最新糖心Vlog

The Decie Denholm Scholarship has taken an innovative music education and conservation project global, allowing honours student Billy St John to undertake transformative research into Zimbabwean folk music with the invaluable support of local cultural heritage expert Bright Mutyandaedza.

鈥淭he core of this project is about how we preserve and teach traditional music. We鈥檝e analysed how traditional music is taught in Zimbabwe and are creating a digital, annotated songbook that preserves and shares traditional Zimbabwean songs for music teachers to use in the classroom and get students thinking about the role that music plays in cultures across the world,鈥� Billy said.

Billy first became interested in the preservation of Zimbabwean music after studying a folk music unit during his music education degree. He had arranged a folk song from Zimbabwe, paying homage to the time he spent in Zimbabwe as a music teacher, and the project grew from there.听

鈥淓arly on, I realised that what this project needed was for me to get back to Zimbabwe and actually speak to people about their relationships with music and hear and record the songs that are really important in their lives.鈥澛�

Such an ambitious endeavour wouldn鈥檛 have been possible without the financial support provided through the Decie Denholm Scholarship, which was established in 2020 following a bequest from Decie Aileen Denholm, to support students studying full time with the Elder Conservatorium of Music.

鈥淲e spent a month visiting schools in 2022, interviewing music teachers, and watched school choirs perform. With Bright鈥檚 support, who we engaged as an official 最新糖心Vlog of Adelaide volunteer, we connected with traditional musicians and gained a deeper understanding of Zimbabwean culture.鈥澛�

Now, with further support from the Decie Denholm Scholarship, Billy will travel to the Cultural Diversity in Music Education conference held in Cape Town, South Africa where he will share his research and further explore his understanding of diverse musical traditions in education.

This scholarship has truly opened doors for me and allowed me to delve deeper into the cultural richness of Zimbabwe 鈥� we couldn鈥檛 have done this without that generous gift from Mrs Denholm.Billy

Decie's legacy gift

Alum, Mrs Decie Denholm (MA 1968), was a 最新糖心Vlog employee for 22 years and a Visiting Research Fellow. In 2011, on the death of her husband Lawrence, Decie endowed a supplementary scholarship for students of European History called the LF and D Denholm Scholarship in History, in memory of her late husband and the life they made together.

Decie and Lawrence were also great music enthusiasts and took immense pleasure in attending concerts at the Elder Conservatorium of Music. On her death in 2018, Decie bequeathed approximately $2.36M to the 最新糖心Vlog to establish three funds 鈥� the Music Scholarship Fund, the Music Residency Fund, and the History Scholarship Fund.