We thought this article in the Sydney Morning Herald was rather silly and thought we'd share with you the letter to the editor by our friend Christopher Nicholls
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/theres-just-no-sound-argument-for-being-hooked-on-classics-20091113-ielq.html
Dear Editor,
I am writing with a quiet sense of resignation, that what I write will do Mr Dick no good whatsoever, but I just can't help myself. Tim Dick's article in the SMH on Saturday 14th November 2009, entitled “There's just no sound argument for being hooked on classics”, is one of those Norman Gunstonesque -type essays. “Say something controversial!” - Dick has managed to deliberately set out to stick it into those whose life or love is music of this genre – just to goad a response and gain him some readership. Cheap shot.
But his tawdry and ignorant claims can't go unanswered – so let's look at some of his “premises”:
Classical music is the kind we keep thinking will turn into a tune. The line is from the hand of a dead American cartoonist, but I share his feeling.
What a banal comment. It rather assumes that everyone has a popcorn interest in art and music and that tunes are all there is to music. Regardless, surprisingly classical music has hundreds of tunes even ones that have been incorporated and ingrained into societies long-term memory banks – “Anyhow...” and the Paul Hogan led advertisement using a Tchaikovsky “tune” from his 5th Symphony. I bet even Mr Dick can hum that one.
The only reason the "Jupiter" movement from The Planets made it big was after Gustav Holst reworked it to accommodate a patriotic poem...
Twaddle. Holst's Planets Suite is popular far beyond just the Jupiter piece – Mars is a spectacular part of that music and it is one of the most popular “tunes” in the Suite. It was certainly one of the influences of the theme music for Star Wars too!
Classical music tends to the self-indulgent meandering that forces listeners through too many tortured lows for too few supposed peaks.
And I suppose the Louvre in Paris is filled with stupid renditions of supine fat naked women and poncy men and a dull portrait of an ugly woman with a silly smile..? Dick shows his true ignorance of music. He hasn't even got the nous to say “I know what I like...”!
Music is the one thing on this planet we shouldn't have to spend weeks listening to - studying, in other words - to like.
Again – a presumptuous and ignorant statement – as though Dick's prognostications are the norm! The millions of people throughout the history of classical music who have attended concerts are not all students of music and art – they just know what they like! It's not that hard Dick – you just have to get over your reverse-snobbery.
The well-educated are far more likely to go. Why? Snobbery.
Proof? There isn't any – it's an “elitist” argument thing Dick suffers from. More educated people go because they have been exposed to classical music more often than the less well educated. They learn to appreciate it for its beauty not its “esoteric rank”! Many of the “well-educated” audience have even been schooled in music – performing in choirs, orchestras and bands. Poor Dick must have missed out – and I mean that: what a shame, he has been deprived of a wonderful and important experience.
And if you want to see a completely counter attitude to this “Dick Theory”, you have to go no further than the “El Sistema” program in Venezuela. Here the children of the Barros – the slums of Venezuelan cities – have been taught how to play classical music, over a 35 year period: Beethoven, Mahler and Mozart et al. The audiences attending concerts now are huge and as diverse in age group and background as Venezuelan society – children, teenagers, families – young and old, rich and poor, all together in the concert halls. Many are simple people with poor backgrounds and even worse education experiences – hardly snobs – and not even predominantly aged. How did this happen? Through exposure to all of this beautiful music and though the teaching of children how to play it. Australia and the United States could learn a lesson or two here - as could Mr.Dick. (And it's never too late Mr Dick).
And why should we bother with a stuffy industry that, despite some efforts to liberalise protocol, insists on clapping before you've heard anything and not clapping even when you have?
...Each time I go to an orchestral concert, I (don't?) know why the conductor was clapped at the start.
As are rock stars, Hip Hop artists, Jazz musicians, and any musician that steps out onto a stage to perform. Where have you been Dick? Why should conductors (who are musicians and stars in there own right) not be cheered and applauded when they come out on stage – before the music is performed?
There are some more recent additions to “protocols” of applause – actually in the time of Mozart, each movement was often applauded depending on whether the audiences liked them or not. The “wait until the piece is finished” habit is a more recent phenomenon. It's done now more of respect of the artists performing the complex music – and to keep the flow of the piece for the audience. Each piece of classical music has a story to tell, after all.
Advertising people know most classics need a good edit. They know how to reduce a dreary, over-long composition into a good, snappy tune, or at least one that's not soporific.
Well.. Maybe Dick has an attention span problem – maybe it's ADHD or something like that? Perhaps he should stop watching so much commercial TV with 20 second grabs so that he can appreciate things that last just a bit longer. How on earth does he ever read books?
But there's a reason fewer than one in 10 Australians will bother with a classical concert this year: chances are, it will be dreadfully dull.
But at least we will have one less “unfortunate” in the audience to worry about and one more seat for someone who finds joy, hope and love in the music that they listen to and love to watch being performed. And doesn't find it "dull" at all...
Regards,
Chris Nicholls
Showing posts with label music education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music education. Show all posts
Sunday, 15 November 2009
Monday, 2 November 2009
Speech by Glen Boreham, ACO Board Member and IBM Managing Director
IBM Managing Director and ACO Board Member Glen Boreham made this speech at a private concert recently.
Ladies and gentlemen, the ACO has been called ‘the best small orchestra in the world’ – and after that amazing performance, it’s easy to see why. Thank you Richard and the orchestra – it’s a privilege to hear you play in such an intimate setting.
