Singing in La Voce Della Luna Italian women's choir in Melbourne, Australia

Australia is a country of ongoing migration that embraces diversity, creative expression and cultural activity. Membership of community music groups by older people can enhance life quality, and may provide a space through which cultural and linguistic identity may be shared and celebrated. This qualitative phenomenological case study explores engagement by older members of La Voce Della Luna, an Italian women’s community choir based in Melbourne, Victoria. This article presents one case study from a larger ongoing research project, Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. In this study, data were gathered from documentary sources and by individual and focus group semi-structured interviews in 2013. Employing interpretative phenomenological analysis two significant themes emerged: Social connection and combatting isolation; and New horizons: music-making and social justice. This article describes how active music for older women provides opportunities to learn new skills, new ideas, and create for themselves a resilient community.

Exploring and expressing Italian musical heritage in Melbourne (Australia): a women’s community choir

Australia comprises many cultures, ethnicities, and languages. Belonging to community music groups by older people can enhance quality of life, offer a sense fulfilment, and provide a space through which cultural and linguistic identity may be shared and celebrated. This qualitative case study explores engagement by older members of La Voce Della Luna, an Italian women’s community choir based in Melbourne, Victoria. Older Australians, particularly those from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds frequently rely on voluntary community arts organisations to enhance quality of life. Singing together can provide ways for individuals and communities to express themselves, build community identity, improve quality of life, and celebrate cultural heritage. The members of the choir know that under their inspiring conductor they would learn new songs, new languages and new ways of performing. Their music director saw that the women’s singing together opened new horizons of social engagement and new ideas such as social justice and women’s rights.
This case is from the larger ongoing joint research project (2008 ongoing), Well-being and ageing: community, diversity and the arts in Victoria. Data were gathered from documentary sources and by individual and focus group semi-structured interviews (2013) and were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. Significant themes emerged: social connection and combatting isolation, the maintenance and transmission of cultural heritage, and opening horizons about music making and social justice. This paper demonstrates that active music making makes it possible for older women to learn new skills, new ideas, and create for themselves a resilient community.

Dancing with inter-disciplinarity: strategies and practices in higher education dance drama and music

The rise of inter-disciplinarity has not occurred without debate and controversy. Often responding to government agendas, it is not uncommon for university research strategies to include inter-disciplinarity by default, by supporting multidisciplinary collaborations across the institution, nationally and internationally – industry and business being a particular focus. Beginning from the premise that Inter-disciplinary is where students/staff from more than one discipline learn with, from and about one another through a common activity, usually in the context of practice, this report documents the findings of a recent research project aimed to document ways in which inter-disciplinary approaches were active in universities, how they were resourced, what made them effective, and in what ways they are limited.

Validation of the Italian version of the Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale-Second Edition (Y-BOCS-II) in a clinical sample

OBJECTIVE: The Yale-Brown Obsessive Compulsive Scale (Y-BOCS) is the most widely accepted measure of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptom severity. Recently, the scale has been revised into a second edition (Y-BOCS-II) in order to improve its measurement properties. The present study aimed to evaluate the psychometric properties of the Italian version of the Y-BOCS-II Severity Scale (SS) in a large clinical sample. METHOD: The original version of the Y-BOCS-II was translated into Italian, which involved forward and back-translation procedures. The Italian Y-BOCS-II-SS was administered to one hundred twenty-five treatment-seeking adults with OCD, together with the original Y-BOCS-SS and a battery of self-report measures assessing OCD symptom severity and depressive and anxious symptomology. The factor structure, internal consistency, temporal stability, and construct validity were investigated on the whole sample, while inter-rater and test-retest reliability were assessed on a subsample of participants. RESULTS: Factor analyses revealed a two-factor structure different from those of the original scale, comprising (1) symptom severity; and (2) interference from symptoms. Internal consistency, test-retest reliability over a 2-week period and inter-rater reliability were satisfactory. The Y-BOCS-II-SS also showed excellent construct validity (and better than the Y-BOCS-SS), with good convergent and discriminant validity when assessed against other OCD symptom measures and measures of depression, anxiety and worry. CONCLUSIONS: These findings suggest that the Italian version of the Y-BOCS-II-SS retains the adequate psychometric properties of the original and that it can be confidently used as an assessment tool of OCD symptoms in both clinical and research settings.