Contents
Community music organisations (HHG)
The Tutti Ensemble (Pat Rix)
Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre (Kerry Digby)
Music in the Dandenongs (Charisse Ede)
Community music organisations
By Hans Hoegh-Guldberg (Economic Strategies). Last updated: 2 October 2007
This note provides some general information about community music organisations in Australia, before introducing three case studies associated with current and former MCA councillors and highlighting the diversity of these ventures. We welcome suggestions for other case studies.
MCA’s Community Music Bulletin, one of several MCA online services, provides a rich canvas ranging from community festivals, opportunities for performance, composition, recording, and media exposure, amateur and student competitions, awards, fellowships and prizes, funding and other financial opportunities, information sources and much more. It covers both domestic and international matters, and community music is defined more broadly than we do here, where we concentrate on live performances.
MCA has taken numerous initiatives to promote community music. It is currently conducting, with the Queensland Conservatorium Research Centre and the University of Sydney, the Sound Links nationwide online survey, an Australian Research Council Linkage project that examines the dynamics of community music in Australia, and the models it represents for informal music learning and teaching. To access the survey, please click here.
Other Australia-wide organisations
The Australian Government’s culture and recreation portal lists a large number of community arts projects and topics, searchable by States and types of audience. Further search should help build a list of community music organisations in Australia, a task we have not yet undertaken.
The lists also show a number of sources that give general support to the development of community arts, such as the Australia Council’s Community Partnerships that bring together the Council’s work in the areas of community cultural development (CCD), youth, education, disability and regional development. At least some States have community cultural development organisations such as the Queensland Community Arts Network (QCAN) , which has a special Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Program in addition to its main CCD program.
Regional Arts Australia and its State and Territory organisations (listed here) also provide strong support to community arts across the spectrum of artistic activities.
While many general community arts organisations support community arts activities, few sponsor community music as such. The Australian Register of Cultural Organisations (ROCO) under the auspices of the Department of Communications, Information Technology and the Arts, lists only two specific community music organisations with associated funding bodies, one of which covers a town (Townsville Community Music Centre Inc, and only one covers a State: Community Music Victoria Inc.
Community Music Victoria
Community Music Victoria Inc (CMV) is a non-profit membership-based association that supports, promotes and facilitates music-making among Victorian communities. It is unique not only among Australian States and Territories but according to the CMV website there is no organisation anywhere that covers what it does. It was formed after a previous organisation, Community Arts Network Victoria, was disbanded, by the music officer of that organisation, Stephen Costello, along with Bev McAlister of the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. (Charisse Ede’s article for the knowledge base on the DRMC is reproduced below.)
The executive officer of CMV since 2001, Jon Hawkes, has a distinguished career in community arts administration detailed here.
He comments in a communication for the knowledge base: “Our website is informative about Victoria in that it is a contact point for Victorians wishing to actively engage in music-making with others. But the site’s importance is at least as great in the context of the theory and practice of community music, wherever it’s taking place. Our organisation is important beyond Victoria because it offers a unique model of how effectively integrate training, ongoing support and networking, resource development etc (see the section Introducing
Victoria Sings)”. (1)
(1) Jon Hawkes is the author of The Fourth Pillar of Sustainability: Culture’s essential role in public planning (2001), summarised here. “Cultural vitality is as essential to a healthy and sustainable society as social equity, environmental responsibility and economic vitality. In order for public planning to be more effective, its methodology should include an integrated framework of cultural evaluation along similar lines to those being developed for social, environmental and economic impact assessment.” The paper appears to back the arguments for recognising cultural capital as a separate economic entity put forward in my own paper for the knowledge base on the economic role of cultural capital.
The Tutti Ensemble
By Pat Rix (Artistic Director). Last updated: 9 August 2007
What is Tutti?
The Tutti Ensemble is a recognised leader in community cultural development and disability culture in South Australia. A secular, committed and largely volunteer arts community based at the Minda Campus at Brighton (Adelaide), Tutti has evolved in response to an identified need to:
- Express one’s self creatively through music and singing
- Belong to something meaningful in our increasingly fractured, time-poor society.
In the last few years Tutti’s reputation has spread beyond Australia. These days we are increasingly recognised as an international model of artistic excellence and social inclusion. Our most recent performance – Northern Lights, Southern Cross - script by legendary US storyteller Kevin Kling with music composed by me [Rix] – was a collaboration with the US-based Interact Center Minneapolis. NLSC, as it became known, sold out and was seen by over 4,000 people in one week.
