Rate My Professor Helen English

Helen English's research specializations include creative ageing focusing on access to music, music and dementia, and music's transformative effects; music and communities encompassing world-building, colonial music, nineteenth-century music, and music sociology; Australian music; music and social justice; musicology; music and gender; music and wellbeing; and music education. She received an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) for her project on creative ageing through transformative engagement with music. Other honors include the Musicology award from the National Council of Women for her PhD in 2016, Associate Investigator in the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions in 2017, and the Newcastle community group citizen award in 2025 for her work with the Unforgettables choir. Key publications comprise books Together in Music (2021) and Music and World-Building in the Colonial City: Newcastle, NSW, and its Townships, 1860-1880 (2020); recent articles such as 'Transformative engagement with community music-making for older adults: A scoping review' (2025), 'Music groups and connectivity: Older adults' perceptions of socialising through community music' (2025), and 'Musical Spaces in the Asylum in Watt Street, Newcastle, New South Wales' (2025). Her influence extends to leading a creative-ageing research team within the Hunter Medical Research Institute's Healthy Minds program, founding a dementia choir in 2023, creating a digital map of music activities for older adults in Australia, and collaborating on projects with the Royal College of Music, London.