In my introduction, you heard me talk about IBM’s long standing partnership with the ACO. And you may wonder – why are businesses interested in the arts? I mean, if I look at myself, I have little artistic talent. I can’t play a single instrument. As my wife Kim will tell you – I certainly can’t dance, although I occasionally think I can.
My closest brush with the arts came when I went to a choir school, but I grew quickly, and the Brothers decided my best use was to put me in the front row of the football team, rather than the front row of the choir. I think today we call that human capital management!
So, why does IBM invest considerable funds into the arts and the ACO? Why do I happily invest my time to be on the board of the ACO and Chair of Screen Australia?
The answer is: I believe there is an inextricable link, a link between a vibrant arts community supporting a thinking and open society, sustaining a creative and multi-talented workforce that then provides the foundation for innovation and success in business.
Many of you will know, IBM in Australia operates a large and complex business. But at our heart, what we do is quite simple: we help organisations to solve business problems they either can’t solve themselves or simply don’t want to because they have other priorities.
As my colleagues sit in IBM meeting rooms around the country, it is very clear that when we have a client problem out on the table, if we all look at that challenge through an identical lens – whether it is education, culture, age or gender – we will all come up with the same, stock standard, uninspired answer.
To me, there is no doubt that, if there is diversity around the table, it helps create that spark, that creativity, that unearths the unexpected solution to the problem.
Now, we’ve just seen extraordinary evidence of human creativity. And I’m interested in supporting that because – while I can’t tell you what the future will look like – I guarantee it will require all of us to be more creative and innovative than we have ever been. And, as some of you who’ve attended these events before will know, it worries me that our current education system doesn’t support this.
And I’m not alone in this concern. A recent OECD report on the need to refocus spending actually said: “...the costs of educational underperformance are higher than the costs of the [global] financial crisis.”
Yet it seems, all around the world, education systems are failing our children. Children enter the school system with an enormous capacity for creativity.
Creativity Expert, Sir Ken Robinson tells a great story about this (1): it was the kindergarten’s nativity play and they got to the part when the three kings deliver their gifts. So there’s three little boys with home-made crowns.
The first one says “I bring you gold”.
The second one says “I bring you myrrh”.
And the third one says “Hey, Frank sent this!”
The point is, at age 5, kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go – they’re not frightened of being wrong. Of course, being wrong is not the same as being innovative – but if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
In Australia’s current education system, mistakes are the worst things you can make. And the result is we are educating the creativity out of our students. By the time we’re adults, we’ve lost that capacity to fearlessly have a go – we’ve become frightened of being wrong and, as individuals and companies, we suffer as a result – because we need people to have the courage to be creative.
As Picasso said: “all children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”
I’m interested in how people like Richard, Melissa or Julian managed to remain an artist. Imagine Richard aged 7 at his Wollongong primary school – imagine being his music teacher. How tough would that have been?
“Richard, you must learn to play with the other children and stop getting ahead!”
You some of you know, I’ve lived all over the world, in Europe and Japan. And I’ve always been struck by the fact that every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects – at the top are maths and then the national language, then the sciences, the humanities, and, at the very bottom, are the arts.
There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches music every day in the same way we teach maths. Why not? I think maths is very important, but so is music. Surely creativity is just as important as literacy and numeracy – why don’t we treat it with the same status?
The answer is that our current education system was created to meet the needs of the industrial world – with the most useful subjects for the industrial age at the top. So, you were often steered away from the subjects you actually liked doing – and were good at – on the grounds that you wouldn’t be able to get a job doing it.
Wouldn’t you love to have been a fly on the wall when a teenage Richard Tognetti met with his careers officer.
“Let me see Richard, what do you want to be? A professional musician? Oh dear... How about something more sensible – perhaps IT?”
The trouble is, academic ability dominates our view of intelligence – and, because of that, our education system allows many highly talented, even brilliant people to think they have nothing to offer. Yet, as people like Richard Branson and Coco Chanel have proved – it’s possible to be quite successful without a university education...
I believe, we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence – in fact we need to take into account Ken Robinson’s 3 Ds of intelligence.
Human intelligence is: Diverse, Dynamic, and Distinct.
It’s diverse because we think about the world in the way we experience it. We think visually, in sound, in abstract terms and in movement. That’s why we shouldn’t be teaching kids in just one modality.
Some kids do remember information if they copy it off the board, or read it on a handout, but most of them don’t. They need opportunities to learn by drawing, or singing, or talking about the information.
You may not know this, but computer games don’t come with instructions any more – kids simply learn them intuitively – and notice how fast they do it. How quickly would they learn to play the computer game if we sat them in a classroom and made them copy the instructions off the white board?
The second thing we need to take into account is that intelligence is dynamic – it’s interactive. Innovation (by which I mean original ideas that have value) comes about from the interaction of different ways of thinking.
And finally, we need to take into account the fact that intelligence is distinct. In other words, everyone has their own kind of intelligence – and we need an education system that identifies and nurtures every child’s very different talents – because we need all of them to drive innovation.
Let me tell you the true story of Gillian Lynne as told in Ken Robinson’s Book The Element(1), who went to school in England in the 1930s. Gillian was hopeless at school – she couldn’t concentrate, she kept fidgeting. In fact, the school thought her problems were so severe, she was packed off to the hospital to see a specialist.