It is scheduled for a major production at the Walker Center in Minneapolis in late 2008.
What we are currently doing
Our common purpose is to enable marginalised people to contribute to the creation and performance of high-quality music and music-theatre work which challenges preconceived attitudes towards difference and disability. We have achieved this over the years through nurturing relationships with professional artists and companies. Tutti’s concerts and large-scale music-theatre works are legendary in Adelaide, regional South Australia and increasingly in the US, Canada and UK.
From its small beginnings in 1997 as a singing group of nine Minda residents with moderate to severe intellectual disabilities and a support worker, Tutti has grown into a multi-layered arts organisation with well over one hundred people. It offers four entry points:
- The original Tutti Choir – a performing choir and band with up to 75 participants over half of whom identify with disability
- Club Tutti – a non-performance based training choir with up to 30 participants most of whom have a disability
- Tutti Arts – a work program in partnership with Minda Inc for talented school leavers with a disability in the performing and visual arts – currently numbering 17 and growing
- Tutti Kids – an after school music program for groups of up to ten primary school age children with disability, their siblings and interested parents.
In addition Tutti continues to build regional connections through the Clare and Barossa Big Country Choir groups established in 2003 and the newly formed Inkpot Community Choir in the Adelaide Hills. The ongoing involvement of Tutti members with and without a disability as community role model mentors is proving very valuable to the regional groups. A similar model has worked well at the Northfield Women’s Prison in Adelaide and as a result some of the ex-prisoners have joined the Tutti choir after release.
The large Tutti Choir traditionally includes full-time, part-time and semi-retired workers from the wider community, of whom many have been with the choir for over five years. On one hand we have professional people representing education, engineering, law, environmental science, communications, health, social sciences and the private sector and on the other hand marginalised people living with intellectual and physical disabilities; parents and siblings of young people with disabilities; people with chronic illness and mental health concerns; aged pensioners; sole parents with children at primary and high school. The whole represents an extraordinary cross-section of society and the age range is three to eighty-two years. To our knowledge this is unique.
Our plans for the next 6 years
Our artistic program for the next six years will ensure our contribution to the development of community music and culture over a sustained period. We want to:
- Broaden Tutti’s skill base, especially in the areas of digital animation and music
- Extend our capacity to create high quality smaller scale works for touring
- Extend our capacity for community building in regional SA through increasing the participation of disabled or other marginalised people in the Big Country Choir
- Enhance our reputation for high quality, socially relevant music-theatre nationally and internationally
- Continue to build awareness and acceptance of people with disabilities
- Support the development of understanding that having an intellectual disability need not mean lack of a ‘voice’.
Essentially, we intend to deepen and broaden the productive bridging role we have played in disability and mainstream arts sectors for the last 10 years. We will do this by partnering with wider community arts sector and our new partner Opera SA (SOSA) to produce a major and minor event and/or production each year. We will also continue our ongoing inclusive weekly choral and music skills development workshops within the metropolitan community and regional SA. This will further raise our profile and affirm our position as a leader in artistic excellence and social inclusion.
In addition, we intend to double our full-time Tutti Arts program to 30 young artists with a disability and work towards facilitating their community and mainstage career opportunities. To this latter end we have established a partnership with the State Opera Young Artists Program (Operatu) which will ensure the ongoing high quality production values our work deserves. Discussions with Stephen Phillips of SOSA about formalising the relationships that have evolved between SOSA’s Young Artists and Tutti are well advanced. Both organisations are outstanding leaders in their fields and well positioned to engage disability and other culturally marginalised populations in vibrant choral and music-theatre workshops with emerging professional singers and musicians. The aim of this partnership is to create pathways to professionalism for young singers and directors with and without a disability. Skills development workshops are planned for 2008 leading to the development of a production in 2009, followed by two more major productions over the next four years. The workshops will employ emerging professionals with SOSA as tutors.
We intend to establish an annual Tutti Summer School. This builds on Tutti’s commitment to increasing community participation locally and will offer a three day visual and performing arts workshop program which will culminate in a lantern parade and sunset ceremony on the Minda campus. Workshops will include drum-making as well as drumming and percussion workshops, clowning, slapstick, vocal technique and a-capella singing, movement for music-theatre, animation, sound design and editing.
Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre
By Kerry Digby (Project Officer). Last updated: 10 August 2007
Introduction
This section of the knowledge base provides a prime example of the type of cultural support that may be provided by a local council, in this case the inner-city coastal council area of Waverley, east of Sydney’s CBD. Most though not all the projects listed in the second part of the note involve live performance.
The Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre is located on Sydney’s most famous beach, visited by untold thousands of domestic and international visitors. It was not always like this, though the history of the place gives it iconic status. In 1902, a man named Joe Gocher flouted Section 77 of the Police Offences Act which prohibited bathing between 9 am and 8 pm. Following this, sea bathing was allowed without fear of prosecution according to the Waverley Council (quoting a Waverley Library publication acknowledging Heritage Week, 1981).
As surf-bathing became more and more popular the necessity for changing areas was recognised, and in 1909 Waverley Council invited designs for surfing accommodation at Bondi Beach for 750 men and 250 women. The original pavilion was opened for public use in 1911. The Bondi Improvement Scheme was launched in 1923, and in 1928 the foundation stone for the new pavilion was laid. The new design included dressing accommodation for 12,000 people, Turkish baths, shops, gymnasium and ballroom.
The use of the pavilion declined from the 1950s, and Waverley Council later began a rebuilding programme to convert it to a community cultural centre. It was opened in June 1978, providing a wide range of classes, workshops, exhibitions, concerts, theatre productions and other activities.
Bondi Pavilion was classified by the National Trust in 1977 as a structure of significant historic character – one of the best known features of Sydney’s beach improvement schemes.
Programs and projects
The Musician in Residence programs have been established at the Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre since 1985 and the new Musicians in Residence program (1), which the Bondi Pavilion is now operating under, has been established since 2005. Both of these comprehensive music programs have been funded by the Australia Council and the NSW Ministry for the Arts, since their inception. The Musicians in Residence program incorporates associate artists who, based on their skills and expertise are employed to run nominated workshops. This format has proved to be most successful and beneficial not only to the wider community but it also allows us greater capability to employ a wider selection of music practitioners. We wish to continue this format for 2007. The projects outlined for the Musicians in Residence program for 2007 are a continuation of established programs with some new initiatives. Programs have been devised to cater for all sections of the community with the intention of creating new and original musical works as well as allowing musical expression for the participants of the projects.
Project 1: Emerging Artists: to enable emerging artists access to professional recording studio production in the development of their music and songwriting. The relationship between young and emerging artists and the Musicians in Residence will nurture the talents and creative development of many young musicians in the areas of performance, songwriting and recording career opportunites. This project will be facilitated by Amanda Brown, John Kilbey and Martin White who will prepare participants for studio recording of their original compositions.
Project 2: Senior Citizens Groups: to continue to develop the musical and vocal skills of a group of elderly musicians and poets. To further develop the skills of the instrumentalists in the group and bring new instrumentalists into the project. In 2006 the group recorded a new CD “Bondi Vista Social Club” to be launched in August. The success of this project has been previously seen by the past recordings, “Truly Julie” and “Walk Along the Beach With Me”. The project will be facilitated by Tania Bowra with specialist tutors.
Project 3: Spoken Word/Poets/Hip Hop Workshops: The Hip Hop workshops would be aimed at young people from the Sydney region to encourage self-expression and the development of creative and technical skills to create new original works. Sessions at the Powerhouse Museum’s Soundhouse will be included to learn computer-based music programs for composing backing tracks and beats. Local musicians will be able to contribute music scores and soundscapes resulting in a compilation CD. Participants will also have the opportunity to showcase their work on Koori Radio [Indigenous] and Bondi FM as well as performing at community festivals and events. This project will involve collaboration with Redfern Community Centre’s music department. Facilitated by Mita Tahutu,with specialist tutors Radical Son and Six Pound.
Project 4: Studio & Production Training: The aim of this project is to train participants in the recording process which may lead to work experience or employment of studio assistants in the Pavilion studios. The outcome will be skills for future employment in the music industry or in the studio/home. Facilitated by Danny-Go-Lightly and Martin White.
Project 5: Primary School Rock Band: Open to primary school children to encourage them to use their creativity, to enhance their musical skills and to learn techniques which enable them to write their own music and perform it. The project run in 2005 was very successful with positive outcomes and demand for this project to run again is very high. The project will run for two school terms and will encourage primary students to carry their learned skills to the next stage of our youth projects – The Bondi Wave. A CD will result from the project. Facilitated by Mel Forbes and John Kilbey.
