'On 30 May 1996, Australian musicology lost one of its most prominent and original scholars, when, just a few days after her 61st birthday, Catherine Ellis died in Adelaide, where she had moved after her retirement in 1995 from the Chair of Music at the University of New England. Ellis was perhaps best known for her groundbreaking research on Australian Aboriginal music, but she touched the lives of those in many other fields, including music education, music therapy and Aboriginal studies, through her teaching, broadcasting, performances, and participation in conferences and committees' (Introduction)