So this little girl sat on her hands for 20 minutes while her mother told the doctor all of Gillian’s problems at school. When she finished, the doctor said to the little girl: “I need to speak to your mother privately, so we’ll go out of the room for a minute”. But as they left, he turned on the radio. And as soon as they were in the corridor he said to her mother: “Just stand here a moment and see what she does.”
Immediately, the little girl was on her feet, moving to the music. And after a while, the doctor said: “Gillian isn’t sick – she’s a dancer – take her to a dancing school.” And so her mother did.
As Gillian later said: “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. It was full of people like me – people who have to move to think.”
Gillian Lynne went on to be a soloist at the Royal Ballet and ended up as one of the world’s most successful choreographers, perhaps best well known for commercial hits like Cats and Phantom of the Opera. She has had a hugely successful and fulfilling life.
I wonder what would have happened to Gillian in our education system? Would we have punished her, criticised her work and told her to sit still – rather than harnessing her distinct and wonderful brand of intelligence?
I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new concept of intelligence and rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children.
Tonight we are celebrating the gift of human creativity – but we need to harness this gift outside the arts – and bring it into the business world.
The only way we will do this is:
• by putting arts on an equal footing with Maths and English
• by seeing our children for the hope that they are
• and by educating them for a future that we cannot imagine
Tonight, the ACO has shown us the magic that happens when young people are allowed to let their distinct form of intelligence shine. Imagine what we could achieve as a country if every child had the same chance as these wonderful musicians.
____________________________________________________________________________
1 This is one of the stories in Ken Robinson’s new book “The Element: How finding your passion changes everything”
Ladies and gentlemen, the ACO has been called ‘the best small orchestra in the world’ – and after that amazing performance, it’s easy to see why. Thank you Richard and the orchestra – it’s a privilege to hear you play in such an intimate setting.
In my introduction, you heard me talk about IBM’s long standing partnership with the ACO. And you may wonder – why are businesses interested in the arts? I mean, if I look at myself, I have little artistic talent. I can’t play a single instrument. As my wife Kim will tell you – I certainly can’t dance, although I occasionally think I can.
My closest brush with the arts came when I went to a choir school, but I grew quickly, and the Brothers decided my best use was to put me in the front row of the football team, rather than the front row of the choir. I think today we call that human capital management!
So, why does IBM invest considerable funds into the arts and the ACO? Why do I happily invest my time to be on the board of the ACO and Chair of Screen Australia?
The answer is: I believe there is an inextricable link, a link between a vibrant arts community supporting a thinking and open society, sustaining a creative and multi-talented workforce that then provides the foundation for innovation and success in business.
Many of you will know, IBM in Australia operates a large and complex business. But at our heart, what we do is quite simple: we help organisations to solve business problems they either can’t solve themselves or simply don’t want to because they have other priorities.
As my colleagues sit in IBM meeting rooms around the country, it is very clear that when we have a client problem out on the table, if we all look at that challenge through an identical lens – whether it is education, culture, age or gender – we will all come up with the same, stock standard, uninspired answer.
To me, there is no doubt that, if there is diversity around the table, it helps create that spark, that creativity, that unearths the unexpected solution to the problem.
Now, we’ve just seen extraordinary evidence of human creativity. And I’m interested in supporting that because – while I can’t tell you what the future will look like – I guarantee it will require all of us to be more creative and innovative than we have ever been. And, as some of you who’ve attended these events before will know, it worries me that our current education system doesn’t support this.
And I’m not alone in this concern. A recent OECD report on the need to refocus spending actually said: “...the costs of educational underperformance are higher than the costs of the [global] financial crisis.”
Yet it seems, all around the world, education systems are failing our children. Children enter the school system with an enormous capacity for creativity.
Creativity Expert, Sir Ken Robinson tells a great story about this (1): it was the kindergarten’s nativity play and they got to the part when the three kings deliver their gifts. So there’s three little boys with home-made crowns.
The first one says “I bring you gold”.
The second one says “I bring you myrrh”.
And the third one says “Hey, Frank sent this!”
The point is, at age 5, kids will take a chance. If they don’t know, they’ll have a go – they’re not frightened of being wrong. Of course, being wrong is not the same as being innovative – but if you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original.
In Australia’s current education system, mistakes are the worst things you can make. And the result is we are educating the creativity out of our students. By the time we’re adults, we’ve lost that capacity to fearlessly have a go – we’ve become frightened of being wrong and, as individuals and companies, we suffer as a result – because we need people to have the courage to be creative.
As Picasso said: “all children are born artists, the problem is to remain an artist as we grow up.”
I’m interested in how people like Richard, Melissa or Julian managed to remain an artist. Imagine Richard aged 7 at his Wollongong primary school – imagine being his music teacher. How tough would that have been?
“Richard, you must learn to play with the other children and stop getting ahead!”
You some of you know, I’ve lived all over the world, in Europe and Japan. And I’ve always been struck by the fact that every education system on earth has the same hierarchy of subjects – at the top are maths and then the national language, then the sciences, the humanities, and, at the very bottom, are the arts.
There isn’t an education system on the planet that teaches music every day in the same way we teach maths. Why not? I think maths is very important, but so is music. Surely creativity is just as important as literacy and numeracy – why don’t we treat it with the same status?
The answer is that our current education system was created to meet the needs of the industrial world – with the most useful subjects for the industrial age at the top. So, you were often steered away from the subjects you actually liked doing – and were good at – on the grounds that you wouldn’t be able to get a job doing it.
Wouldn’t you love to have been a fly on the wall when a teenage Richard Tognetti met with his careers officer.
