CON tribute Issue 1 - 2010

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issue 1 2010

contentsissue 1 2010

2 Recognition at last! the First Recognition ceremonies

4 WheRe We Began address by Dame Janet Ritterman DBe

6 once in a liFetime mick le moignan

8 Why music? Donn mendoza

10 invaDing euRope 2009 tour and plans for 2010

12 one moRe aDventuRe a profile of maestro imre pallo

14 a neW lease oF liFe professor cherie Broome

16 Why ReseaRch? professor Keith howard

17 the alFReD hooK lectuRe seRies

18 pReseRving tRaDition, Facing the FutuRe symposium

20 a little help FRom ouR FRienDs & volunteeRs margaret helman

22 the Dean’s gala 2010

24 opening DooRs to ouR Rising staRs the con’s open academy

26 1 oF 101: BuilDing music With John coRigliano

28 heaR the WoRlD’s neW music heRe iscm World new music Days

30 classicool alexa still and the project trio

32 monochRome memoRies

34 giFts that maKe a DiFFeRence

36 playing youR paRt

38 Why give?

40 DvD RetRospective 2009 anD moRe

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Editor Mick Le MoignanSydney Conservatorium of Music Macquarie Street, SYDNEY NSW 2000 AUSTRALIA [email protected]

PhotograPhy Dan Whitewww.danwhite.com

dEsign 10 group, Wendy Neill

Production 10 group

covEr PhotograPh by Dan White. Terri Greene opera diva, delighted to have received her Certificate of Recognition as an alumna of the University of Sydney from the Chancellor H.E. Professor Marie Bashir

h ere we celebrate some of the many wonderful achievements of our students, staff and alumni. We have many unsung heroes at The Con: well, we

want some of them to be sung! This time, we pay tribute to Janet Ritterman, Imre Pallo, Cherie Broome, Keith Howard, Margaret Helman, Matthew Hindson and Alexa Still, among others, but there are many more that you will hear about in future issues.

This is a time of debate about the future of The Con and indeed the whole University of Sydney. As I write, a “green paper” has just been published, canvassing options for the future of the University. By the time of our next issue, it will have become a “white paper” and far-reaching decisions will have been made.

In 1990, when The Con joined forces with the University, we were 75. Now we are 95 and it is a good time to take stock.

At a recent strategic planning meeting at The Con for senior faculty and management, we spent some time defining our aspirations for the future. We united in our determination that The Con of the twenty-first century shall be:

“A global centre of excellence in music, providing leading edge education, research and performance.”

Soon we will discover whether we will pursue that noble aim as, in the words of the Vice-Chancellor of 1990, John Ward, “the jewel in the crown of the University” and/or as an independent crown, made of our many individual jewels.

Either way, we will only be able to help young Australian musicians to realise their true potential with the help of your belief and support. The Con is far greater than any individual: here we pay tribute to its past and present and invite you to play a real part in The Con’s fantastic future.

a message FRom the Dean & pRincipal

It’s a great pleasure to welcome you to CON tribute, the first issue of our new magazine for Friends, alumni and supporters of The Con, to be published every Autumn and Spring.

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Recognition at last!

Almost 250 former students of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music from before 1990, when it joined with the University of Sydney, came to receive Certificates of Recognition from the Chancellor of the University and Governor of NSW, H.E. Professor Marie Bashir.

Twenty years after the amalgamation, the University has agreed to acknowledge as an alumnus (or alumna, if female) anyone who completed a minimum of at least one full semester as a tertiary student at the Conservatorium or at least three years as a member of staff.

The formal ceremony was followed by tea on the lawn and a photo-opportunity, after which a fleet of coaches whisked the participants and their guests off to the Conservatorium for a Reunion Concert and a Champagne Reception. This event provided the ideal opportunity for seeking out old friends, catching up on their news and realising again that music is truly the elixir of youth!

On Thursday 18 February, the Great Hall of the University of Sydney, witness to countless graduation ceremonies over the past 150 years, played host to a brand-new ceremony featuring participants aged from 45 to 95 who were thrilled and amazed to be there, after all this time.


recognise that – albeit in new ways – the priorities that shape its work now are things that connect with the traditions - the values - of the past, as well as providing direction and purpose for the future. And if we do experience something like this shock of recognition – this sense that time past, time present and time future are coming together in a very personal fashion - it’s only right that we look for ways in which we can help to support the continuing exploration of what the future holds. Its future is our future, too.

The next five years, leading up to the centenary of the Con in 2015, will be a very important time in the institution’s history and development. I’m sure that the University and the Conservatorium will welcome your interest and support, so I hope that the various types of recognition that today’s events encapsulate will make you want to keep in touch. That’s certainly what I’m aiming to do.

