2024 Women to Watch
This year we showcase over 80 South Australian women to watch throughout the year. From business, to careers, arts to science. This year’s selected women highlight the depth and diversity of the women in our state and also the vast array of opportunities to develop a business or career in South Australia. Find our more about our inaugural Women to Watch initiative here.
A creative producer, arts leader, education leader, and PhD Candidate, Emily Gann is committed to harnessing the power of music to enhance community and individual health and well being through deep community engagement. As Founding Director of Connecting the Dots in Music, she has established a growing portfolio of creative music projects that sit at the intersection of the arts, education, community and health sectors. As Founder of Lullaby Project Australia, Emily established a strong and ongoing partnership with Carnegie Hall (New York) and has built unique cross-sector collaborations to establish high impact projects in diverse settings. She was an executive cohort member of the Global Leaders Institute for Arts Innovation (2020-21) and was awarded a Women in Innovation Award in 2023 (Arts). Her projects have been recognised internationally, including an Arts SA Ruby Award in 2020 and was named as finalist in two Ruby Awards categories in 2022 and the Jeunesse Musicale international YAM Awards in 2020. In 2021, she and three international colleagues were named as Hildegard Behrens “Global Humanitarian Entrepreneurs” through the Global Leaders Program. Between 2013-2018, Emily led the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra’s Learning and Community Engagement program where she produced a number of new works and programs for young people and emerging artists. Emily is currently undertaking a PhD through Queensland University of Technology that focuses on the upscaling of community-engaged music projects for health and wellbeing. Emily is a mother of two school-aged children, and works as head of Year 11 at Immanuel College.
// Favourite inspirational quote
“The most important thing music can do is bring people together” Sir Simon Rattle
“There’s an alternative. There’s always a third way, and it’s not a combination of the other two ways. It’s a different way.” David Carradine
// Let’s get to know you
Through an intrinsic passion for enriching lives through music, and an innate interest in the areas of community-engagement and positive mental health and wellbeing, I have always followed different avenues and explored different pathways through my career. My love for learning, combined with an adventurous and determined mindset, has led me to develop many new and creative initiatives in an quest to find answers to questions, and to nurture small ideas in order to see what they can become.
My career so far has involved:
– living overseas in the UK for a total of 4 years across three counties, carrying out various roles in the arts and education.
– carrying out a year of Law before deciding to follow my longterm passion of music making, education, project management and artistic direction
– studied at University of Qld for 5 years receiving a Bachelor of Music (performance) with 1st Class Honours and a DipEd.
– teaching in primary years and secondary music classrooms in Qld and SA
– worked as Learning and Community Engagement Coordinator for the Adelaide Symphony where I overhauled and reimagined their interactions and engagement with students and families
– worked as a Year Level Coordinator at immanuel alongside music education roles
– founded Connecting the Dots in Music and Lullaby Project Australia
After working in a major performing arts company for 6 years, and with a passion for music education and creative music making with communities, I recognised an gap and urgent need to discover ways to bridge the divide between professional musicians and music organisations and community organisations and members. I realised the need for a small, nimble and community-engaged organisation to support communities to develop projects that met the needs of their community, in collaboration with professional artists/organisations. Connecting the Dots in Music was established in 2018 and has since continued to build significantly impactful and rewarding projects across SA communities. We are very small, but achieve wonderful things with big heart and enormous impact across communities.
// What makes you a Woman to Watch for 2024?
