The Foundation

The Trustees of the Naomi Helen Cumming Foundation are charged with establishing and maintaining a Fellowship to be known as The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship. The purpose of the Foundation is to promote the development of the intellectual understanding and interest of an Awardee in one or more of three fields of musicology. These are historical musicology, systematic musicology, and ethnomusicology.

Scholars who already have a degree of Doctor of Philosophy and at least two years post-graduate experience will be invited to apply. The Fellowship will be awarded by the Trustees on the recommendation of an Advisory Board of women and men, the majority of whom are Senior Lecturers or above of a Music Department of an Australian University.

The fellowship may be awarded annually. Australian Awardees will be presented with the Fellowship on two out of three occasions. The awards will be presented first in the field of systematic musicology, second in the field of historical musicology, and third in the field of ethnomusicology. Australian scholars will be encouraged to take up the Fellowship at an overseas University.

Overseas awardees must be from the field of systematic musicology (in recognition of Dr Cumming's main field of interest) and must take up the Fellowship in Australia.

The Capital of the Foundation

The Fields

1. The historical field the history music arranged by epochs, peoples, empires, countries, provinces, towns, schools, individual artists):
   • Musical palaeography (semiography) (notations).
   • Basic musical categories (groupings of musical forms).
   • Laws: (1) as embodied in the compositions of each epoch, (2) as conceived and taught by the theorists; (3) as they appear in the practice of the arts.
   • Musical instruments
   
   
2. The systematic field (tabulation of the chief laws applicable to various branches of music:
   • Investigation and justification of these laws in: (1) harmony (tonal); (2) rhythm (temporal); (3) melody (correlation of tonal and temporal).
   • Aesthetics, the philosophy,and the psychology of music, and semiotic theory as applied to music: comparison and evaluation in relation to the perceived subjects, with a complex of questions related to the foregoing
   
   
3. Ethnomusicology (the investigation and comparative study of music in ethnography and folklore).
• The study of traditional music and emerging forms of music in the cultural life of a nation, region, or community.

Commencement Date

The Commencement date shall be a date to be determined by the Trustees such date to be five years after the establishment of the Foundation or at such date as the capital of the Foundation shall reach the amount of $1,000,000.00 (One million dollars) whichever is the earlier.

No applications for The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship are being accepted at the present time.

Eligibility Criteria

Applications for The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship will be invited from scholars who already have a degree of Doctor of Philosophy and at least two years post-graduate experience. The Fellowship will be awarded by the Trustees on the recommendation of the Advisory Board to women and men who are considered outstanding scholars in one or more fields of musicology referred to in the preceding definition.

Sequence of the Fellowship Award

The Fellowship Awards may be made annually. In recognition of the chief interests of Naomi Helen Cumming in the systematic field of musicology it is anticipated that the Trustees will award Fellowships in that field of music study on five out of nine occasions on the following basis:

1. Australian awardees will be presented with The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship on two out of three occasions with such awards being presented first in the systematic field, second in the historical field, and third in the ethnomusicology field. Australian scholars will be encouraged to take up The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship at an overseas university.

2. Overseas awardees from the field of systematic musicology will be presented with The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship on one in three occasions and must take up the Fellowship in Australia.

It is envisaged that the sequence of presentation of The Naomi Helen Cumming Fellowship via fields of study will be across fields and countries that repeats every nine years as follows:

Years 1,5
Australian Awardee in the systematic field.

Years 2,7
Australian Awardee in the historical field.

Years 3, 6 & 9
Overseas Awardee in the systematic field.

Years 4,8
Australian Awardee in the ethnomusicology field.

Fellowship Duties

Fellowship Awardees shall present the annual public lecture to be known as The Naomi Helen Cumming Memorial Lecture.

First Members of the Advisory Board

The Reverend Dr Anthony Cumming
Anglican Priest and Psychologist
287 Ormond Road, Narre Warren South, VIC, 3805
Tel. 03 9705 6887
Fax. 03 9796 6576
Email acumming@dingley.net

Dr Kimi Coaldrake
Associate Professor and Associate Dean (Researcher and Higher Degrees)
Elder School of Music, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, S.A., 5000
Tel. 08 8303 5823
Email kimi.coaldrake@adelaide.edu.au

Dr. Craig J. deWilde
Senior Lecturer and Head Department of Music
Monash University, Clayton, Vic, 3168
Tel. 03 9905 5093
Fax. 03 9905 3241
Email craig.dewilde@arts.monash.edu.au

Professor Margaret Kartomi
Professor of Music
Monash University, Clayton, Vic, 3168
Tel. 03 9905 3238
Fax. 03 9905 3241
Email margaret.kartomi@arts.monash.edu.au

Dr. Kerry Murphy
Senior Lecturer
Faculty of Music, University of Melbourne,
Royal Parade, Parkville, VIC., 3052
Tel. 03 8344 7381
Fax. 03 8344 5346
Email k.murphy@music.unimelb.edu.au

Mr Bruce Morrison, CPA
Morrisons Certified Practising Accountants
6/412 Toorak Road, Toorak, VIC., 3142
Tel. 03 9827 7177
Fax. 03 9827 7855
Email morritax@melbpc.org.au