As each day goes by, the world seems to become crazier, and I’ve decided that my friends and my wider music community are more important than ever.
Although I’m a proud Kiwi, I’ve lived in Sydney since December 1985. Within a few weeks of arriving in Australia from England, I tutored on a Pan Pacific Music Camp, and this was my first experience of working with young Aussie students from the bush. I was struck by their determination and resourcefulness in learning to play a musical instrument, often far from qualified music teachers. From that moment, I decided I wanted to make a difference for these great kids, and I started on a journey that I’m still on.
Whenever I could, I would travel out to country areas to work with these students and do everything I could to support them and their teachers, who were often teaching out of their comfort zones. Over time, I organised mini festivals where they could gather and meet other like-minded musicians. As a result of this nurturing, many of those musicians have gone on to have terrific music careers.
At one point, I had a musical involvement in over 40 New South Wales country towns, and although I knew what wonderful things were happening in each of these locations, no one else did. I spoke to my friends at Yamaha Music in Melbourne and persuaded them to put out a regular magazine called Music Connect. I would gather musical stories from the bush and then produce a magazine that was greeted with great anticipation. People loved to find out what tricks the Coonabarabran violin teacher used to persuade boys to learn or what the adult wind ensemble was playing in their next concert in Inverell. Friendships were formed because of the magazine, and musical excursions resulted from these new connections.
I share these experiences with you as I feel strongly that Community Orchestras New Zealand, like Music Connect, has enormous potential to create a wonderful music community across our country. In time, this will produce some surprisingly positive outcomes.
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