THE MUSIC OF PLACE: RECLAIMING A PRACTICE
Jon Rose
‘How do you maintain live music in a culture that does not value it?’ asks Jon Rose, acclaimed improvising violinist and instrument maker. ‘The practice of music has lost its key functions and roles in society’, he writes. ‘The proof of this lies in the steep decline of monetary worth for both practitioner and the art form itself. Music's social worth is also questionable as it is steadily removed from the education curriculum. This is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, nor is it confined to music practised on the fringes of society; it is a problem common to all music forms.’ Rose rejects blaming popular music and digital downloads, delves deeper and proposes a way to change the culture.
At The Tea Room, Sydney 29 May
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IT'S CULTURE STUPID!
Reflections of an arts bureaucrat
Leigh Tabrett
In 2005 Leigh Tabrett was appointed to lead the Queensland Government’s arts agency and began a major program of funding reform. In a trenchant reassessment of these years she explores her own frustrations and reveals how the lack of clarity among decision makers about the core purposes of government funding has profoundly damaged the system.
‘A fundamental clash of cultures’, she concludes. ‘How can we have a national system of public
support for the arts in the absence of any clear sense of purpose?’ Her paper offers a powerful argument for a better way.
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Chair of the editorial board
Honorary Senior Research Fellow in Theatre in the University of New South Wales. His special research interests are theatre architecture and stagecraft in pre-Revolutionary France, the reception of Shakespeare in France and Australia from the 18th to the 20th centuries, and translations of 17th- and 18th-century French playtexts for the English stage. He is editor of Currency House’s Platform Papers and his earlier publications as writer and editor include Shakespeare for the Age of Reason (1992), French Theatre in the Neo-Classical Age, 1550-1789 (1997) and O Brave New World: Two Centuries of Shakespeare on the Australian Stage (2001). His current project deals with rehearsal practices in the European theatre between c1550 and c1850.
Katharine Brisbane AM
Chair of Currency House
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Michael Campbell
Choreographer, literary events manager, director
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Dr John Golder
Chair of the editorial board
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Brett Perry
General Manager, Credit Management Commonwealth Bank of Australia
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Martin Portus
Arts and media consultant
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Nick Shimmin
(editorial board)
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Jo Smith
Jo Smith is Executive Director of the Australian Guild of Screen Composers.
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Liz Terracini
Arts Manager
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Greig Tillotson
(editorial board) Librarian
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Dr Mark Williams
Solicitor
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