TASME Term 3 Newsletter, 2022

On the 9th of July this year we lost a deeply loved and respected member of TASME and of the music education fraternity. Carolyn Cross had been a member of TASME for many years and was a highly respected and much-loved music teacher throughout the state of Tasmania. She will be sorely missed.

Carolyn's funeral was held in Hobart on Tuesday 19 July.

Carolyn was a recipient of the 2019 Educating for Life Awards, presented at the Perth ASME National Conference. Below is some of the information provided, in 2019, in our nomination of Carolyn for this important award, which really sums up who Carolyn was as a fine music educator and musician in her own right.

Carolyn's contribution to music education in Tasmania will never be forgotten as it will live on in her students and colleagues.

Carolyn is a widely respected music educator in Tasmania and is currently Teacher in Charge of Music at Bellerive Primary School. Formerly, she was Teacher in Charge of Music at Ulverstone High School (1996 – 2010), and as recognition of its status as one of the finest programmes in the state, received a Department of Education Award for Educational Excellence for outstanding contribution to the Arts and the Concert Band. In 2005 Carolyn was awarded a Hardie Fellowship to study Aesthetic Education at the Lincoln Centre Institute in New York.

She has presented workshops, PD sessions and lectures for the following educational organisations.

• • Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra

  • TASME State Conferences

  • Musica Viva Australia

University of Tasmania (UTAS) Master of Teaching students enrolled in the Introduction to Arts Education Unit on Music Education.

Carolyn has been writing educational resources for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra since 2015.

The ensembles that Carolyn builds and directs are always of good quality. She is able to engage a broad range of students in music making whilst maintaining high technical and musical outcomes, whether with choirs, marimba ensembles or orchestral / band instruments.

Carolyn is highly organised and has high expectations of all her students, who – clearly respect her and therefore rise to any challenge she sets. They do so with Carolyn’s support and trust with Carolyn regularly giving them various forms of responsibility.

As a teacher, Carolyn is patient and explicit about what she does and goes out of her way to engage everyone. Carolyn is also self-effacing and does not seek the limelight and just gets on with the job.