of better understanding the psychological dimensions which frame efficient and effective musical learning and development. Much of his research has been conducted with Australian students, where he has sought to understand how students’ self-belief and attitudes toward instrumental practice translate to success in the face of stressors, difficulties and competing interests. He has developed new approaches in defining giftedness and talent in music performance that have highlighted the natural abilities, environmental and personal catalysts that distinguish between various types of musical competencies. Ormond Chair The Ormond Chair of Music was endowed by Frances Ormond, a Scottish-Australian Pastoralist, member of the Parliament of Victoria and philanthropist. First occupied by George-Marshall-Hall from 1891 to 1900, it is the oldest endowed chair at the University of Melbourne. McPherson is the eighth Ormond Professor of Music at the University. Professional activities McPherson has taught and lectured music students at primary, secondary, tertiary and graduate levels in music education, instrumental pedagogy, musicianship and musicology and served as a full-time professor at universities in Australia, Hong Kong and the United States. He has headed music and creative arts departments at several tertiary institutions, and held an honorary professorship in the Department of Cultural and Creative Arts, Hong Kong Institute of Education from 2009 to 2013. Since his appointment as director of the Melbourne Conservatorium in 2009, he has promoted the MCM as a centre of cross-disciplinary research. He has played a key role in the development of the Music, Mind and Wellbeing initiative; an ongoing collaboration between the MCM and the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. In 1993, McPherson co-established the peer-reviewed journal Research Studies in Music Education, of which he is currently associate editor, and the Asia-Pacific Symposium on Music Education Research in 1997. He has served on the editorial boards of all the major English language research journals in music education., McPherson's wider academic work has been cited over 7000 times. He has supervised numerous master's degree and PhD students, many of whom have gone on to become distinguished researchers in their own right. McPherson has held leadership roles within the Australian Society for Music Education for 18 years, serving as state chair, national president (1995–1997) and on state and national committees in New South Wales, Tasmania and Western Australia. He has held leadership roles within the International Society for Music Education for 36 years, beginning as review editor for the International Journal of