Making Music at the Bottom of the World

Sally is a musician, music educator, composer, arranger, writer, academic and mother of five. She composes and arranges for multiple groups including choirs and brass bands. She has composed musicals that have been performed locally and internationally with the most recent being the world premiere of 18 Eden Avenue in Invercargill last year. She is a writer who has edited a book about the musical life of Southland called Making Music at the Bottom of the World. She is well-known nationally in music education, having edited MENZA’s (Music Education New Zealand Aotearoa) Tune Me In magazine, for a number of years. She also serves on the Board of the international research group ANZARME (Australia New Zealand Association for Music Education), Arts Murihiku, the management committee for the local Out of School Music Classes, and is a founding member of Outreach Singing Aotearoa. Sally is very involved in the local music scene; she teaches on the Bachelor of Contemporary Music degree at SIT (where she is also the Research Manager), she teaches at Out of School Music Classes on Saturday mornings, she has run the SIT Kids Concerts for the past 21 years, and this year she was musical director for Gore Musical Theatre’s successful season of The Addams Family, as well as directing The Sing Thing, an event held at the ILT Southland Stadium which saw 1400 members of the community come together to sing.