Dr Tina Broad
I’ve spent three decades at the intersections of the music industry, education, community, and research.
From 2004 to 2012, I consulted to the Music Council of Australia, running Music: Play for Life, a national initiative designed to encourage more active music-making across the Australian community, including in schools. I developed the flagship program, Music: Count Us In, which brought together over a million students, teachers and families each year, provided innovative teacher professional development, and created inclusivity-promoting resources, including in AUSLAN and Braille. The campaign received global recognition, winning the overall Music Rights Award from the International Music Council (UNESCO) in 2011 for promoting music education in a nation state.
In 2013 I founded with APRA AMCOS, and led til 2024, a national high school music mentoring program, SongMakers - an industry/government partnership designed to create a stronger songwriting culture in Australia. The program was acknowledged as a model for curriculum innovation and student engagement, gender equity, for the priority given to reaching young people in the regions, and for its positive impacts on participating young people’s wellbeing. Independent research found it to be internationally significant in arts and vocational education. I earned my PhD (Education) during this time, exploring education and career pathways in contemporary music and the experiences of Australia’s new breed of globally-active collaborative songwriters and producers.
Way back, I grew up on legends such as Ella Fitzgerald, Sarah Vaughan, and Duke Ellington and later found my way to the likes of Stevie Wonder, and Earth, Wind & Fire - a music diet that nourished my intuitive ear for harmony. Workshop experiences with luminaries including Sweet Honey in the Rock, Eric Dozier (ex-Harlem Gospel Choir), Austin Willacy, and Tony Backhouse among others have helped shape my own approach to group singing.
As the founder and director of Sing Express, I've led pop-up workshops across Australia, Japan, Fiji, Samoa, and New Zealand, inspiring - I hope - many people to find joy and connection through singing. I co-created Chorus 4 Kindness, a pub choir-style collaboration with the Milton Ulladulla Community Kindness initiative (MUCK Up), raising funds to support anti-bullying programs for young people. I lead The Glorious MUDSingers choir of more than 60 voices, a much-loved community group I founded 20 years ago and which is now a powerful cultural and economic force, having raised well over $100,000 for local charities.
So, that's me in a nutshell. Now come say hello!
