HISTORY AND FOUNDATIONS

When Sir Frank Callaway donated his professional library and personal papers to the University upon his retirement in 1984, Professor David Tunley, Head of the School of Music, proposed that a research centre be established based around “material related to music education from around the world, starting with Sir Frank’s extensive collection”.

In 1988 the Callaway International Resource Centre for Music Education (CIRCME – pronounced ‘search me’) began its operations with support from the Frank Callaway Foundation of Music.

The Centre’s four-fold aims were:

• study and research relating to music education

• building collections of music education resources

• developing archival collections

• publishing materials in the interests of music education that otherwise would not be commercially viable

The first decade for CIRCME was characterised by the vitality and creativity of its Executive Committee and a band of volunteers. The Centre attracted interest and support from around the world through its network of International Corresponding Members in 42 countries, and in 1996, Lord (Yehudi) Menuhin became its Patron-in-Chief for a short time.

During this time the Centre amassed large quantitities of published materials relating to music education and related fields such as musicology, ethnomusicology and contemporary music. These resources were drawn from private collectors, or acquired through funding supplied by generous benefactors. Archival papers from significant international figures such as Eileen Joyce, Irene Kohler and John Blacking were also acquired. The Centre established an international network of music educators and key institutions, and published more than 50 titles, either under its own imprint or that of its specially created music publishing house, Matilda Music Press. Many of these titles were published in association with peak bodies such as the International Society for Music Education and the Australian Society for Music Education.

In his foreword to the Centre's 10th anniversary newsletter in 1999, Chairperson Dr Sam Leong commented:

While CIRCME has in the past decade focused on increasing its resource holdings, expanding its international network and publishing quality materials at non-commercial prices, research and community outreach will be its priorities in the next phase of development.

In the Information Age that dominated the second decade of the Centre, the development of online union catalogues and sophisticated methods of document delivery in libraries allowed the Centre to turn its focus away from the creation and collection of resources and toward research and archival activity.

In the early 2000s, with the Callaway Foundation focused on raising funds for the Callaway/Tunley Chair of Music, the publications arm of the Centre - always intended to be non-commercially viable - was divested. Sir Frank’s earlier success in convincing the University to purchase the historically significant Australian Performing Arts Archive accelerated the long-held notion of the Centre as the custodian of important archival collections. Requiring significant funding to establish physical, technical and intellectual infrastructure, the idea of patronage was extended into Commonwealth government funding. The Centre successfully applied to the Australian Research Council for two grants for projects that would prove critical for the development of the technical infrastructure necessary for professional archival work. In 2003 the University converted a room at the Park Avenue Building into a purpose-built archival facility that included a climate-controlled vault, a researchers room and a workroom for staff. At last the Centre had a home for its valuable archival collections - Sir Frank's own papers, the Eileen Joyce, Irene Kohler and John Blacking Collections. In 2007 the Centre’s online catalogue made the archival collections available to scholars and marked the fulfilment of Sir Frank's vision of the Centre as a hub of research in music.

The activities of the first decade of the Centre are documented in detail in the 10th anniversary newsletter CIRCME: The First Decade (1999).