Obituary
theage.com.au
THE AGE
March 31, 2010
From Playschool to inspired musician
NEHAMA RUTH
PATKIN,
OAM
MUSICIAN, DANCER,
TELEVISION PRESENTER,
TEACHER
24-5-1939 — 26-3-2010
By KENNETH MADL
NEHAMA Patkin, one of Australia's premier all-around musicians and
former children's television presenter, has died in Melbourne's Epworth
Hospital of a sudden bone infection in her hip. She was 70.
Nehama was especially renowned for devising and presenting music programs for children of all ages, both nationally and internationally, for more than 40 years.
As a performer, she played piano concertos with all the Australian symphony orchestras, as well as with others in Brazil, the United States (Hawaii), and Germany (Hamburg), and performed as a soloist on television and radio.
She was also a TV and radio broadcaster, co-hosting a midday show on Channel Seven with a former ABC newsreader, Geoff Raymond. She was one of the first presenters of Playschool on ABC in the early years of television.
Nehama was born in Melbourne to Hemda, who in turn was born in Israel, and Benzion Patkin, who was born in Russia. Her parents arrived in Australia in the 1920s, and starting with a single sewing machine her father, Benzion, founded Patros Knitting Mills in Park Street, South Melbourne, where the company name is still visible on the heritage-listed building.
His other legacy was as founder of Mount Scopus Memorial College. Nehama enrolled at the college in 1949 and was the first student to graduate from there in 1955.
She took a BA in music from Melbourne University in 1959, followed eight years later by a master's degree. Music was in her genes: her mother played the mandolin, her mother's father was first flautist in Israel's Ness-Ziona orchestra, and her aunt was a piano teacher.
Her family were more intertwined than most: her mother's father had married her father's mother after their respective partners died – a happening that she found "fascinating".
In 1959 Nehama married Peter Grodeck, but they divorced in 1974.
Nehama trained as a dancer for more than 20 years, then spent many years playing piano as a dance accompanist for modern dance classes at both the Australian Ballet School and the Australian Ballet Company. She composed music for several children's ballets, and was then commissioned to compose music for an Australian Ballet Company production in 1970. Titled Arena, it was choreographed by Jack Manuel, and danced throughout Australia.
Her involvement with music and dance, and particularly in the educational field, earned Nehama the Medal in the Order of Australia (OAM), a Churchill Fellowship, and the Avon Spirit of Achievement Award for Women in the Arts.
In 2008, she was appointed an Australia Day ambassador by the Australia Day Council, and was featured in the Melbourne Museum's exhibition Ordinary Women, Extraordinary Lives. Nehama also had an entry in the Who's Who of Australian Women publication, was a finalist in the BP Pursuit of Excellence awards, and was "Woman Achiever of the Year" for the Women's International Zionist Organisation.
A member of the board of governors of the Malcolm Sargent Cancer Fund for Children, she was also an active Rotarian and was awarded a Paul Harris fellowship for her charitable musical contributions to the community, having organised many charity concerts.
Nehama enjoyed her duties as the director of Suzuki Piano Teacher Training in Victoria, and was awarded life membership of Suzuki Talent Education of Australia. She was also awarded life membership of Friends of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra.
She represented Victoria on the Australasian Piano Pedagogy Conference council and was vice-president of the Victorian Music Teachers Association. She also produced and directed orchestral concerts known as the Patma Music Family Concerts. This year marks the sixth year of these successful concerts at Federation Square in Melbourne – one of her piano students, the former premier Jeff Kennett, helped her to structure a budget before launching the event. It came soon after she had travelled to the US on a Churchill scholarship to sample the orchestral climate abroad.
She was dedicated to presenting the best in classical music for children, always with theatrical flair to excite them, and was heavily involved in planning and organising the next in the series before she became ill.
Not surprisingly her greatest achievement was as an inspiring teacher and music educator, who was able to encourage her young students to achieve excellence in both music and life. Her joy, energy and laughter inspired several generations of children throughout Victoria and, indeed, throughout the world.
Nehama was to present a paper at the International Society for Music Education World Conference in Beijing in August.
She is survived by her sons, Anton and Damien Grodeck, grandsons Ben and Adam, her brother Michael Patkin, and her partner Kenneth Madl.