“Let me see Richard, what do you want to be? A professional musician? Oh dear... How about something more sensible – perhaps IT?”
The trouble is, academic ability dominates our view of intelligence – and, because of that, our education system allows many highly talented, even brilliant people to think they have nothing to offer. Yet, as people like Richard Branson and Coco Chanel have proved – it’s possible to be quite successful without a university education...
I believe, we need to radically rethink our view of intelligence – in fact we need to take into account Ken Robinson’s 3 Ds of intelligence.
Human intelligence is: Diverse, Dynamic, and Distinct.
It’s diverse because we think about the world in the way we experience it. We think visually, in sound, in abstract terms and in movement. That’s why we shouldn’t be teaching kids in just one modality.
Some kids do remember information if they copy it off the board, or read it on a handout, but most of them don’t. They need opportunities to learn by drawing, or singing, or talking about the information.
You may not know this, but computer games don’t come with instructions any more – kids simply learn them intuitively – and notice how fast they do it. How quickly would they learn to play the computer game if we sat them in a classroom and made them copy the instructions off the white board?
The second thing we need to take into account is that intelligence is dynamic – it’s interactive. Innovation (by which I mean original ideas that have value) comes about from the interaction of different ways of thinking.
And finally, we need to take into account the fact that intelligence is distinct. In other words, everyone has their own kind of intelligence – and we need an education system that identifies and nurtures every child’s very different talents – because we need all of them to drive innovation.
Let me tell you the true story of Gillian Lynne as told in Ken Robinson’s Book The Element(1), who went to school in England in the 1930s. Gillian was hopeless at school – she couldn’t concentrate, she kept fidgeting. In fact, the school thought her problems were so severe, she was packed off to the hospital to see a specialist.
So this little girl sat on her hands for 20 minutes while her mother told the doctor all of Gillian’s problems at school. When she finished, the doctor said to the little girl: “I need to speak to your mother privately, so we’ll go out of the room for a minute”. But as they left, he turned on the radio. And as soon as they were in the corridor he said to her mother: “Just stand here a moment and see what she does.”
Immediately, the little girl was on her feet, moving to the music. And after a while, the doctor said: “Gillian isn’t sick – she’s a dancer – take her to a dancing school.” And so her mother did.
As Gillian later said: “I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. It was full of people like me – people who have to move to think.”
Gillian Lynne went on to be a soloist at the Royal Ballet and ended up as one of the world’s most successful choreographers, perhaps best well known for commercial hits like Cats and Phantom of the Opera. She has had a hugely successful and fulfilling life.
I wonder what would have happened to Gillian in our education system? Would we have punished her, criticised her work and told her to sit still – rather than harnessing her distinct and wonderful brand of intelligence?
I believe our only hope for the future is to adopt a new concept of intelligence and rethink the fundamental principles in which we are educating our children.
Tonight we are celebrating the gift of human creativity – but we need to harness this gift outside the arts – and bring it into the business world.
The only way we will do this is:
• by putting arts on an equal footing with Maths and English
• by seeing our children for the hope that they are
• and by educating them for a future that we cannot imagine
Tonight, the ACO has shown us the magic that happens when young people are allowed to let their distinct form of intelligence shine. Imagine what we could achieve as a country if every child had the same chance as these wonderful musicians.
____________________________________________________________________________
1 This is one of the stories in Ken Robinson’s new book “The Element: How finding your passion changes everything”
Monday, 25 August 2008
RT's Speech: Seventeen Forty Three
1743...
The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born.
Incidentally he played the violin and declared that music “is the favourite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.” To improve the state of music in America, Jefferson encouraged its practice, and music played an important role in the life of his family through the generations.
Born: Sir Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist
Born: Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, second Prime Minister of the UK
Died: Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, last member of the Medici family (b. 1667)
1743 was also the year that this violin was made. It is 265 years old.
Nicknamed the Carrodus was made by Guarnieri del Gesu in Cremona, Italy. If Stradivarius was the Leonardo of violin making then del Gesu was Michelangelo. Del Gesu (of Jesus) was an irascible genius whose instruments are even more highly sought after than those of Stradivarius. This instrument is now on Australian soil and an anonymous benefactor owns it. The spine-tingling fact about this instrument (apart from its value) is that it is made from the same tree as the il Cannone which was owned by Paganini. Indeed, it’s considered feasible that this instrument was also owned by Paganini but he lost it gambling.
“His pale, long-drawn face with its hollow cheeks, his thin lips that seemed to curl into a sardonic smile, piercing expression fo his eyes which were like flaming charcoals, gave him a diabolic appearance...” The ‘nail in the coffin’, so to speak, was that Paganini refused to see a Bishop that had come to give him the final sacraments when he was on his deathbed. Paganini shooed him away, insisting he was not dying at all. When he did die, the church refused to allow him to be buried on holy ground
I am honoured to be here to address you, and indeed I have my own Davos Connection:
In 1986 on a concert tour of Europe I took myself skiing in Davos, The book I was reading at the time mysteriously and remarkably mirrored the climb my train was making out of the Rhine Gebiet up through the mountains to Zurich and onto Davos. It wasn’t until I described my encounter to an Aus. girl later that night was I made aware that unknowingly I had been living the book I was reading. Quite coincidentally I was reading the opening chapter the Arrival beautiful description of travelling up through the Swiss mountains. It was no other than Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), which is a microcosmic study of symphonic proportions of the decaying Europe below. And of course it is based in a sanatorium in Davos.
