Jane Morlet Hardie
About
Violin
AYO: 1958, 1959
AYO National Music Camp: 1955, 1956
Based in Sydney, Jane is an Honorary Associate of the Medieval and Early Modern Centre at the University of Sydney. She is also an elected member of the Directorium of the International Musicological Society (IMS).
After her time with AYO, she completed a Bachelor of Music (Violin) at the University of Melbourne which was followed by a Masters of Music (Musicology). She then went on to do her MSLS (Library Science) at the Wayne State University and shortly after completed her PhD in Musicology at the University of Michigan. Jane lived in the USA for ten years, studying and teaching.
Upon returning to Australia, she began teaching at the University of Sydney, then at the Sydney Conservatorium specialising in Musicology. She is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and was a Senior Fulbright Scholar at Harvard. Her many publications are in areas of Medieval and Early Modern Iberian Liturgical Chant and Polyphony, Liturgical Geography, Manuscript studies and Codicology.
Some of her major highlights of her career are as a recorder player when she was part of the
early music revival in Melbourne in the late 1950s, playing recorder with many music ensembles both in the USA and Australia. Her current group, Honie Suckle, has been performing together in Sydney for 30 years.
Having officially retired from teaching, she is actively giving back to the profession as the Chair of an International Mentoring Scheme she founded at the International Musicological Society. Jane is currently on the board of several international journals, and regularly assesses grant applications in Australia, Canada, Spain and Portugal. She is continuing to publish and develop a collection of Spanish Liturgical Music Manuscripts for Rare Books at the University of Sydney.
Q&A
Question: How do you think your time with AYO has benefited you in the long-run?
Answer While I really loved playing in AYO, I discovered that a life as an orchestral violinist was not for me. I play for my own enjoyment now, and in a group as a recorder player. Obviously I define myself as a musician, and believe that the AYO and all it stands for is crucial to the health of our country.
Question: What are some of the impacts of music education?
Answer I believe passionately that every child should have access to a musical education, whether as an instrumentalist, or as a singer in a choir. One of my early experiences as a graduate student in musicology at Cornell University was as a volunteer teaching children in a very poor school to play music and sing. I had no money as a student, but I had a skill. Give someone a way to be creative, and you can never take it away. We could all do something like that for refugee children. It might help give them hope as they settle into a new society.<br> <br> Critically I hope that AYO and all of its programs continue to be made available to all who have the talent but not necessarily the funds.