About CSME

Mal Hewitt OAM — Foundation Artistic Director and visionary

Mal founded Celebration Sing Out! ® and the TOPS orchestra in 1993 and was their driving force for 33 years of concerts. He retired as Artistic Director in 2026, having turned 80, and Warren Fisher succeeded him.

Mal is highly regarded for his leadership and advocacy for music education as a right for all children. He was awarded an OAM in 2014 for his services to music education and the community.

He graduated from Sydney Teachers College and the Conservatorium of Music in 1966 and holds a Diploma of Music. His career spanned forty years with the NSW Department of Education as a classroom music teacher, a Head Teacher, Deputy Principal, and Senior Education Officer in the Performing Arts Unit, where he was responsible for state-wide school music programs. His focus was the development of band and orchestral programs in schools of great economic disadvantage.

On retiring in 2004, Mal teamed up with colleagues to establish the Collegiate of Specialist Music Educators (CSME) to lobby for a quality music education for every child, especially children facing economic disadvantage.

Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song.

Plato

Music for children

The Collegiate’s members were current and retired music education professionals, with rich and varied backgrounds: teachers in schools and studios, performers, conductors, composers, academics, administrators, leaders of educational and musical institutions, executives of the NSW Department of Education, and parents.

They wanted it shouted, or sung, from the rooftops: music, the most approachable and accessible of the arts, is essential to a life of quality and meaning for every child. They wanted all Australians to know what the world’s most successful education systems already show, that children who experience music and the other creative arts in depth grow up healthier, happier and brighter.

And that it matters most of all for children who are very sick in hospital.

A diverse and inclusive choir

The full list of cultures, languages and choirs represented is on our singers.

We are one, but we are many. Over the years the Celebration choirs have included singers of Aboriginal heritage, among them Dunghutti, Wiradjuri, Wonnarua, Gathang and Pitjantjatjara, and singers whose heritage and languages span Europe, the Middle East, South Asia, East Asia and the Pacific. Choristers come from dozens of community, church, school and philharmonic choirs across NSW and beyond, and many from no choir at all.

Celebration Sing Out! is a diverse and inclusive massed choir. It also welcomes and supports people who live with disadvantage and disability.