Wonders never cease

As the national capital, Canberra has various oddities or special things, often gifts of other nations, or in a major collecting institution.  It's not quite Rome with its own immense history or Berlin or Paris that display a mix of local and others', or London that's full of imports.  Or Washington DC with plenty of purchases from the old countries given its immense personal wealth over the last century or two.  That said, I prefer our Blue Poles over a similarly large Jackson Pollock in MOMA without the poles.  Just shows.  But then their waterlillies was immensely larger and their Picassos were very significant and at least one Modigliani was a key work.  Do we have a Modigliani?  We probably have a print or two.  But I could go on like this.  Those great collections are a major pleasure of my travels.  But today I went off in search of one local oddity.  I'd heard of our two bricks from London's Waterloo Bridge: built 1817; dismantled for a new bridge 1942.  The stones were distributed through the Commonwealth.  ours are two large granite stones (~1mx1mx2m) between the two arches of the Commonwealth Ave Bridge at the Parliament House end.  I walked on to the National Library, an old haunt.  Firstly, to see our Henry Moore sculpture (Two piece reclining figure, no.9), but primarily to see again our brick from the ancient Library of Athens, a gift from the Greek government: "a piece  of white marble from an Athenian library that was razed by invaders about AD 267 This stone, along with the rest of the ruins of the Library of Pantainos, was largely hidden from sight from AD 267 until 1933, when it was uncovered in an archaeological dig by the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. It made its journey across the world to Australia in 1968 when the stone was donated by the Greek Government to the Australian Government for the new National Library building".  It's located in the foyer of the National Library.  Then walking on to Albert Hall, I see a sundial set on several bricks from the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, no less.  Do these wonders never cease?

Athens stone quote, viewed 10 Dec 2020

Death wish

The biggest issue in Canberra politics these days is the tram (for those anti) / light rail (for those pro). For this post, I will use lr, at least for now... I have an opinion, but I also have friends with differing opinions, so I decided to test myself by attending an open seminar session on the case for Canberra's light rail convened by the University of Canberra's Institute for Governance an Policy Analysis and chaired by ex-Chief Minister Jon Stanhope. Stanhope was academically neutral, although I read in recent days in the paper that previous plans for light rail in his time had not stacked up. This seminar brought together UCan urban planner Barbara Norman (pro) and economist David Hughes (anti). They are both relevantly knowledgeable, having both held highly relevant senior positions in Canberra's local public service (ACT planning and major project analysis at ACT Treasury). Barbara spoke first, arguing for resilience, integrated "multimodal transport", "doing nothing is not an option", expected growth, "excellent opportunities for innovation" (innovation, in trams?), climate change, healthy cities, social justice, while admitting she is "not an expert on cost/benefit". David argued that lr was a "poor project" with low cost/benefit (0.5) on key measures, low carbon savings ($13m), which "doesn't do much" / "impact is negligible", that core benefits (including transport, health, congestion and environment) are just 40% of total benefits, while 60% is other questionable benefits (the same balance for Sydney's lr is 95%-5%), and that risks are on "just about everything" (budget, disruption, private involvement, patronage, future of planning and technologies).

Questions were primarily themed anti. The first doubted the cost. Barbara responded that "stars aligned" in terms of PM, ACT government, a prepared industry (I might add interest rates). David observed history of government project cost overruns, the enormity (esp of the full plan) against the ACT budget, especially given the Gunghalin line is the easiest to justify. Then climate change, town centre planning in Canberra, experiences with other cities (David argues experience is poor, claiming to use the Government's own numbers and examples - Gold Coast, Perth, Portland, etc; Barbara argues for), Barbara mentioned recent articles in the Canberra Times, including Ross Gittins in support of public transport (but ignored an editorial, perhaps the same day, on dangers of the project), "religious conversions" of tram supporters, input from Gen X/Y (David interestingly noted that Braddon has largely developed without government involvement), implications for transport and other costs and government secrecy, comparisons with Melbourne and the argument over health and activity (I hear the tram will only have 3 stops on Northbourne Ave, so walking is not optional), social equity, pleasantness of tram travel, contracts. The audience responses were sometimes one-sided. Most questions were reasonable and reasoned, although some were of the "I liked using trams on holiday in Europe" variety.