Shortly after its publication in 1924 some rather important developments were taking place in our ‘faraway land’. Dame Nellie Melba had passed away in 1931, but an even more important series of events occurred which marks to date the most important climb in the culture of Australian music known as the Heinze Era 1932-1945 which was overseen by Prime Ministers James Henry Scullin, ALP, 1929 through to John Curtin up to 1945.
A great launch pad and a very encouraging start
In a recent book by Martin Buzacott (The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music-making, ABC Books) we can read the story of the evolution of the state symphonies we have today.
But after 76 years we’ve not expanded, not one iota. The six symphony orchestras we formed in 1932 with a population of six and a half million (now it’s 21 million) are the same and only symphony orchestras extant today. Indeed their survival is constantly threatened.
For some comparative statistics consider:
Finland, population 5.1 million: 30 professional orchestras
USA, populations 301 million: 900 amateur and 300-400 professional orchestras
Venezuela, population 27 million: 200 youth orchestras and at least 23 professional orchestras (in the 1970s there were two orchestras in Venezuela).
Quite rightly there is enormous concern about our ‘outer ecology’ as you’ve just heard from the Governor General – we’re all alarmed about the impact of global warming, but I think we also need to consider our ‘inner ecology’, where ‘cultural cooling’ is just as real a threat to our well-being.
In this country there is an enormous imbalance between sporting prowess and cultural endeavour. Consider this:
The elite arts set is viewed as a privileged few, upper echelon, crème de la crème, snobs, snoots, elitists, pretenders, egotists, stuffed shirts and Chardonnay sipping wankers. Your progeny ought to be prevented from associating with these types.
The elite sports set, on the other hand, is seen as: the best, cream o’ the crop, our heroes, the future, something to shed a tear about, our obsession, worthy of investment, winning for our country. Our kids should be encouraged to follow in their hallowed footsteps.
Incidentally, in Buzacott’s book he describes the ‘agricultural roughness’ of conductor EJ Roberts, nicknamed ‘Shellshock’ and better known as a golfer than conductor who led the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra at the opening ceremony for the new Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932.
We have become used to these negative sentiments in this country and they fuel an entrenched perception that the arts are elitist, exclusive, and indeed a burden on a society which has an ever increasing challenge to contain the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It’s a luxury handbag rather than an essential item.
To indicate how easy it is to reinforce this sentiment in Australia consider this ad brought out by the Liberal Party in 1996: “A vote for Labor is a vote for the elite arts.”
Now just for a moment consider swapping ‘elite arts’ with ‘elite sports’ or elite immigrants or kooris.
Or recently a State Premiere staked his credentials on this: “I’m not into opera, I go to the footy.”
Since when were the two mutually exclusive?
Well, I surf and I play the violin.
I’ve been asked to talk about cultural leadership and I do believe that at this point in my career, advocacy is the best form of leadership.
I don’t have much time here and I have been asked to play for you some more so I’ll cut to the chase and be specific. I’ll leave the universal to JS Bach which I’ll play at the end.
In the strongest possible terms I am advocating a national music curriculum to be advanced unencumbered by the states’ educational differences and a visionary and far-reaching cultural infrastructural program be formulated that will help spawn a new generation of Australians that is culturally adept, well informed, open minded and with good reason proud of what we do on this land rather than what we do with it. A national smartening-up, not dumbing-down. Our exemplary sporting achievements – we all know that we punch way above our weight at present we rank number five on the Olympic ladder – ought to – and can be – matched by our cultural endeavours.
Currently in Australia up to three in four children in Government Primary Schools have no music teachers. That equates to over 700,000 children missing out, and often they are the ones who need support the most.
Kim Williams, CEO of Foxtel and a passionate advocate for music education was active participant in the 2020 summit which he believes lives and continues. In a recent speech he said:
If Australia is to continue to care about and embrace the notion of egalitarian ideals as the foundation of our culture then there is much work to be done.
In my view … the quality of that system will have several absolutely fundamental tenets:
First there have to be reliable national standards and national curriculum frameworks – and that is essentially non negotiable;
2) There have to be close delivery connections to local schools and school districts including the empowerment of school principals to appoint and assess teachers so that their performance is directly accountable in the same way that performance accountability is fundamental to all modern commercial and public life;
3) A mixed system will continue but it has to be one where the resource imbalance between public and private in the interests of fairness and equity must correct the systemic distortions that have eroded public education;
4) The whole approach and attitudinal fabric to the role, remuneration, training, assessment and reinforcement of teachers requires wholesale renovation so that we capture the right talented people who make teaching their first choice of career and we ensure that it is a satisfying and fulfilling one subsequently;
5) There must be an unwavering commitment to excellence – one which ensures that the talented are encouraged and appropriately reinforced; and
Finally there must be a real commitment to the primary importance of mainstream delivery of the arts and sport from infant education on as the ying and yang essential to a fit, intellectually vigorous and well resourced nation that is healthy and empowered to confront its challenges effectively.
He goes on to say:
I think I can assume safe common territory with everyone here today in saying that Australia is imbued with an unusually talented resource of active and original creative individuals quite disproportionate to its size. However that resource has an uneven education and resource framework compromising the nation’s capacity to retain talent and drive consistent effort that evolves and improves as boldly as it must to serve the people’s best interest.
Try telling the kids of Wyong Public in NSW, that your vote could be a vote for the elite arts. Consider this:
The Song Room a private organization whose vision whose vision statement is that all Australian children have the opportunity to participate in music and the arts to enhance their education, personal development and community involvement.
