Alumni Profile: Dr Ivan Holmes

Degree: Music 1951 Current Position: President and Associate Professor, Australian Guild of Music Education After a lifetime's experience of teaching others, Ivan Holmes took the momentous step of returning to study. He was recently awarded his PhD in Music at 84 years of age. Here, Ivan tells the history of his musical education and his many notable achievements - including his unusual status as 'Australia's only flying music examiner'.

I commenced the piano when I was five years old. As a teenager I learned all about piano playing from Edward Goll, who learned his skills from Emil Saur, who in turn had been a student of the famous Carl Czerny – Beethoven’s well loved student. I began teaching when I was ten (assisting my music teacher) and have been a music examiner for about 40 years.

My Second World War experience saw me in New Guinea in Milne Bay in certain areas of the Kokoda Trail and thence through the Halmahera Islands and into North West Borneo. After a short time in that area, I was appointed to a position in Army Education as officer-in-charge. Soon after the atom bombs were exploded by the Americans in August 1945, I went home to plan for University entrance.

After completing a Bachelor of Music degree at the University of Melbourne in 1950, I was appointed Director of Music for the Victorian Council for Adult Education and at the same time was rehearsal pianist for the Australian Ballet Company and the National Opera – then based in Melbourne. In 1955/56 I did postgraduate study in London developing pianistic and other musical skills, and subsequently, in 1960, joined the Victorian Education Department from which I eventually retired as principal of a large Victorian secondary technical school.

I am currently President of the Australian Guild of Music Education in Melbourne and have written, compiled and computerised 74 Guild professional publications.

My work as a music examiner has taken me to Malaysia, Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and New Zealand as well as around Australia. I have had an unrestricted pilot’s licence since the 1960s and believe I am Australia's only flying music examiner. I fly mainly in Western Australia, for to drive a car around those vast distances when conducting music examinations is entirely out of the question.

In 1999 I met Professor Diana Davis from James Cook University when she was visiting the Australian Guild of Music Education. That chance meeting resulted in my returning to academic study after a fifty-year lapse. I was persuaded to undertake a doctoral thesis on the relationship between studio music teaching and public music examinations. After the mental confusion and indecision at the thought of commencing a major project in my 77th year dissipated, it soon became a deeply absorbing undertaking. I was constantly encouraged by Professor Davis and she enabled me to develop and fulfil the maturing vision of the work ahead. But at 84 years of age I won’t be tempted to do another one.

I was awarded my PhD of Music at the James Cook University in Cairns in May 2007.

I have been married to Violet for over 48 years and we have three daughters, all of whom have bachelor’s degrees: Erin, a music teacher in a secondary school; Linda, a marketing director; and Jennifer, a senior constable with a Masters in Criminology based at Benalla (Victoria) in charge of the serious sex crimes in that area.