So my summation? I am very concerned about climate change and interested in city development, but I call this a tram. It seems to do little new, have numerous problems (infrequent stops, no ability for passing), will cost lots and divert government monies, is not supported by infrastructure or economic experts, is inflexible (isn't the recent tunnel problem an argument against such an inflexible system?) ... there's more but I can't be bothered writing it all here. It's certainly enough to have me writing letters to Rattenbury, Corbell and Barr. As for the arguments, I found David's detailed and evidence-rich but Barbara's vague and wishful. As I see it, this is a lose-lose situation for this centre-left voting public: Labor/Greens win next year's election and we have an expensive project of little real benefit that that will constrain good spending, or Libs win and cancel lr with significant cost in monies and trashed reputation and readiness to explore future public transport options. So, why death wish? It's the expression used by a guy I sat next to and talked with. He'd been chummy with Stanhope before the meeting and obviously moved in those circles. As he said, and I've been recently thinking, governments reach a used-by date; this looks like Labor's death wish. I reckon he might be right.

Jon Stanhope chaired a session on Canberra light rail under the auspices of the University of Canberra's Institute for Governance an Policy Analysis. UCan urban planner Barbara Norman and economist David Hughes spoke for and against the tram.

Lecture website with recommended reading

Our own great escape starts

This advertisement appears in the middle pages of today’s Canberra Times and it says it all. Farewell and best of luck to our best music students. You deserve better than we can provide. If there’s any funny side of this, it all fits so neatly with the Great Escape story on Four Corners and Abbott’s failed run in Parliament. They may have been heroes in WW2, but we are just looking foolish and sad. For the librarians and future researchers amongst us, the citation is: Study classical at the Australian Institute of Music [advertisement]. In Panorama, p.26, arts supplement in Canberra Times, 2 June 2012.

Ian Young as John Kerr

John Kerr was a much reviled character after his putsch on Gough Whitlam in 1975 and he died miserable and perhaps alcoholic and unloved some years later. It’s an interesting parallel because Ian Young is just another Canberra tale. Nobody shot John Kerr, which may have been an outcome in more revolutionary places, but he suffered none-the-less. He was rejected by Whitlam’s supporters who maintained the rage and soon enough ignored by Fraser’s team. Australia continued, but with a gash in its democracy.

I’ve been surprised at the rapid and widespread response to Ian Young’s action on the School of Music. An online petition is past 23,800 when I last looked. A rally on a work day brought 1,000. Students organised a 24-hour marathon jam in a few days on the coldest night of the year to that date and a public concert drew the biggest crowd ever in Llewellyn. This is actually one to ponder as we enter the brave new world of Ian Young’s curriculum change with its intention to “develop skills across a range of music jobs”. These students weren’t educated for this new vision, but they organised a 24-hour jam in a few days and a 4-hour classical concert in a few weeks. It’s a typical managerialist conceit to value management over purpose. The purpose of a concert is the music made by the musicians. The various managers and promoters and the rest are mere enablers. There’s a whiff of fascist control in managerialism, in organising and bettering the malingering hoards. Ian Young’s decision with its blitzkrieg timing (is it three weeks yet since the announced intention to the death knell?) is out of the managerialist camp and informed by military planning. Unless some mining magnate or generous government appears in the wings, music in Canberra is doomed. How long will it take? Not long. Next year’s School of Music intake will take the first hit as promising musicians go elsewhere. Already we’ve lost Adrian Walter and within months we’ll lose other staff members. I expect a few will just retire and remain locally, so some reprieve. The Canberra International Music Festival is riddled with ANUSM staff, so maybe that dies a death. And our Canberra Symphony Orchestra will lose its subsidised musicians feed soon enough and its choices are probably amateur status or closure to retain its pride. Like many other musical activities, jazz will be reduced to small town status. All this on the eve of our brave Centenary of Canberra celebrations. Robyn Archer must be crying in her boudoir.

