Callaway Centre

Since the opening of the Digitisation Centre of WA (DCWA) in 2020, the Callaway Centre has been working through an ongoing program of digitising its collection. An important element of the relationship between the Callaway Centre and DCWA is based on the Centre being largely a sound archive, therefore digitising its sound recordings is critical and having a significant impact at many levels – from preservation to access. Unlike the paper and object-based aspects of the collections where people can readily view the items, the Callaway Centre is keen to ensure the “sounds” of its collection also available to its visitors and researchers. Digitisation is also important in ensuring that formats reliant on technologies that are slowly becoming redundant and prone to declining quality, such as VHS tapes and audio cassettes, will also be captured and remain accessible. With DCWA preserving the sound, the Centre can focus on preserving the physical carrier.

I have been able to download a sound archive of 'An authentic and unique record of Jacko the broadcasting kookaburra' from your collection and would like to use it in future displays for the Mt Evelyn History Group. We have a project acknowledging Dr Brooke Nicholls who is featured on the record…We would acknowledge the Centre, of course. (Dr) Janice Newton, Mt Evelyn History Group, Victoria

Digitisation Centre of Western Australia

The Callaway Centre has recently received a National Library of Australia Community Heritage Grant to undertake a significance assessment of its large collection of phonograph cylinders. With more than 3,400 wax and celluloid cylinders, which came with the acquisition of the Australian Performing Arts Collection, these historic recordings capture a variety of vocal and instrumental music, voice and sound dating from the 1890s through to the1920s. The funds have supported engaging the services of PhD candidate David Friedrichs, who has extensive knowledge of the technology and history behind the phonograph cylinders, to work with the Centre Manager, Helen Munt, in the assessment. The project will be completed by mid-2024.  

Inaugurated in 1988 as part of the University's 75^th Anniversary celebrations, the Callaway Lecture Series has gone on to become one of the most prestigious events on the Conservatorium of Music calendar.

Since the Lecture Series began, a host of distinguished speakers from all walks of life and around the world have taken the podium to deliver their reflections on a broad range of music-inspired propositions on historical and contemporary themes.

Copies of the lecture papers are available from the Callaway Centre.

In recognition of the worldwide achievements of Sir Frank Callaway in the year of his retirement, the Frank Callaway Foundation for Music was established by the University in 1984.

The aim of the Foundation was to pursue, encourage and stimulate music and music education activities both within Australia and internationally.

Since its establishment, donations and gifts to the Foundation have been received from the many people who admired and benefited from Sir Frank's achievements and who support and enjoy the activities of the Conservatorium of Music and the Callaway Centre.

In 2023, the Callaway Centre participated in the City of Perth Boorloo Heritage Festival. Devised as a guided tour of the campus, the Musical Ramble took visitors on a sensory stroll exploring the stories of the music that has been performed, studied, created and enjoyed around the university campus for nearly 100 years. The event was highlighted by a variety of live musical interludes presented by St George’s College Music Consortium, Conservatorium students, and the Palastrina singers performed at key locations including the Callaway Auditorium, Somerville Auditorium and New Fortune Theatre. 

Creative projects like the Musical Ramble provide extra opportunities to highlight the importance and uniqueness of the archive in a more accessble manner. It is not only finding new ways to engage the public with the archive, it is also providing extra performance opportunities for keen, talented, young musicians wanting to engage with a wider community. David Woods, Director of Music St George’s College

In 2023, the Conservatorium of Music hosted the “Smalley at Large Festival” to celebrate the life and work of internationally recognised pianist, Avantgarde modernist composer and UWA academic Roger Smalley for what would have been his 80^th birthday. As part of the festival, the Callaway Centre installed an exhibition in the Reid Library showcasing material from its Roger Smalley archives. A tour of the Callaway Centre was also given for local and international delegates attending the Smalley Symposium and presentation of more of the Smalley archives. 

For many years the Callaway Centre included a publishing arm for quality academic books on music and music education. Named CIRCME after the former name of the Callaway Centre (Callaway International Resource Centre for Music Education), it established an impressive 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 (ISME) and the Australian Society for Music Education (ASME) thereby expanding its international network and capacity to publish quality materials at non-commercial prices. This in turn facilitated research and community outreach.

In the early 2000s, the publications arm of the Centre was divested. Although publishing ceased functioning, the publications are still proving valuable resources in music education, musicology and performance and copyright royalties help to support the operations of the Callaway Centre.

All CIRCME and Matilda Music Press publications are held by the Callaway Centre.

The project aims were to make the internationally recognised John Blacking Collection available to researchers by processing the collection to archival standards and to share materials from the collection for use in educational and public sector settings. Work began in 2006 on the essential and extensive task of processing the collection using archival standards.

While the material in the Blacking Collection focuses largely on Blacking’s ethnomusicological fieldwork among the Venda people in South Africa in the late 1950s, it also includes fieldwork data from other regions of South Africa, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), Uganda, and Ireland. Many of the papers have further significance as a representation of the various professional, academic and civic activities this scholar was engaged in throughout his life.

The project’s key outcomes included:

• Research publications utilising archival materials and contemporary studies influenced by Blacking’s activities as dance and music scholar, composer, and social activist, directed by Jane Davidson between 2006 and 2013
• Establishment of links with communities in which Blacking worked in South Africa, conducted primarily by Andrea Emberly, Research Fellow at UWA between 2009 and 2012
• Indexing of audio data produced by Blacking between 1956 and 1966 by senior visiting research fellow Jennifer Post
• An exhibition of photographs and recordings from the Blacking Collection at the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery in November 2013

I’m very grateful to the Callaway Centre for caring for the Blacking collection. In my assessment, it counts as one of the most crucial South African collections and will prove indispensable to future research on aesthetic education in the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape. Premesh Lalu, Research Professor and Former Director, Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape

This project, funded by the Australian Research Council (ARC), involved the reclamation of Australia’s musical heritage to enrich musicological, socio-musical and historical accounts of Australian society, and was a collaboration with the University of Western Australia and Monash University. The project involved creating a web-based research infrastructure in support of two major music archival collections: the University of Western Australia’s Handa (Australian Performing Arts) Collection and the Australian Archive of Jewish Music at Monash University.

Important music archive resources were made available to researchers through the use of web-based methods of delivery and universally and easily available online access. The link to the National Library’s acclaimed music sharing resource Music Australia has ensured that the project outcomes are available to the broader community as well as to the community of scholars.

Sound Footings was the second stage of the 2004 ARC-funded project, Preserving Australia’s Sound Heritage. Two further collections were added that included print documents in multiple formats as well as historic sound recordings. Using infrastructure based at the Callaway Centre, UWA fostered Australian music research through the cataloguing, preservation, digitising and digital archiving of the Eileen Joyce Collection.

These additional music archive resources are available to researchers through UWA Collected and the Asian-Australian Music Collection.