Wyong Public School Students to Learn the Violin and Increase Enrolments!
In early 2007 The Song Room secured the services of a string teacher one day a week at Wyong Public School on the Central Coast of NSW, to teach students to play the violin,
The achievements were beyond the wildest dreams of the whole school community. Only ten months after the students commenced The Song Room program, the school now has in excess of 90 students from Years 3-6 playing in a string ensemble. All of the students in these groups have had opportunities to perform, not only at the weekly school assembly, but also performing at various local Festivals. The School’s 90 violinists also featured on the local news in November showing the remarkable achievements being made by students in learning the violin in such large numbers.
Graham Holmes, Principal, Wyong Public School:
“The children of Wyong Public School largely come from backgrounds where these music and creative arts opportunities cannot normally be afforded to them. It has been through the support of The Song Room that has given these children experiences that they could have previously only stood back and watch other children enjoy. They have grown in their self esteem, in their sense of self, in their aspirational outlooks and most importantly, in their love of music and performance.”
According to Graham, music and performing arts can transform a school:
“It can be the key that unlocks the talents of children and it can play a defining role in uplifting children’s self esteem, broadening their career and personal aspirations and impressing on them that they can too reach their potential, regardless of their personal life’s circumstances.”
For one student who earlier this year had to be removed for several months to a specialist behaviour facility for seriously disruptive, and at times, violent behaviour, The Song Room program has left an indelible mark on his psyche and has set him on a life trajectory of music and performance.
From violence to violins.
There exist a few great models in the world where a good music education opens up enormous vistas and opportunities. I encourage you to examine the Finnish education system on the one hand and the world shattering success of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra program (El Sistema) comprising street kids – certainly nothing to do with the elite except in their playing.
We need to work with the media to engage all in musical activities.
The idea of designating one Australian town or city annually to be the ‘Cultural Capital’ would serve to focus and stimulate local artists. Take for example NSW’s third largest city, Wollongong, where we find a city with a broken heart, lying supine in a cultural coma with no cultural infrastructure, except for their local theatre. The local council had recently condemned their only venue suitable for orchestral and chamber music performance, the Wollongong town hall.
Making the arts an important concern for a whole community for even just a year would have far-reaching effects in such a city, serving to generate a cultural dialogue with the rest of the country and the wider world.
Let me finish with a quote from Alan Turing the father of the computer.
If the untrained infant’s mind is to become an intelligent one, it must acquire both discipline and initiative… To convert a brain or machine into a universal machine is the most extreme form of discipline. Without something of this kind one cannot set up proper communication. But discipline is certainly not enough in itself to produce intelligence. That which is required in addition we call initiative. This statement will have to serve as a definition.
It’s no moot point that every senior secondary school student should have access to a computer at school.
So wouldn’t it be wonderful if placed next to that computer on every student’s desk were a musical instrument.
I’ll leave you with Bach’s Chaconne.
This is a transcript of a speech RT made at the Australian Davos Connection's Leadership Retreat.
The third President of the United States, Thomas Jefferson, was born.
Incidentally he played the violin and declared that music “is the favourite passion of my soul, and fortune has cast my lot in a country where it is in a state of deplorable barbarism.” To improve the state of music in America, Jefferson encouraged its practice, and music played an important role in the life of his family through the generations.
Born: Sir Joseph Banks, British naturalist and botanist
Born: Spencer Compton, 1st Earl of Wilmington, second Prime Minister of the UK
Died: Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, last member of the Medici family (b. 1667)
1743 was also the year that this violin was made. It is 265 years old.
Nicknamed the Carrodus was made by Guarnieri del Gesu in Cremona, Italy. If Stradivarius was the Leonardo of violin making then del Gesu was Michelangelo. Del Gesu (of Jesus) was an irascible genius whose instruments are even more highly sought after than those of Stradivarius. This instrument is now on Australian soil and an anonymous benefactor owns it. The spine-tingling fact about this instrument (apart from its value) is that it is made from the same tree as the il Cannone which was owned by Paganini. Indeed, it’s considered feasible that this instrument was also owned by Paganini but he lost it gambling.
“His pale, long-drawn face with its hollow cheeks, his thin lips that seemed to curl into a sardonic smile, piercing expression fo his eyes which were like flaming charcoals, gave him a diabolic appearance...” The ‘nail in the coffin’, so to speak, was that Paganini refused to see a Bishop that had come to give him the final sacraments when he was on his deathbed. Paganini shooed him away, insisting he was not dying at all. When he did die, the church refused to allow him to be buried on holy ground
I am honoured to be here to address you, and indeed I have my own Davos Connection:
In 1986 on a concert tour of Europe I took myself skiing in Davos, The book I was reading at the time mysteriously and remarkably mirrored the climb my train was making out of the Rhine Gebiet up through the mountains to Zurich and onto Davos. It wasn’t until I described my encounter to an Aus. girl later that night was I made aware that unknowingly I had been living the book I was reading. Quite coincidentally I was reading the opening chapter the Arrival beautiful description of travelling up through the Swiss mountains. It was no other than Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg (The Magic Mountain), which is a microcosmic study of symphonic proportions of the decaying Europe below. And of course it is based in a sanatorium in Davos.