There’s logic in all this, of course. Music training is expensive. Airconditioning a generous building with delicate instruments is expensive. Balance sheets are blithely rational and they may claim to be value-free. But assumptions underlie markets. What you measure becomes what you value. Markets are level playing fields that advantage wealth and privilege. Civilisation and morality are of no import to markets: an oil spill is more wealth-creating than a parent’s love. In all this, Ian Young is just another cog. We don’t honour cogs and big cogs are often reviled.

For me, this is another painful injury. My abiding personal interests in life have been science through astronomy and the arts through music. The Canberra bushfire on 2003 destroyed most of Mount Stromlo Observatory. Now, ANU has delivered the death blows to the School of Music. It’s not the holocaust, but it’s painful.

On the eve of our glorious centennial, let Canberra return to the sheep dip. Maybe Robyn will invite Kylie to Stage 88 for our birthday. Let’s just forget that fuddy-duddy old Uncle Wolfgang, let alone the upstart cousin Sergei or embarrassing Miles.

Here’s the announcement from yesterday’s ANU Council meeting:

Dear Colleagues

ANU Council today fully discussed the proposed changes at the ANU School of Music.

Council expressed its full support for the change process that has been set in train, acknowledging that on both academic and budgetary grounds, the present curriculum and staffing arrangements were unsustainable.

Council was strongly of the view that the School of Music has been a wonderful resource not only for ANU, but for the Canberra community and indeed the whole nation, and that it was particularly important in this context that its performance teaching stream remained credible and viable.

Council acknowledged that Canberra was clearly underdone in terms of support for music performance, especially for the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, by comparison with other capitals. While the University was prepared to continue contributing significantly to meeting this need, it was crucial that the ACT and Federal Governments as well as the philanthropic community, all played their part.

Professor the Hon Gareth Evans AO QC

For wounded colleagues

It was not till late in the Save the School of Music concert that we felt the pain and loss that the changes proposed to the School would impart. Larry Sitsky came on stage for the penultimate act. He dedicated it to his “wounded colleagues” and commented that “I was here to turn the lights on and I hope I’m not here to turn the lights off”. His Slavonic Dance by Dvorak was impassioned with profound dynamics and a sense of time that rippled right hand against left. Then followed the SoM Chamber Choir with one unaccompanied work and one work accompanied by a string quartet. Dvorak and Vasks: both religious works and both slow and deeply emotional and deeply felt and gloriously sung by the choir. Close harmonies, moving gently, a featured solo male, soaring sopranos. This was a touching end that left the audience virtually in tears. Most of the night was like a classical variety show, a family show with snippets, varied, some joyous, some passionate, some despairing, some angry. The adults performing with panache, the juniors with some trepidation, the babes (prep students) welcomed with their keen intent and involvement, the distant rellies from the jazz school welcomed if not fully understood. I felt it was mostly a classical scene, but Miro and mates were well received, even if the Llewellyn acoustics did them little justice. It was a big family. The Canberra Times reported it as the biggest event held at Llewellyn. I could believe it. The audience overflowed into the Larry Sitsky room and viewed a video stream with who knows how many others on the Net. The building held 2,000 so almost 1% of Canberrans were on the premises. It’s impressive and a message although maybe to the wrong decision makers.

