DT006: The importance of inclusion | DEBORAH CHEETHAM

In this episode soprano Gabriella Di Laccio, founder and curator of the project DONNE, Women in Music talked to the inspirational soprano, composer, writer and educator Deborah Cheetham.

Deborah describes herself as a ‘21st century urban woman who is Yorta Yorta by birth, stolen generation by policy, soprano by diligence, composer by necessity and lesbian by practice.’


In the 2014 Queen’s Birthday Honours List, Cheetham was appointed as an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for “distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance”. In 2009, Deborah Cheetham established Short Black Opera as a national not-for-profit opera company devoted to the development of Indigenous singers. The following year she produced the premiere of her first opera Pecan Summer. This landmark work was Australia’s first Indigenous opera and has been a vehicle for the development of a new generation of Indigenous opera singers.

Deborah Cheetham https://www.shortblackopera.org.au/team . Short Black Opera https://www.shortblackopera.org.au/