News of its post-high-school courses spread across the country, and students arrived from as far afield as the Top End, Tasmania, and the Torres Strait Islands.
[4] In the 1980s, CASM students began to create their own music, resulting in the formation of groups including No Fixed Address, Us Mob, Coloured Stone, and Kuckles.
Federal government funding helped to support trips to the Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara (APY Lands), where elders taught the students Inma (cultural songs and dances); performances and collaborations with successful musicians, such as Warumpi Band; and also introduced Aboriginal juvenile offenders to CASM.
[7] From 14 March 2023 to 2 June 2023, the university's Barr Smith Library mounted an exhibition, Let Our Songs Speak for Us - Celebrating 50 years of the Centre of Aboriginal Studies in Music.
[8] In early April 2023, Grayson Rotumah and Dylan Crismani were appointed joint leaders of CASM, providing Indigenous leadership for the first time in its history.
Moving to Adelaide, he had been pleasantly surprised to find Aboriginal culture celebrated rather than discriminated against, as was his experience in the Gold Coast.
[4] In May 2023 it was announced that musicians from CASM would be playing at the 2023 Primavera Sound music festival in Barcelona, Spain, which runs from 29 May to 4 June.