Deborah Cheetham

Cheetham wrote Australia’s first requiem based on the frontier wars between first nations people in South Western Victoria and settlers between 1840-1863. The requiem, "Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace" is sung entirely in the Gunditjmara language. The first performance of the requiem on 15 June 2019 will feature Cheetham with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, the MSO Chorus and the Dhungala Children’s Choir.

In November 2019 Cheetham was appointed Professor of Practice at the Sir Zelman Cowen School of Music. She is also the 2020 Composer in Residence at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra.

In 2018 Cheetham was one of 52 people who contributed to Anita Heiss's book Growing Up Aboriginal in Australia, along with Adam Goodes, Miranda Tapsell and Celeste Liddle.

Cheetham was inducted onto the Victorian Honour Roll of Women in 2015. In June 2019 she received the Sir Bernard Heinze Memorial Award in recognition of her outstanding service to music.

In the 2014 Queen's Birthday Honours List, Cheetham was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO), for "distinguished service to the performing arts as an opera singer, composer and artistic director, to the development of Indigenous artists, and to innovation in performance".

In October 2010, Cheetham's opera Pecan Summer, based on the 1939 Cummeragunja walk-off, opened in Mooroopna, Victoria. She wrote, composed and performed in the production by the Short Black Opera Company.

As a soprano, Cheetham has performed in France, Germany, Switzerland, the United Kingdom and New Zealand. She sang at the opening ceremonies of the 2000 Summer Olympics and the 2003 Rugby World Cup.

In 1997 Cheetham wrote the autobiographical play White Baptist Abba Fan which tells of her experiences of coming to terms with her homosexuality and racial identity while trying to reunite with her Aboriginal family. White Baptist Abba Fan has toured internationally.

Deborah Joy Cheetham, AO (born 24 November 1964), is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, actor, composer and playwright.