So what did I learn beyond Canberra’s love of music and the School, which I had little doubted in this quietly intelligent city-state. Perhaps my two favourite pieces on the night were both Prokofiev piano works. The first, Toccata Op.11 played by Philip Johnston, sent me for a musical spin with its virtuosity and manic turbulence and rabid dissonance. The second, Sonata no.7 Op.83, 3rd movement played by Arnan Wiesel, responded to murders at the hands of Stalin and was reactive, angry, perhaps frustrated, with its heavy, repeated left hand two-note phrases. And the Dvorak, although very different from Larry Sitsky and the choir, seemed to me the most clearly true and deeply touching. I loved to hear the different sounds of sweet and toneful pianoforte next to the potent and percussive Steinway, and the Australian bush tones of flutes and frog-like percussion that surrounded the audience in the first piece by Ross Edwards. I enjoyed hearing the juxtaposition of levels of skills: the dedicated students who performed with growing then impressive skills and the insightful masters who seemed to just become one with the music. I enjoyed a few operatic pieces. How could you not enjoy Louise Page and Christina Wilson performing Delibe’s Flower duet from Lakme, and Rachael Thoms did a great job on Verdi’s Sempre libera from La Traviata. Tom Azoury and Andrew Rumsey surprised me by introducing me to a genuinely interesting film theme, a quizzical but relaxed march called Viktor’s tale by John Williams. I also enjoyed the classical guitars, especially Timothy Kain playing a prelude by Figuerdo. The jazz contingent struggled with the acoustics, but did three tunes with sharply harmonised melodies and nicely ruminating grooves. I especially noticed Mike Price’s comping and various horn solos including from tutor but Canberra visitor James Greening and Matt and John and Miro and some marimba by Gary France on Miro’s Bronte Café. I couldn’t much hear the pianists and much the same for Eric’s bass.

What else? Daniel Dim, Luke Keanan-Brown and Rohan Dasika playing standards as we arrived. The Fabulous flutes that performed that shimmering surround sound piece by Edwards. Alice Giles with 8 other harps, later alone and later still with David Pareira for a dreamy waltz by Arvo Pärt. A pre-tertiary string/piano quartet and a student guitar quartet and the student Wolfgang Quartet. Barbara Jane Gilby with Meriel Owen playing a Frank violin sonata and James Huntingford and Andrew Rumsey for four-handed piano and Geoffrey Lancaster and Allan Hicks for four-handed fortepiano. The SoM Chamber Orchestra played a string-heavy Vasks piece that was all the world like Barber’s Adagio.

Lots of music, lots of variety. In the end, it lasted four hours. It was unexpectedly lengthy, often exhilarating, tiring towards the end, but I left with a feeling of loss and sadness. This isn’t the only institution of its type but it’s clearly a bloody good one and it’s well regarded in Australia and internationally. Its loss would leave a gaping hole in the soul of Canberra, our own musical Anzac. It will be some time before we hear of any decisions, but clearly very many Canberrans care for a positive result.

Open letter to Gareth Evans, Chancellor, ANU

Open letter to Gareth Evans,
Chancellor, Australian National University

21 May, 2012

The purpose of this letter is to express support for the continuation of the current School of Music at the ANU, one of Australia’s most highly regarded conservatoriums and musicological institutions.

As you are aware, the university proposes to restructure the School of Music by reducing the number of staff from 32 to 13 and eliminating the degree majors of Performance, Composition, Musicology and Ethnomusicology. This would produce degree courses incapable of graduating high level performers, composers, music theorists, musicologists or music philosophers. It would fail to produce graduates capable of higher degree research or Australian Research Council funding. In other words, the new degree would be unworthy of inclusion in a tertiary institution.

We understand that issues of budget underpin the university’s current debate about the School of Music, and that Canberra’s business community has offered to subsidise the music degree. We also understand that the ANU is nevertheless intending to cut academic positions in Music. This decision would appear to ignore widespread community outrage and the wishes of the city that hosts the ANU.

The ANU has not clearly explained why the discipline of Music cannot be subsidised from the university’s significant surplus. Government funding is not provided to universities for the purpose of building surpluses but, rather, for the purpose of funding education programs and the idea that Music should be wholly economically self-sustaining overlooks the integral role of this discipline in the wider university. Melbourne University, when restructuring into the ‘Melbourne Model’, retained Music as one of only six undergraduate degrees. This decision was rooted in an understanding that music faculties are necessary for top tier universities - Oxford, Cambridge, Yale, all have music faculties as do the most highly regarded tertiary institutions in our own country. The proposed restructure of Australia’s most distinguished music faculty endangers the national and international reputation of the ANU.

