Deborah Cheetham Fraillon
Deborah Cheetham Fraillon
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Deborah Cheetham Fraillon

Deborah Joy Cheetham Fraillon AO (born Deborah Joy Cheetham, 1964) is an Aboriginal Australian soprano, composer, and playwright. She leads Short Black Opera, based in Melbourne, which provides training and opportunities for emerging Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander musical artists.

In February 2023, she was appointed inaugural Elizabeth Todd Chair of Vocal Studies at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.

Deborah Joy Cheetham was born in 1964 in Nowra, New South Wales. She is a member of the Stolen Generations, being taken from her mother when she was three weeks old and was raised by a white Baptist family. The musician Jimmy Little was her uncle.

She attended Penshurst Girls High School (now Georges River College (Penshurst Girls Campus)).

Cheetham graduated from the NSW Conservatorium of Music with a Bachelor of Music Education Degree.

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.

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 October 2010, Cheetham's opera Pecan Summer, based on the 1939 Cummeragunja walk-off, was premiered in Mooroopna, Victoria. She wrote, composed, and performed in the production by the Short Black Opera Company. This was the first opera written by an Indigenous Australian and involving an all-Indigenous cast.

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