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ISSN 1039-3498 | no. 44 | April 2000


New Curator of Music

Robyn Holmes, the NLA's new Curator of Music

Robyn Holmes, the National LIbrary's new Curator of Music

Robyn Holmes has accepted the recently created osition of Curator of Music at the National Library of Australia. Robyn currently heads the Department of Literature and Materials of Music and the Graduate Program in Music at the Canberra School of Music, Australian National University. She will take up the position in June.

Through the new position, the Library seeks to renew a leadership role in the collection, development, use and promotion of music resources, particularly in relation to Australian music. A key priority for the Curator will be to collaborate with other institutions to ensure a national infrastructure that promotes the development of, and access to, music collections. As Curator, Robyn will also have responsibility within the Library for policy and collection development in music, and for coordination of music-related materials in all forms, including published music, folkloric recordings and archival collections. Robyn will also develop and improve services for researchers using the Library’s music collections.

Robyn has particular scholarly interests in Australian music. She has developed and managed large cross-institutional projects, most notably the National Networked Facility for Research in Australian Music—a developmental research project launched by the Minister for the Arts and the Centenary of Federation, the Hon. Peter McGauran MP, in 1999—and the Anthology of Australian Music on Disc, a joint project of the Canberra School of Music, the Australian Music Centre and ScreenSound Australia.

Robyn received outstanding reviews for the book Larry Sitsky: A Bio-Bibliography (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1997), and her community project ‘Through the Opera Glass: A Chronological Register of Opera in South Australia from 1836 to the Present’ won the International Opera Guild’s Award for Outstanding Opera Resources Project in 1991.

As Artistic Director of numerous choirs in both Adelaide and Canberra (most recently the Canberra Choral Society), Robyn has conducted a wide repertoire of choral works and has been responsible for performing and commissioning works by Australian composers, the most recent being a choral work by Martin Wesley-Smith for the Centenary of Federation. She has also promoted the performance of traditional music and has facilitated the development of a world musics program at the Canberra School of Music.

Robyn has participated in library policy development as a member of the A.N.U. and Institute of the Arts Library Policy and Collection Committees. She was Chair of the National Music Reference Group, which was inititated by the National Library in 1996 to address key issues for the provision of music in Australia. Robyn is a former National Secretary and committee member of the Musicological Society of Australia, and has been involved in organising the Society’s national and international conferences.

Well-known throughout the academic and library communities, Robyn will seek to ‘promote a greater understanding of the significance of our nation’s musical treasures and plan for the future, through collaborative activity that will develop and sustain a national infrastructure in music’.

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Please address any comments and enquiries to The Editor, Gateways: tford@nla.gov.au

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