The ANU School of Music makes one of the largest contributions to the study of Indigenous music of any Australian tertiary institution. For many years the ANU has been a world leader in ethnomusicology and it currently supports Indigenous Elders to undertake research into their own musical culture. This program will be cut with all the others should the restructure be allowed to proceed.

But perhaps most importantly, the downgrading of our Music School will impoverish the rich musical life of Australia’s capital city. The ranks of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra are largely filled with staff, students and alumni of the School of Music. Music teachers in private studios and secondary schools, as well as the Jazz bands that give life to the city at night, are also mostly connected with the School of Music. The musical contributions to university graduation ceremonies, Floriade, local fetes and school events are all likely to falter should the School of Music be downgraded to the extent currently proposed.

When the university points to the ‘elitism’ of classical music – a term that seems acceptable when applied to elite surgeons or sportsmen – it fails to address the far wider benefits of music in Canberra. Because it is not the elite who will suffer most from the closure or downgrading of the ANU Music School – it is the high school students who won’t have access to instrumental teaching, local communities who can’t involve musicians in their activities, Canberra residents who can’t go out on the weekend to hear a band or Jazz ensemble, Indigenous people whose research into their own music will go unsupported, and Aged Care residents who will not be visited by singers from the Music School with Christmas carols. When the ANU closes the door on the Music School they will not be simply restructuring an undergraduate degree, they will be depriving an entire city of its music.

Mr. Gareth Evans we urge you, in your role as Chancellor of the ANU, to intercede for the School of Music – for the reputation of our valued university and for the long-term public good of the Canberra-Queanbeyan community and the local NSW region.

Kind Regards,

Dr Judith Crispin
Sebastian Clark
Prof. Anne Boyd AM
Prof. Larry Sitsky OAM
Dr Ann Moyal AM
John Purnell SC
Jane Goffman
A/Prof. Gary France
Rosemary Greaves
Rob Gray OAM
Dr Oliver Raymond OAM
Greer Versteeg
Timothy Crispin
Brian P Stewart PSM
Dr Andrew Glikson
Christine Goode
Annie Oakey
Anne and Roger Smith
Claire de Luca
Benjamin Willson
Haddon Spurgeon
Dr Paul Hetherington
Barnaby Lewer
Robyn G McKay
Robert Burke
Richard McIntyre OAM

Our beating heart

For me, the essence of Canberra has been its intellectual and artistic life. This is not a big town but we’ve been blessed with the jazz I’ve written about over recent years, our local Orchestra, our International Music Festival and the rest. But were it not for the ANU School of Music, we would have few of these. The ANUSM is the beating heart that makes our musical life happen in Canberra. So I despair of today’s announcement that the Music School is downsizing, introducing a range of innovations (what a loaded word that is!), like “real-time, video-linked lessons”, a Professional Development Allowance (with the requisite acronym, PDA) to allocate to “specialist one-to-one tuition … summer course … master class … conference … learning a new piece of music software” (the work of an evening of two), and training in “skills needed across a range of music jobs”. I don’t wish to judge the ANU and I don’t have the information to make a judgement. Management can be a lonely path (but it can also be ideological and blinkered). I’ve heard of small student loads in some classical instruments and one-on-one must be expensive (but it’s the essence of musical training). Perhaps something needs to be done. And I fear that Canberra has been living off cross-subsidies from the ANU, at least our meagrely-funded CSO. But as I sit here and take this in, I wonder what the future will be in Canberra with a donwnscaled music school. Our musical heart is missing beats. The community may have saved the Fitters’ Workshop (for its limited musical uses), but there may be noone to perform in it.

Canberra blogs

Canberra is the national capital of Australia. It’s a long way from the busy, beating heart of NYC, but jazz is now an international art form and Australia has a thriving and capable jazz community. The community is biggest in the larger cities but each city has its own scene.