Project 6: Bondi Community Choir: At present a community choir does not exist in the Waverley area and as there are many requests for one, we would like to introduce a new initiative to provide and encourage vocalists to work on devising original choral pieces as well as singing standard songs from a repertoire that the group will select. The group will focus on a-cappella singing and vocal arrangements and the group will have the opportunity to perform at community events in the future. Facilitated by Nadia Piave.
Project 7: Bondi Community Multicultural Recordings: The aim is to engage with the many varied ethnic communities to produce a CD based on their spiritual belief systems. This project would facilitate the unification and interaction of these diverse groups by exploring Hebrew and Cantorial Melodies, Hindu Bhajans, Christian hymns, Arabo-Andalusian Sufi Qawwalis and Tibetan Buddhist Chants. The melding of different musical styles, instruments and musicians would create a unique experience and CD encouraging self expression under a common spiritual activity. Facilitated by John Kilbey.
Project 8: Pre-School Recordings: We will conduct a music development program of songwriting workshops with preschool children in the child care centres in the Waverley Council area. General music workshops, instrumental development and songwriting sessions will be conducted over a twelve week period. Nine short songs resulting from the workshops will be recorded at the Bondi Pavilion recording studio and a compilation CD and song booklet will be produced. Previous CDs have included “I’m Not Scared” and “Cowgirls and Cowboys”. The project has proven to be a great success in the past with a demand for running this project again.
(1) Waverley Council’s Annual Report for 2005-06 put the Musicians in Residence program into a general policy context: under services for young people (pp 29-30, 132, 139-141), access and equity activities for people with disabilities (p 132), and state of the environment activities (pp 166-167). The Bondi Pavilion Community Cultural Centre features prominently in the report (a search for ‘pavilion’ yields 65 hits). It is mentioned prominently in Council’s multicultural policy action plan (p 27) and other contexts.
By Charisse Ede (board member DRMC, journalist AAP)
Last updated: 28 August 2007
- History
- Engaging all in community music
- Working with professional artists
- Playing an advisory role
- The future
In 2005, the mimicking sounds of the famous lyrebird (1) were overtaken by the voices of hundreds of school children recovering from bushfires that had devastated parts of the Dandenong Ranges, east of Melbourne in Victoria. In one massive choir, they sang words they had written themselves, to music composed by a professional artist and played by local musicians. Others danced and twirled fire as the children interpreted the fear and tragedy inflicted on them and their communities, and the recovery from such an event. Their songs floated through the rainforests and helped to uplift and motive all who heard it. Such is the power of music in the Dandenong Ranges community.
The Fire Cycle was one of many community music events that are now a key function of the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. The DRMC plays a vital role in developing music in the community through education, partnerships, awards programs and professional development.
(The photo shows the finale of the 2005 Fire Cycle Concert, but much great content is lost in the web version; please open this pdf file for a detailed look … and try zooming to 200%! Ed)
History
The DRMC was established in 1979 by Bev McAlister, who experienced the immense value of school and community music while living in a remote town of the Rocky Mountains in the United States. She was inspired by the way community events integrated the arts and music performance with the history and folklore of the region, with children and adults participating in concerts and community festivals.
Bev immediately saw the need for and benefit of a similar program in the Dandenong Ranges, a region made up of small townships set amongst cool temperate rain forests and colourful bird life, especially the lyrebird. The Hills – as they are known locally – have also been the inspiration of many famous Australian artists and writers, including Arthur Streeton, Tom Roberts, CJ Dennis, Lin Onus, Fred Williams and Jeannie Gunn. On her return home, Bev found overwhelming support amongst the community to begin the Dandenong Ranges Music Council. The broad goal was to establish music groups that would perform in the community and make music accessible to people of all ages and abilities. Performances would integrate into the lifestyle of the community and vary from a fanfare for the unveiling of a new fire truck, to a soiree for an art exhibition.
DRMC is now a diverse organisation with its own community music centre at Upwey High School, governed by a board of 12 members that oversee the direction and growth of the organisation, funding, publicity and governance issues. It has an administrative office with three part time staff, a music library, store room and performance and rehearsal space that is always heavily booked.
The organisation has helped to establish and support many music groups, including Ranges Young Strings, an African drumming circle, the Dandenong Ranges Orchestra, the Yarra Ranges Children’s Choir, the Sweet Sassafras Community Gospel Chorus, rock, swing and concert bands, a country music group and various singing groups. It provides music classes to children and adults, especially in those areas where a school music program is lacking. It also supports groups that give musical relief and stimulation in hostels and nursing homes and to people with disabilities. A key structure of the DRMC is to help develop community music groups and assist them to become sustainable incorporations. Many of these groups are directed by professional artists living in the Hills, passing on their immense experience and knowledge, and supported by voluntary committees.
