Dr Sally Bodkin-Allen Photo: Elana Bai 2016
Dr Sally Bodkin-Allen says that anyone can sing.
Research Manager at the Southern Institute of Technology, Sally is a founding member of the Outreach Singing Aotearoa Trust.
The concept of outreach singing was started in Australia by Associate Professor Susan West around 30 years ago. It's based on ideas of socio-altruistic music-making where, says Sally, "we make music so that others will make music".
“So whenever we do anything that is outreach based, we are thinking outward and we’re thinking about getting people to sing with us rather than performing to them.”
“When we take groups into rest homes, we don’t all stand together like a choir. We scatter ourselves around, we often kneel down and hold hands with the people. We sing with them and they sing with us.”
Sally talks with Bryan Crump about the results of her research on Outreach Singing sessions, other community singing events she’s involved with, and about the musical 18 Eden Avenue that she wrote with Roger Gimblett.