Eric Pozza of CanberraJazz.net writes a synopsis on contemporary jazz in Canberra for the Jazz Journalists Association (JJA) 2012 Jazz Day Blogathon

Canberra’s jazz scene is small but vibrant. It’s centred on the Australian National University School of Music and its Jazz Faculty, with its capable professionals and a crew of keen students. Several bars or cafes have jazz as entertainment one or more nights a week. These change regularly but they provide income for students and local professionals. The professionals need to cover the waterfront and teach, but that’s common everywhere. Currently, the main listening venues are The Loft, a small weekly venue run by two recent graduates from the ANU, and the Gods, a monthly jazz series run by noted Australian poet, Geoff Page. Both feature the best local acts, visiting Australian acts and occasional international visitors. A few other listening venues immediately come to mind: the School of Music Band Room, the Street Theatre, the alt-styled Front Café, Hippo Bar and the CGS Gallery.

As is the way, students leave for the big smoke at the end of their courses, so jazz is a changing community and it’s not formally organised. The Canberra Jazz Club exists and has an illustrious history with a string of festivals but the members have aged and their interests are more trad than contemporary. The Jazz Uncovered festival ran for two years (2010, 2011) and we are now looking forward to the second coming of the Capital Jazz Project (2011, 2012) featuring visiting ex-Miles sideman Bennie Maupin. Canberra has a notable community radio station, ArtSound FM, that has supported jazz for over 30 years and has years of recordings of everyone from students (some now-made-good) to visiting internationals in its archives. The National Film and Sound Archive and the Australian Jazz Archive are also in Canberra, and have significant historical jazz collections.

Canberra’s most famous jazz export must be Frank Gambale, guitarist with Chick Corea on a string of albums, but Canberra also has a recent history of seeding Australian and international jazz scenes with its graduates. A few names include Craig Schneider, Kristen Cornwell, Carl Dewhurst, Andrew Robson, Nick McBride, Brendan Clarke, Michael McQuaid, Andrew Swift and the a-cappella quartet Idea of North. Like many new, planned, national capitals, Canberra has a poor image in the national consciousness, not least given its association with Federal politics, but Canberra is a worthy and intelligent city. Its population is only 300,000 people, but the attraction of Parliament, national collecting institutions, Commonwealth departments and agencies, embassies and 4 universities has drawn a well-educated population with an interest in the arts.

To learn more about jazz in Canberra, start with my blog, CanberraJazz.net, for the period since 2005. For history before that date, seek out A cool capital : the Canberra jazz scene, 1925-2005, by John Sharpe, [Torrens, A.C.T.] : J. Sharpe, 2006

JJA Jazz Blogathon 2012

Out & about Canberra

There are times you are surprised by your own city. This is one of them. I write after hearing some mates playing at the National Press Club the other night. Andy Butler, James Luke and Evan Dorrian were performing. This was a standards gig, and I heard just a few tunes, but it was subtle and inventive, nicely settled and richly interpreted with sparse piano that searched honestly for lines, James’ open and gently funky bass and Evan’s busy and telling solos. This is just a club gig, but the band gave such a satisfying and exploratory response. Great stuff. That was Friday evening. Then Saturday morning, I had a very Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie moment. I was driving around Manuka and I spied a little walking group led by a guitar with Graham Monger attached. There was a big black bass bag with player by his side (who? Phill Jenkins, perhaps?) and a third person behind who must have been Dirk. They were obviously looking around for a house Auction notice, and there was one only a few houses away. I know how much I enjoy their playing, but they were only seen not heard this time. Then Saturday night, I attended a play at the Street Theatre: Truth, lies and Hitler, which was very, very impressive. I knew it to be written by a Canberra playwright, and that was impressive. Then I realised it’s part of a series called “Made in Canberra” that’s running at the Street Theatre. Just how much is there around this town! If you look, that is. I suppose most comfortable wealthy cities have similarly impressive arts communities, but I remain blown out by our own. If only there were more time. Congratulations to our little but vibrant community.