Shortly after its publication in 1924 some rather important developments were taking place in our ‘faraway land’. Dame Nellie Melba had passed away in 1931, but an even more important series of events occurred which marks to date the most important climb in the culture of Australian music known as the Heinze Era 1932-1945 which was overseen by Prime Ministers James Henry Scullin, ALP, 1929 through to John Curtin up to 1945.
A great launch pad and a very encouraging start
In a recent book by Martin Buzacott (The Rite of Spring: 75 Years of ABC Music-making, ABC Books) we can read the story of the evolution of the state symphonies we have today.
But after 76 years we’ve not expanded, not one iota. The six symphony orchestras we formed in 1932 with a population of six and a half million (now it’s 21 million) are the same and only symphony orchestras extant today. Indeed their survival is constantly threatened.
For some comparative statistics consider:
Finland, population 5.1 million: 30 professional orchestras
USA, populations 301 million: 900 amateur and 300-400 professional orchestras
Venezuela, population 27 million: 200 youth orchestras and at least 23 professional orchestras (in the 1970s there were two orchestras in Venezuela).
Quite rightly there is enormous concern about our ‘outer ecology’ as you’ve just heard from the Governor General – we’re all alarmed about the impact of global warming, but I think we also need to consider our ‘inner ecology’, where ‘cultural cooling’ is just as real a threat to our well-being.
In this country there is an enormous imbalance between sporting prowess and cultural endeavour. Consider this:
The elite arts set is viewed as a privileged few, upper echelon, crème de la crème, snobs, snoots, elitists, pretenders, egotists, stuffed shirts and Chardonnay sipping wankers. Your progeny ought to be prevented from associating with these types.
The elite sports set, on the other hand, is seen as: the best, cream o’ the crop, our heroes, the future, something to shed a tear about, our obsession, worthy of investment, winning for our country. Our kids should be encouraged to follow in their hallowed footsteps.
Incidentally, in Buzacott’s book he describes the ‘agricultural roughness’ of conductor EJ Roberts, nicknamed ‘Shellshock’ and better known as a golfer than conductor who led the National Broadcasting Symphony Orchestra at the opening ceremony for the new Australian Broadcasting Commission on 1 July 1932.
We have become used to these negative sentiments in this country and they fuel an entrenched perception that the arts are elitist, exclusive, and indeed a burden on a society which has an ever increasing challenge to contain the disparity between the haves and the have-nots. It’s a luxury handbag rather than an essential item.
To indicate how easy it is to reinforce this sentiment in Australia consider this ad brought out by the Liberal Party in 1996: “A vote for Labor is a vote for the elite arts.”
Now just for a moment consider swapping ‘elite arts’ with ‘elite sports’ or elite immigrants or kooris.
Or recently a State Premiere staked his credentials on this: “I’m not into opera, I go to the footy.”
Since when were the two mutually exclusive?
Well, I surf and I play the violin.
I’ve been asked to talk about cultural leadership and I do believe that at this point in my career, advocacy is the best form of leadership.
I don’t have much time here and I have been asked to play for you some more so I’ll cut to the chase and be specific. I’ll leave the universal to JS Bach which I’ll play at the end.
In the strongest possible terms I am advocating a national music curriculum to be advanced unencumbered by the states’ educational differences and a visionary and far-reaching cultural infrastructural program be formulated that will help spawn a new generation of Australians that is culturally adept, well informed, open minded and with good reason proud of what we do on this land rather than what we do with it. A national smartening-up, not dumbing-down. Our exemplary sporting achievements – we all know that we punch way above our weight at present we rank number five on the Olympic ladder – ought to – and can be – matched by our cultural endeavours.
Currently in Australia up to three in four children in Government Primary Schools have no music teachers. That equates to over 700,000 children missing out, and often they are the ones who need support the most.
Kim Williams, CEO of Foxtel and a passionate advocate for music education was active participant in the 2020 summit which he believes lives and continues. In a recent speech he said:
If Australia is to continue to care about and embrace the notion of egalitarian ideals as the foundation of our culture then there is much work to be done.
In my view … the quality of that system will have several absolutely fundamental tenets:
First there have to be reliable national standards and national curriculum frameworks – and that is essentially non negotiable;
2) There have to be close delivery connections to local schools and school districts including the empowerment of school principals to appoint and assess teachers so that their performance is directly accountable in the same way that performance accountability is fundamental to all modern commercial and public life;
3) A mixed system will continue but it has to be one where the resource imbalance between public and private in the interests of fairness and equity must correct the systemic distortions that have eroded public education;
4) The whole approach and attitudinal fabric to the role, remuneration, training, assessment and reinforcement of teachers requires wholesale renovation so that we capture the right talented people who make teaching their first choice of career and we ensure that it is a satisfying and fulfilling one subsequently;
5) There must be an unwavering commitment to excellence – one which ensures that the talented are encouraged and appropriately reinforced; and
Finally there must be a real commitment to the primary importance of mainstream delivery of the arts and sport from infant education on as the ying and yang essential to a fit, intellectually vigorous and well resourced nation that is healthy and empowered to confront its challenges effectively.
He goes on to say:
I think I can assume safe common territory with everyone here today in saying that Australia is imbued with an unusually talented resource of active and original creative individuals quite disproportionate to its size. However that resource has an uneven education and resource framework compromising the nation’s capacity to retain talent and drive consistent effort that evolves and improves as boldly as it must to serve the people’s best interest.
Try telling the kids of Wyong Public in NSW, that your vote could be a vote for the elite arts. Consider this:
Case Study - Wyong Public School
The Song Room a private organization whose vision whose vision statement is that all Australian children have the opportunity to participate in music and the arts to enhance their education, personal development and community involvement.
