In each Golden Quill, we will be featuring one of our wonderful former GHSS students. What are they up to now? What did they love about their time at Golden Hill? Watch this space to find out! This week, we meet Emil Davey-Lehman.

Emil came to Golden Hill as a Class 4 student, attending GHSS for four years before moving on to Denmark High School. Emil has always been a keen musician from a young age, first learning his chops on the recorder with Regi. He soon progressed to ukulele and was a keen and skilled busker by the time he was 11 years old. Upon coming to the Steiner school, Emil continued to be encouraged musically, primarily by violin teacher Jude Iddison. Violin soon replaced ukulele as his primary instrument, and during his high school years, Emil went on to perform locally with Myles Mitchell, Adam Grok, and even his dad - John Davey!

By the time Emil reached his final year of high school, he knew that music was what he wanted to do, so he applied to study Jazz Performance via a Bachelor of Music at WAAPA. Emil felt that it was unlikely that he would get in, but thought the audition process would be a valuable experience. To his surprise, he was accepted. Although Emil would have preferred to take a gap year, this wasn’t an option, so he jumped straight into life as a Perth-based uni student and commenced his studies at WAAPA. The Perth music scene was a refreshing change after spending his teenage years playing music with middle-aged adults in Denmark.

However, as he headed into his third year of study at WAAPA, he realised he didn’t really like Jazz all that much after all!

“When I applied, I didn’t know anything about jazz - I just knew that if you could play jazz, then you could play anything.  As a Steiner student, I’d always had that approach of wanting to broaden my horizons, wanting to learn all different traditional music and explore different genres.” However, Emil began to feel somewhat creatively stifled in what felt like a fairly standard repertoire of jazz material.  He also felt that he wanted to start specialising in something, rather than ‘be mediocre at everything’, and also wanted to feel more creatively inspired to write his own music.

This was all happening at around the same time that Emil’s involvement in activism began, and so Emil made the decision to leave WAAPA and focus his efforts on the ‘Disrupt Burrup Hub’ campaign. Emil’s interest in activism began when he saw the Extinction Rebellion screening at the Denmark Civic Centre at the age of 14 years old. His primary motivation when it comes to his ‘civil disobedience’ and direct-action activism is standing up for country. “Country is being destroyed left, right and centre. To just stand alongside and watch it happen doesn’t feel right,” Emil states. “After all, women didn’t get the vote by just standing around - it took a degree of civil disruption.”

For now, Emil is feeling heartened that the Burrup Hub Browse Basin expansion has been blocked by the EPA. “For now, it’s a win,” he states. Emil also currently works at Bunnings and is hoping to do some backpacking in the not-too-distant future. He’s also planning on ‘getting back on the horse’ when it comes to his music - watch this space!

“For me, one of the best parts of coming to Golden Hill was my friendship group. I still have a strong friendship with those same friends I had in Class 4. Gardening with Neal was also a highlight - I loved getting outside in the dirt.”