Deborah Cheetham

Deborah Cheetham AO – Yorta Yorta woman, soprano, composer, and educator – has been a leader and pioneer in the Australian arts landscape for more than twenty-five years. 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’.

Epiphany: 'A Night at the Opera' by Deborah Cheetham

August 2019, no. 413 • 23 July 2019

It’s such a vivid memory. I’m sitting in the carriage of a train, travelling from Caringbah to Oatley. It’s a Saturday afternoon late in January and I am returning home after a morning of competition tennis. The members of my team, Gilmour 5, have gone their separate ways after another successful start to the year. It is 1979 and for the past two years we have won our grade undefeated, havin ... (read more)