Talkin' 'bout the School

There's a new VC at the ANU and a new Community Consultation for the School of Music. The team has been talking to various people, Friends, current staff and ex-. I provided my bibliography of the SOM changes of 2012 and thereafter and highlighted a few posts/letters to various senior parties. Thus I got an invitation to make a submission. Being outside it all, I'm not sure of the value, but here's my submission and below is the page outlining the process. Comments are invited on the Community Consultation page.

CJ's submission

ANU SOM Community Consultation page

Thanks to Wikicommons for the image, Piano mechanism English type.

For Canberra’s 100th

I feel bereft and the final student concert at the Jazz School the other night had a sad, even teary, air about it. Eric Ajaye raised spirits with a dignified personal-recovery-from-adversity oration, and that’s admirable and true, at least to some degree. Joe McEvilly was leading the band and I was impressed by both his musical and personal maturity (he’s only 20!) as he avoided being overly political, recognising it was “too late for us” but maybe there was a future for others. I understand current students still don’t know what’s on offer next year. Some are leaving; some are staying to finish. One parent has told me of a student who had been offered a transfer but that it would extend his course by one year. Enrolments are down ~25% but the new Director expects full enrollment by the start of year. It’s a common expectation amongst the jazz community that no-one would come to Canberra for the new course. Perhaps students will pursue it as a second degree and that has some value and it’s cheaper. Good luck to the few worthy staff that remain (let alone those who have left). I imagine it will be a hard road to travel. This from an institution that been with us for half of Canberra’s 99 year life. I’m thinking that the Music School may have been the most popular cultural institution in Canberra. Certainly, tens of thousands of Canberrans signed a petition and all parties in the Legislative Assembly were disappointed with the ANU decision. Is this a 1975 Dismissal moment? The comparison sits easily with me. Remember the suddenness; remember the widely despised GG John Kerr; remember “Mantain the rage”; remember the rent to the Australian fabric. I can imagine an emotional void down Marcus Clarke St right now and some friends speak of it. My more cynical friends predict investments in high rise next to Llewellyn in a few years. I was terribly disappointed by the arguments presented, but the weakest must be to call up the conservative-bugbear of “elites”. How is this elite? Elite as in intellect and discovery like Nobel Prizes? Elite as in high university rankings? Elite as in musicians who are renowned and tour the world? Or elite as in Occupy’s 1% and $?m heads of corporations and too big to fail. With our whole society, even universities, taking the corporate path, it makes you wonder. Yep, the school was elite, but in performance not wealth and that seems perfectly admirable to me and Canberra was the better for its musical success. So, excuse the lack of a concert report. Suffice to say that it was very good. They are invited to play at Wangaratta, Australia’s main modern jazz festival, this weekend. That’s elite, stunningly so for a few students with original charts. But what more to say? Farewell.

Movement 9 played at the final ANU School of Music student jazz series of 2012. Movement 9 is a platform for arrangements and compositions by Joe McEvilly (baritone sax) with Ax Long (trumpet), Tom Sly (trumpet, flugelhorn), Matt Handel (alto), Oisin Smith-Coburn (tenor), Patrick Langdon (trombone), Tate Sheridan (piano), Raf Jerjen (bass) and Henry Rasmussen (drums). Eric Ajaye (bass), Miroslav Bukovsky (trumpet) and John Mackey (tenor) sat in for one tune each.

For a full report on the concert rather than a paean over the jazz school, see Revisiting the ninth movement

Cyberhalides Jazz Photos by Brian Stewart

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

St(r)eamin'

I’m listening to the Faculty band on a stream as I write this: Giant steps, giant playing. I got in earlier for classical guitar players who I’d never previously come across. The School is renowned for its classical guitar component. But School Head, Adrian Walter, classical guitarist, is off to Hong Kong. Sign of more things to come. The classical guitarists had a mournful edge to their playing, I can understand given the event, but beautiful and insightful. Cold night, warm hearts, keep it up. The petition is at 17,553, has been growing steadily for days and continues. We are with you. Face the night. Luck to you all, the School and, for that matter, potentially bereft Canberra.

Open letter to Senator the Hon Bob Carr, Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade

Minister Bob Carr

I write to you about the international impact of changes to the ANU School of Music.

It’s not often that changes at a music school will have international effects, but I think this one does. By its presence in Canberra, the ANU School of Music provides excellent staff and students to the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, Duntroon band, events at Parliament House, Government House, the Lodge and at embassies, as well as supporting a range of local musical events and communities.

The proposed changes at the School of Music would remove numerous staff and downgrade the nature and quality of training. The result is that ANU would no longer attract students seeking performance excellence.

The essence of Canberra has long been its vibrant intellectual and cultural life, as well as its role as the centre of government. Canberra represents modern, intelligent, urban Australia as its national capital. It provides a contemporary alternative to Australia’s international stereotypes.

