Tina Broad Email & Phone Number

Based on Yuin country in South Coast NSW, I work and play where the contemporary music industry, research, and education meet. One of those places is SongMakers, the music mentoring program I developed with music industry peak, APRA AMCOS. Since 2013, Australia’s best songwriters and music producers have been going back to school: turning up with their guitars, road-cases and laptops to write and record new music with high school students, right there in the classroom. It’s all about being creative, collaborative, and using your voice to say something important to you, something that moves people. SongMakers has had federal and State government support, including recent $2m funding from the Victorian government. This nationwide program is driving curriculum change in school systems and influencing the pipeline of Australian global talent so that Australia becomes a net exporter of music. I’m excited about the program’s next decade, as we research its contributions to young people’s wellbeing, and broaden its scope to collaborate with schools in other countries.Before SongMakers, I took on the Music Council of Australia’s brief to turn more Australians into active music-makers – “in schools, communities, everywhere.” I ran the national campaign, Music: Play for Life, which received global recognition, winning the Music Rights Award of the International Music Council in 2011. A million students learned and performed the same song (written and recorded each year by students mentored by industry pros), at the same time, in schools all over the country from Devonport to Darwin – that was the campaign’s flagship, Count Us In. There were versions in Braille and Auslan, and everything from one-teacher remote schools beaming in by satellite, to hundreds of kids on the steps of the Sydney Opera House. A career highlight decade, for sure.While national projects are rewarding, my community work fills my cup too. I run a local, non-audition, choir of about 80 people, helping (too many!) adults come back to singing after traumatic childhood music experiences. I create pop-up choirs, including with local charities, under my Sing Express banner, and I run a community tutor scheme that matches professionals with local Year 12 high school students to help them through their school completion. I walk in wild places, and try to live the maxim that, really, we’re all just holding hands and climbing.