Bridging sound, culture and community across borders
As the 2026 recipient of the Richard Chauvel PhD Scholarship, Muhammad Rayhan Sudrajat is continuing a legacy made possible through gifts in Wills - support that helps sustain long-term research partnerships and deepen understanding between Indonesia and Australia.
An ethnomusicologist and sound artist from Indonesia, Rayhan explores how music operates as both artistic expression and a living system of knowledge, carrying memory and identity across generations, and sustaining cultural continuity beyond place.
Richard Chauvel’s vision in establishing this scholarship through a gift in his Will was defined by a commitment to building bridges between Indonesia and Australia and to fostering a deeper understanding of Eastern Indonesian societies. The scholarship is a practical, enduring way to realise that vision, supporting researchers whose work connects communities, cultures and knowledge across borders.
Rayhan’s doctoral research at the University of Melbourne focuses on Eastern Indonesian musical traditions, with a particular emphasis on West Papua within diasporic communities in Australia. At its core, the project asks a timely question: how do communities maintain their cultural identity through sound when they are geographically distant from their homeland?
Through an integrated approach encompassing ethnographic research, digital media practices and collaborative engagement with communities, Rayhan investigates how music functions as a medium of connection, linking people to place and to one another while grounding them in shared histories. In Melbourne’s multicultural setting, these sonic practices take on new forms shaped by migration, technological change and everyday life.
Rayhan brings substantial field experience to this work. Over more than a decade in Central Kalimantan, he has documented ritual and musical traditions of Dayak communities through close, sustained collaboration. These long-term engagements have shaped not only his research but also his commitment to working collaboratively with communities whose knowledge is often underrepresented in academic discourse. His approach does not treat culture as static or archival but as something lived, performed and continuously reinterpreted over time.
At a broader level, the research speaks to urgent global conversations about cultural preservation, diaspora and the role of Indigenous and local knowledge systems in contemporary society. By focusing on sound as a mode of knowledge, Rayhan’s work offers a distinct perspective, one that foregrounds listening, embodiment and relational understanding.
Receiving the Richard Chauvel PhD Scholarship holds particular significance for Rayhan. It enables the time, travel and community-based collaboration that rigorous cultural research requires and helps ensure that knowledge not only circulates within academia but also resonates with the communities it seeks to represent.
Through the scholarship, Rayhan joins a growing community of scholars committed to research with real-world relevance — work that strengthens relationships, supports cultural continuity and fosters deeper intercultural understanding.
As Rayhan reflects:
Sound carries memory in ways that words often cannot.
Through this research, I hope to show how music becomes a living bridge, connecting communities across geography, time, and cultural boundaries.
By continuing Chauvel’s legacy, Rayhan’s work highlights the enduring power of culture to connect people across difference - and the lasting impact that a gift in a Will can have in sustaining these connections in an increasingly mobile and interconnected world.
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