The work I achieve is adventurous, bold, fearless, exciting, full of compassion, and seeks to raise others up and connect people. Examples of my key ongoing projects from recent years include:
Lullaby Project Australia see parents and caregivers collaborate with professional musicians to write lullabies for their babies. This has taken placein diverse settings including Flinders Medical Centre NICU, Helen Mayo House, high schools, supported housing services, community centres, children’s centres and across entire regions including the Yorke Peninsula. The only project of its kind in Australia, I established Lullaby Project Australia in 2019 through an international partnership with Carnegie Hall, and the project has grown and strengthened ever since. www.lullabyprojectaustralia.com
Music For All Project is an artist in residency program that sees small teams of specially trained musicians collaborate with students with diverse physical/intellectual needs to create and perform their own musical production. This project is based on children’s storybooks created by SA artists. In 2021 CtDiM commissioned a brand new illustrated storybook with accompanying musical score, “The Nest” that has now bee performed and enjoyed by hundreds of young people across SA in schools, Adelaide Festival Centre, Art Gallery of SA. In 2024, I will travel to New York with two colleagues to present The Nest as an accessible workshop and performance at Carnegie Hall. https://www.connectingthedotsinmusic.com/music-for-all-project
What Do You Do With An Idea? began as a collaboration I devised and led at Adelaide Symphony from 2017, and continued to grow through my work at CtDiM. In partnership with internationally acclaimed author, Kobi Yamada, and UK composer, Paul Rissmann, the project saw us bring to life the multi- award winning book, What Do You Do With An Idea? as an immersive musical production, publicly released album (recorded by Adelaide Symphony and Young Adelaide Voices), mini video documentary, and educational Creativity Guide resource that will soon be published internationally. In 2019, the work was performed by London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican. https://www.connectingthedotsinmusic.com/what-do-you-do-with-an-idea
Building a community of specially trained musicians to undertake work in partnership with communities is a key aspect to my work, and has let me to co-design and deliver artist development program in Adelaide, at UKARIA Cultural Centre, and on the Yorke Peninsula. The content and design of these training programs has been done in consultation with leaders in the field overseas. https://www.connectingthedotsinmusic.com/training
Working with key community staff, including libraries across SA, to support them to lead quality music-focussed family sessions is an area I have driven for the past 5 years. In partnership with State Library SA, I have provided professional development to over 90 librarians in recent years in an effort to ensure families across SA can access quality community-based music activities. This project “Making Music Matter” has been hugely successful and valued by participant librarians for many years afterwards. https://www.connectingthedotsinmusic.com/making-music-matter
In April 2024, I will be traveling with two colleagues to present one of our Music For All Projects (The Nest) at Carnegie Hall’s Spring Family Day for hundreds of New York families. This is my 3rd funded trip to New York to share our work and develop key international partnerships with US arts leaders.
As head of Year 11 at Immanuel college, I oversee the health and wellbeing of 220 students, supporting families and staff throughout the student’s educational journey. I love this role and am honoured to be granted this vital responsibility of ensuring we guide and mentor young adults to become the best human beings they possibly can.
As a PhD candidate at QUT, I am drawing upon all areas of my career and interests to research scalable models of Lullaby Project across SA to promote community connection and positive health and wellbeing. I am incredibly excited to be on this research journey, supported by incredibly supervisors and a wonderful department that believes in the power of education and arts to change lives.
// What are you most looking forward to in 2024?
I am looking forward to expanding my research as my PhD progresses and working with international partners to explore project scalability of Lullaby Project. I am incredibly excited by this research opportunity and cannot wait to progress further into the project and learning.
Presenting our project The Nest is an incredibly exciting milestone and achievement for me and CtDiM and I can’t wait to be back in New York to immerse myself in learning, exploring and building new connections. I am looking forward to visiting amazing organisations and meeting wonderful new artists, leaders and researchers in Boston across three different universities.
I look forward to being a mum and spending time with my gorgeous children.
// What would being a Woman to Watch mean to you?
I am so thankful to the person who nominated me – it means so very much! It would mean a great, great deal to be named as a Women to Watch for 2024. I am an incredibly hard but quiet worker who loves following my passion and creating ways to improve lives through the arts. The diversity of my arts/community/education roles, (as well as being a mum who adores spending time with my children), means that I do not have a great deal of time or the means to promote this work with the world or advocate for longer term funding. To be publicly acknowledged would be amazing – and most importantly, it would be invaluable to help raise the profile and visibility of the impact and value of the research and practice that I have been developing and demonstrating across communities over the past 10 years. This much needed work has been proven to support mental health and wellbeing of individuals and communities and I would love for more organisations, funders, community members to learn about it and to get involved.
// What would you like to see for the future of South Australian women and girls?
Girls and women seen as equals – intelligent, capable, strong, compassionate, wonderful people who don’t need to prove themselves in any way other than for who they are.
I worry deeply about the way our young girls are coping with the stress of social media and technology – body image, expectations, opportunities – and I hope that we can find a way to better empower our young girls and women to believe in themselves beyond the superficial values placed on them. I want girls and women to feel proud, heard, valued, seen in a positive way, in a world full of amazing role models who are also valued by men and women for their strength, leadership, guidance, achievements, humility, kindness and creativity.
Get in touch with Emily:
LinkedIn: Emily Gann
Website: www.connectingthedotsinmusic.com
Check out all of the incredible Women to Watch for 2024 here as their profiles are uploaded throughout the year.
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