Collaboration Strategies for Regional and Rural Music Directors

Amanda Hemley first learnt piano, then started on trombone in Glen Innes. Following a family move, she attended Coomealla High School, in the NSW far west, in the mid-1980s and accessed her larger music experiences through the NSW Education Department run Riverina Regional Music Program (including a regional Big Band Tour in 1987), and State Camps. From there she studied a Diploma of Music Performance at the Flinders St School of Music in Adelaide in the early ‘90s, then a Bachelor of Music Performance at the V.C.A. in Melbourne in the mid-‘90s. She has been teaching in the Wimmera since 1999, where she married a 5th generation local farmer and has raised two young adults. In that time she has supported students to participate in Orchestra Victoria’s “On the Move” program and the Geelong Summer Music Camp. She has also participated in regional Ballarat-based events and both supported and initiated inter-school collaborations involving Nhill College, Dimboola College, Horsham College, Stawell College, Phoenix College and Ballarat High. These events range from Ballarat’s regional Music Festival, instrument specific workshops, beginner massed-band days, overnight intermediate camps, a senior regional recording day and a local combined community & school collaboration concert.