADISEC (Pacific and Regional Archive for Digital sources in Endangered Cultures) is a cross-institutional, cross-faculty interdisciplinary facility directed by Dr Linda Barwick. Established in 2003 by the University of Sydney (SCM and Faculty of Arts) in partnership with the University of Melbourne and the Australian National University, PARADISEC has emerged as a national and international leader in the digital archiving and management of cultural resources. Its mission is to preserve and make accessible Australian researchers' field recordings of endangered languages and musics of the Asia-Pacific region. Its 18 Chief Investigators are in Linguistics, Music and Anthropology and it is funded by the Australian Research Council.

Closely linked to PARADISEC is the National Recording Project for Indigenous Music an initiative between the University of Sydney, the University of Melbourne, the Yothu Yindi Foundation and the Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies. Led by Professor Allan Marett, Dr Mandawuy Yunupingu and Professor Marcia Langton. The mission of the National Recording Project is to systematically record and document the unique and endangered performance traditions of Indigenous Australia. Through this process, it will assist in the development of local knowledge centres and other digital archives as primary repositories for locally recorded and documented materials, and a secure national repository in which copies of all data generated can be archived.

The current and recent research projects being conducted at the SCM include:

  • ‘Preserving Australia's endangered heritages: Murrinhpatha song at Wadeye.’ ARC Discovery Project 2004-2008. (Prof. Allan Marett, Dr. Michael Walsh, Dr. Nicholas Reid, Dr. Lysbeth Ford; Senior Research Fellow: Dr Linda Barwick)
  • ‘Transformations from Renaissance to Baroque: The Cultural and Musical Significance of Giovanni Gabrieli.’ ARC Discovery Project 2004. Professor Richard Charteris.
  • ‘When the Waters Will Be One: Indigenous Performance Traditions at the New Frontier of Inter-Cultural Discourse in Arnhem Land.’ ARC Discovery Project 2004-2007. Dr Aaron Corn, Professor Marcia Langton; Australian Postdoctoral Fellow: Aaron Corn.
  • ‘Enhancing excellence in western classical singing and pedagogy.’ ARC Discovery Project 2005-2008. Associate Professor Dianna Kenny, Densil Cabrera, Dr. Michael Halliwell; Australian Postdoctoral Fellow: Helen Mitchell.
  • ‘A cross-cultural study of the music play practices of children in school playgrounds.’ ARC Discovery Project 2002-2004. Dr Kathryn Marsh
  • ‘An ethnomusicological study of Lirrga, a genre of Australian Aboriginal song from NW Australia.’ ARC Discovery Project 2001-2003. Professor Allan Marett
  • ‘The Music of Giovanni Gabrieli and His Venetian Contemporaries.’ ARC Discovery Grant 2001-2003. Professor Richard Charteris
  • 2001-2003 ‘Maintaining excellence in an opera chorus.’ ARC Linkage Project 2001-2003. (Dr Pamela Davis, Dr Jenni Oates, Associate Professor Dianna Kenny).
  • ‘Breaking the juvenile crime cycle: Rehabilitating high-risk young offenders.’ ARC Linkage Project. (Associate Professor Dianna Kenny, Professor Tony Butler, Dr Christopher Lennings).
  • ‘Planning for sustainability of the National Recording Project on Indigenous Music of Australia.’ ARC Linkage Project. (Professor Marett, Dr. Barwick, Dr Corn, Professor Langton).

Internally funded projects include:

  • Arnold Schoenberg's Collaborations: Alienation, Denigration and the Desire for Popularity (Dr. Jennie Shaw)
  • Community Radio and Public Culture in Australia: Popular Music, Political Discourse and Participatory Media (Dr Charles Fairchild)
  • The Exultet in the Iberian Peninsula c. 1000 - c. 1200. (Dr. Kathleen Nelson)
  • Documenting the Realisation of Yolŋu Performance Traditions on Country: A Pilot Study Towards the National Recording Project for Indigenous Performance in Australia.’ Dr Aaron Corn, Professor Allan Marett)
  • The impact of yoga on boys with disruptive behaviour disorders (Associate Professor Dianna Kenny)
  • Strategic links with Archive of Indigenous Languages of Latin America, University of Texas at Austin, and Archive of Maori and Pacific Music, University of Auckland.’ Dr Linda Barwick, Professor Allan Marett, Professor William Foley
  • Makassan Musicians for the Fourth Garma Symposium on Indigenous Performance. (Professor Allan Marett, Dr Aaron Corn)
  • Renegotiating Musicology: An Australian Perspective on Critical and Theoretical Thinking about Research into Music (Dr Aaron Corn)