Waikato’s first DMA to graduate this month

14 October 2014

Waikato’s first DMA to graduate this month

Three years of hard work and determination has finally paid off for New Zealand Opera singer, Beverley Pullon, who graduates this month with a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) – the first Waikato graduate to do so. She is also only the second graduate in New Zealand to gain this qualification.

“My DMA journey has been extremely long and exhausting, but at the same time very rewarding. I am so proud to have reached the end and it will be an incredibly special moment when I receive my doctoral cap at the graduation ceremony next Wednesday,” she says.

A Hillary Scholar, Beverley is now also the recipient of several Blues awards. At the recent Wallace Corporate University of Waikato Blues Awards ceremony she received another two Blues Awards (one for service to the performing arts and the other for performing). The Blue is a prestigious award for excellence in sport or creative and performing arts, and recognises regional and national excellence, through to world champions.

Beverley received a doctoral scholarship in 2010 to complete her DMA at Waikato and managed to do this while participating in a number of operas with lead roles, and working part-time as a haematology scientist at Waikato Hospital.

The DMA degree includes critically appraised musical performances and undertaking research to write a thesis. Beverley's doctoral research combined scientific measurement and practical opera singing by looking at the relationship of the cricothyriod space (in the larynx) to vocal range in females.

“The idea originally came from attending a singing seminar. The professor told me I had a really small cricothyroid space and when I asked him what the significance of that was, he couldn’t really answer me,” she says.

“My hospital job involves testing blood samples, so it made sense to do a scientific study as I can easily understand and interpret scientific measurements.”

She used ultrasound scanning of singers' throats to find out if the cricothyroid gap, which is one of the parts of the human throat essential for forming sounds, has a determining effect on how high or low a soprano voice can sing.

In carrying out her thesis research, she found that singers with a smaller cricothyroid space can sing higher notes.

“Mezzo-sopranos have a wider space than sopranos do, which correlates with them being able to sing lower notes,” says Beverley.

Her chief supervisor at Waikato was Associate Professor Martin Lodge, while her other supervisors were Dame Malvina Major (also Waikato) and anatomy expert Professor Mark Stringer from Otago University.

With her DMA journey now at its end, Beverley is looking towards some new goals, including getting more involved with the Dame Malvina Foundation and performing more with NBR NZ Opera.

“I’d like to start a small touring group of opera performers and take them to small town centres and retirement villages to perform for people that wouldn’t normally have access to attend operatic performances,” she says.

ENDS

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