The DRMC also provides an important musical pathway for artists wanting to take their interest and skill to a professional level. Former member David Thomas is now the principal clarinettist at the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, and many others are music educators, sound recordists or professionals in the music industry.
Engaging all in community music
The DRMC aims to engage all sectors of the community in music. It is not exclusive to people who already sing or play an instrument. Whoever wants to make music, write a song or say something through music can be involved in the DRMC. It prides itself on partnerships with non-arts groups, such as the Country Fire Authority, the Shire of Yarra Ranges’ environmental education officers, Parks Victoria, the Upper Yarra Community Forest Project and Worawa Aboriginal College. In 2005, it helped to establish a youth circus performance group, which recently became incorporated.
Working with professional artists
A key strategy of the DRMC is to bring professional artists into the community to work with musicians and students, and to compose new music. This is often done through special projects designed to inspire, motivate and interpret what the community wants to say through their music and the arts, such as the Fire Cycle. In 2006, it explored the issue of water conservation in Australia through the Water Cycle, and again involved hundreds of school children and a professional composer/songwriter (John Shortis, shown above working in The Patch Primary School creating the songs of the Water Cycle).
Hillsongs is a major annual event that brings together school children into a massed choir in a high quality venue with professional stage management offering professional development to community and school music staff (photo above). This program varies each year and can feature a guest conductor, music educator or guest artists in different genres. In one year, a commissioned composer visited schools and discussed poems with the students, then wrote songs and produced an accompaniment that was sent to participating schools to learn.
A work composed by John Shortis, Song of the Firees, with the help of the Sassafras/Ferny Creek Fire Brigade, was launched at the Torchlight Parade at the local Knox Festival and won two RACV Fire Awareness awards for excellence and community engagement.
Attitude was established to provide music programs for people with a mental health, physical or intellectual disability. Working with music therapists, Attitude enables participants to experience the positive benefits of contributing to group music making through creative and artistic expression. The participants’ work was recorded onto a CD and will be showcased at a concert on October 28, 2007.
Last year, the Composers Connecting Community Pilot Project, funded by the Music Board of the Australia Council, saw a professional composer, Dr Calvin Bowman, compose music set to the poems of CJ Dennis and Robert Herrick. Dr Bowman visited school children throughout the region and helped them make a connection with their local cultural history. A CD was also produced of this event. The photo shows him with project manager Karen Noonan and children from Ferny Creek Primary School who were involved in DRMC’s Composer Connecting Community project.
The DRMC also aims to develop musical ability. It employs professional musicians and songwriters to work with the community in specific fields, such as jazz and community orchestra. Past professionals have included Don Burrows, Bob Sedergreen, David Jones and Kevin Hunt, as well as musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The organisation also offers annual awards for musical excellence. The Chris Krans Music Award and Bill Borthwick Young Musicians Encouragement Prize aim to recognise and encourage young musicians.
Playing an advisory role
The DRMC has now become so entrenched in Hills culture, its advice is often sought from government and community groups on how best to administer or develop musical services, or the local council regularly refers music inquiries to the organisation. In particular, the DRMC has taken a leadership role over the past 10 years in the push for a purpose built performing arts centre. That project is now nearing fruition, and the DRMC has been heavily involved with the local government and other arts groups in developing the building to ensure it reflects the artistic needs of the community and those of visiting professional artists.
In addition, Community Music Coordinator Bev McAlister is frequently invited to give guest lectures on community music at universities and cross-sector events, such as the federal government’s National Music Summit. DRMC ensembles and music directors are also invited to share their experiences to other music groups and communities around the country.
The future
The future challenges of the DRMC are to continue to grow the organisation and its services. A priority is to increase funding to employ more staff and the board is now working on a variety of strategies to help it add to its traditional sources of federal, state and local government funding. Importantly, the Victorian government recently allocated $100,000 over four years to help the DRMC further develop its services. This is a significant recognition of the DRMC’s role in providing an important community service in the Yarra Ranges and neighbouring municipalities. The DRMC board wishes to acknowledge the enduring support of the Shire of Yarra Ranges and the Music Board of the Australia Council.
(1) The illustration is from australianfauna.com, advertised as “a 100% free Australian information site.”