Wyong Public School Students to Learn the Violin and Increase Enrolments!
In early 2007 The Song Room secured the services of a string teacher one day a week at Wyong Public School on the Central Coast of NSW, to teach students to play the violin,
The achievements were beyond the wildest dreams of the whole school community. Only ten months after the students commenced The Song Room program, the school now has in excess of 90 students from Years 3-6 playing in a string ensemble. All of the students in these groups have had opportunities to perform, not only at the weekly school assembly, but also performing at various local Festivals. The School’s 90 violinists also featured on the local news in November showing the remarkable achievements being made by students in learning the violin in such large numbers.
Graham Holmes, Principal, Wyong Public School:
“The children of Wyong Public School largely come from backgrounds where these music and creative arts opportunities cannot normally be afforded to them. It has been through the support of The Song Room that has given these children experiences that they could have previously only stood back and watch other children enjoy. They have grown in their self esteem, in their sense of self, in their aspirational outlooks and most importantly, in their love of music and performance.”
According to Graham, music and performing arts can transform a school:
“It can be the key that unlocks the talents of children and it can play a defining role in uplifting children’s self esteem, broadening their career and personal aspirations and impressing on them that they can too reach their potential, regardless of their personal life’s circumstances.”
For one student who earlier this year had to be removed for several months to a specialist behaviour facility for seriously disruptive, and at times, violent behaviour, The Song Room program has left an indelible mark on his psyche and has set him on a life trajectory of music and performance.
From violence to violins.
There exist a few great models in the world where a good music education opens up enormous vistas and opportunities. I encourage you to examine the Finnish education system on the one hand and the world shattering success of the Venezuelan Youth Orchestra program (El Sistema) comprising street kids – certainly nothing to do with the elite except in their playing.
We need to work with the media to engage all in musical activities.
The idea of designating one Australian town or city annually to be the ‘Cultural Capital’ would serve to focus and stimulate local artists. Take for example NSW’s third largest city, Wollongong, where we find a city with a broken heart, lying supine in a cultural coma with no cultural infrastructure, except for their local theatre. The local council had recently condemned their only venue suitable for orchestral and chamber music performance, the Wollongong town hall.
Making the arts an important concern for a whole community for even just a year would have far-reaching effects in such a city, serving to generate a cultural dialogue with the rest of the country and the wider world.
Let me finish with a quote from Alan Turing the father of the computer.
If the untrained infant’s mind is to become an intelligent one, it must acquire both discipline and initiative… To convert a brain or machine into a universal machine is the most extreme form of discipline. Without something of this kind one cannot set up proper communication. But discipline is certainly not enough in itself to produce intelligence. That which is required in addition we call initiative. This statement will have to serve as a definition.
It’s no moot point that every senior secondary school student should have access to a computer at school.
So wouldn’t it be wonderful if placed next to that computer on every student’s desk were a musical instrument.
I’ll leave you with Bach’s Chaconne.
This is a transcript of a speech RT made at the Australian Davos Connection's Leadership Retreat.
Tuesday, 6 May 2008
RT IN HK
What a change of gear – from
Edo de Waart has done a great job turning this orchestra around and it now boasts some very fine players. What
Our last ACO stop on our European tour was in
We push on!
I haven’t heard much from the 2020 Summit, but scrolling through some blogs I found some disturbing reactions to there being a perceived disproportionate representation of ‘boring’ ‘ultra-conservative’ classical types.
One person [scroll down to comment #12] makes the comment that as classical music compromises only 1.5 % of CD sales that this was disproportionate to the general population.
The other disturbing reaction was to call Richard Gill ‘ultra-conservative’ because he and others are advocating a shift/return to a quality rigorous music education based on access to sound theoretical and practical training. Meaning you learn to play an instrument properly, as well as strum a guitar, and to read music.
Ok, he shouldn’t have brought hip hop into it ’cos we know hip hop artists can have a sharp and relevant language that resonates – think Danny Hock but at other end of the spectrum is mainstream of vacuous commercialism. As rapper 50 Cent’s manager said, “Our aim is to bring more brand to the youth quicker”. But just because you have access to a good and ‘Serious’ education doesn’t mean you can’t find your hip hop, beat, folk, post punk, pop, R&B voice. I don’t know what these people are proposing but to criticise the voice of Richard Gill, desperate to find the best possible education platform, is displaying a lamentable ignorance.
The other concern about the 1.5% of CD sales comment is equally worrying. The corollary of this argument being that the highest selling CD ‘artist’ should’ve been part of the
I pick up on these comments because I think they are most probably indicative of a generally held view point that ‘serious’ art education is elitist and ultra conservative. I repeat: all Gill and others are advocating is finding structure in music education that affords our population a strong musical base. No one is forcing you to attend an ultra-conservative concert. If these critics did ever attend a concert or if they had the courage to extend themselves they’d find an ACO concert can be a collaboration with some of Oz’s best poets and folk/pop/avant-garde/singer-songwriters et al. and that the education we have received liberates us to fly higher and further with art. The more you know the more you can enjoy.
This is what we are advocating with music education.
Think of Miles Davis and his education [at
Now let’s consider the opposite reality of the ‘ultra-conservative’ Jonny Greenwood – one of the musical minds of Radiohead. He had an ‘ultra-conservative’ ‘serious’ music education at
Richard Tognetti
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