On the eve of Canberra’s centenary, and while all governments promote innovation and creativity as the basis of wealth in the new Century, will Canberra revert to culture-starved and orchestra-free Country Town status? Choices like this determine whether Australia’s reputation is as a vibrant, modern, creative country … or as a sheep dip and coal mine.

Please consider the implications of a culturally diminished national capital for Australia’s international reputation and its immediate reputation with the diplomatic community.

Eric Pozza
CanberraJazz.net
9 May 2012

cc Hon Simon Crean, MP, Minister for the Arts
cc Senator the Hon George Brandis, Shadow Minister for the Arts
cc Mr Gary Rake, Chief Executive, National Capital Authority

Open letter to Katy Gallagher, MLA, Chief Minister of the ACT

Ms Gallagher

I write about the possible changes at the ANU School of Music. I’m sure you are aware of the changes that have been proposed. You may also be aware of the ardent campaign that is now running in the the community. The ANU is a national institution, and so is not under your control. However, I wish to highlight to you the dangers for the ACT of these changes. They don’t just change the situation at one university. They change the whole ACT community. Essentially, the remnants of the School of Music will no longer draw aspiring musicians to Canberra to study. The results of this are devastating to the culture and damaging to the people and business of Canberra. I borrow from Jenna Cave, ex-graduate and now a professional composer:

“Without the school of music functioning as a training ground for quality musicians and retaining its world class instrument tutors, the hub of music making in your town will be gone. There will be no Canberra Symphony Orchestra. There will be no inspired young music students and graduates to teach your children. There will be no one to play jazz at bars around town. There will be no string quarters or jazz bands for your weddings. And most importantly, there will be nowhere to inspire your children to imagine that they could one day study to become an amazing musician.”

I love Canberra for its intellectual and cultural scene which is beyond expectation for a city of this size. But now I picture an enfeebled culture. All Jenna’s predictions above, plus … Community groups, choirs, Canberra Concerto Orchestra, UC College of Music, Duntroon starved of musicians. Clubs and bars and tea rooms without talented and committed artists, with implications for business. Even embassies and national institutions starved of performers. What of Australia’s reputation with an orchestra-free capital? And what of Canberra’s reputation within Australia?

On the eve of our centenary, at the very time we are celebrating Canberra 100, will Canberra revert to culture-starved and orchestra-free Country Town status, that status we for which we are perpetually mocked?

Canberra is far better than this. I implore you to work with ANU V-C Ian Young to find a way to save this essential institution.

Eric Pozza
CanberraJazz.net

7 May 2012

Attachment: Open letter to ANU Vice-Chancellor Ian Young

cc. Joy Burch, MLA, ACT Minister for the Arts
cc. Caroline Le Couteur, MLA, ACT Greens spokesperson on the Arts
cc. Vicki Dunne, MLA, ACT Shadow Arts Minister
cc. Robyn Archer, Creative Director, Centenary of Canberra

Open letter to ANU Vice-Chancellor Ian Young

ANU V-C Ian Young

Please read this:

“Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. Our gross national product ... if we should judge America by that - counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for those who break them. It counts the destruction of our redwoods and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. It counts napalm and the cost of a nuclear warhead, and armored cars for police who fight riots in our streets. It counts Whitman's rifle and Speck's knife, and the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.

“Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it tells us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.”

Robert F. Kennedy Address, University of Kansas, 18 Mar 1968

These memorable words bring several thoughts to my mind. Obviously, that Americans can speak loftily. But more importantly, there are things that our economics do not recognise or value, and because we don’t count them, they are not cared for and ultimately can be lost. The environment as an “externality” is the most dangerous one, but the arts and humanities are others. We are all cogs in a wheel, and the wheel of rational economics has been rolling on for several decades. This is not all bad, for to recognise value and balance priorities is a necessary activity. But it’s only an activity for a greater good, and when we don’t identify our essential values correctly in its terms, we set ourselves up for loss. A great university is about more than just producing “human resources” (a.k.a. people) for the corporate world. It’s a humanist project to value and explore the best that we can be. Music is part of that. I don’t claim it’s all – the great jazz saxist, Wayne Shorter, said “If all you have is music, then you don't have music”. But we must have music. Thinking further, I remember who we value, who we make films of, and who appears in our historical record with approval. It’s the Gandhis, the Schindlers, the Martin Luther Kings. They take risks, they are brave, they go against the tide, but above all they stand for the things we recognise deeply as important. Manning Clark sits at the centre of your university’s life with some of your largest lecture theatres named after him. Borrowing from Manning’s Manichaen vision, I hope you can see clear to side with the enlargers rather than the straighteners. History, and current Canberrans, will view you well if you do. Otherwise, the devastation of music in Canberra is just another brick in a wall of corporatist darkness.

V-C Ian Young, please choose ANU to be great rather than merely instrumental.

Eric Pozza
CanberraJazz.net

This is CJBlog post no. 800.

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.