Dame Janet’s address at the Dean’s Gala Concert on 23 February 2010 may be seen and heard on the DVD, Con Retrospective 2009 and More, free with this first issue of CON tribute.

wonderful egalitarianism in the air: the opportunities were there; it really was up to you. If you could do it, whatever it was, the chance was there, and you were more likely to be encouraged than stopped. But it certainly wasn’t all play: there were exams, and plenty of them. And then there was Diploma Class! I certainly found that the range of areas on which we were tested for the Performer’s and Teacher’s Diplomas more than matched anything that I later had to do. And that’s not counting acoustics, or orchestration, or that quick study piece that had to be learnt in little more than a day. . .

I could go on . . . just talking about it makes me recognise how much I owe to my time at the Con, and to those – fellow students as well as staff – whom I met there. I guess that’s as it should be - the process of recognition is, at best, a multi-faceted one. And today is the University’s turn: it’s primarily about recognition on the part of the University of the standing of those who successfully completed their studies at the Con. I’m very glad that so many of you have accepted the invitation to come to be part of this special occasion, to be formally welcomed into the University family.

Worldwide, it is becoming increasingly common for conservatoires – while ensuring

that their identity and their integrity are preserved – to become part of multi-faculty universities, and for the type of music education that we received – an education which involved head, hand and heart – one where both practical skill and academic knowledge were seen as necessary complements one of the other – for this to be seen as degree level equivalent. The various contributions to society of everyone presented this morning tell their own story – and a very good one, too.

There are some well-known lines by the poet T. S. Eliot that have been resonating in my mind in the past few days – they’re from the last of the Four Quartets, the lines that go:

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.”

For some of us, by the end of today’s events we may well feel that we are knowing the place “for the first time” – this place that for most of us was the beginning of a musical journey.

So I hope that those of us who knew the Conservatorium of old will also be able to Photograph by Dan White

Your Excellency, Vice-Chancellor, Dean, members of the Conservatorium, ladies and gentlemen...

To be standing here in this Great Hall is for me a very special experience, so let me begin by thanking the University and the Conservatorium for the invitation to share in this special occasion and for the particular honour that has been conferred on me this morning. On both counts I am extremely grateful, and feel honoured to be welcomed here in this way. This city, this university, and particularly the Con, hold a very special place in my heart. And while the acknowledgement of one’s work is always appreciated, it feels very special when, as today, this acknowledgement comes from the place I regard as home.

But it’s also special because of this occasion – a Recognition Ceremony. I’ve never been part of one of these before! But I’m delighted to be here for this one. Naturally I know something of the history that has brought us to the point at which the University wants to welcome into the University family those who completed their studies at the Conservatorium before 1990. Of course, in the end it isn’t the piece of paper or the letters after your name that really matter – it’s what you can actually do.

But for a long time there has been the feeling among some of those who left the Con in earlier years that it would be only fitting for the standard of their Conservatorium studies to be formally acknowledged as comparable with degree level work. I’m sure I was not alone in finding - once I left Australia - that the musical education and the range of musical experience that the Con provided gave me a very secure basis on which to tackle most musical situations that I encountered – and the confidence to believe that I could do it.

So what was so special about the Con? I’m sure that lots of people here this morning will have their own memories about what made your time as a Con student special. But let me just share with you a few of the things that I loved – and that I now recognise (since today’s a Recognition Ceremony) helped to make the experience so memorable.

First, there was the building itself – the ‘fortified’ Conservatorium of Music, as D. H. Lawrence once described it. (In my books, the music school with the best back yard in the whole wide world!) I loved the building and its character: it may have been a bit ‘down at heel’ in places while I was there, but it was full of atmosphere – it had wonderful nooks and crannies – it was a building with ‘attitude’. But, equally importantly, it was full of characters – from the Library to the Buffet (do you remember the Buffet?), from the harmony classes to the teaching studios.

By present-day standards, what we were offered was perhaps at times rather informal, a bit idiosyncratic. But almost without exception those with whom I studied were passionate about music, ready to share their enthusiasms and to lead by example. And from this I developed musical values which have stayed with me ever since. Long before it was customary to do so, Alex Burnard was encouraging us not simply to produce harmony exercises, but to write music. And ‘fortified’ though it may have appeared from the outside, the Con that I attended was no ‘ivory tower’. We were encouraged to get out of the institution – to perform round the city, to go to concerts, to get engaged in music ‘in the round’.

There was time and encouragement to make music with fellow spirits – whether they were Con high school students, part-time students or local professionals. There was a

WheRe We staRteD By Dame Janet RitteRman, DBe

Dame Janet Ritterman, who graduated from SCM in 1962, is a distinguished music educator and advisor on arts policy who has spent most of her life in the UK, including twelve years as Director of the Royal College of Music in London. At the first Recognition Ceremony, she accepted the award of an honorary doctorate of the University of Sydney and gave the following address:

“from this i developed musical values which have stayed with me ever since

”


m any of them, nearly all in immaculate academic dress, seemed slightly stunned by the occasion

- but still delighted to accept a certificate of recognition from the unfailingly gracious Professor Marie Bashir. Any doubts about the purpose of gathering after so many years were swiftly banished by the enthusiastic welcome they received from former colleagues they hadn’t seen for decades.

In the morning, students from the 1970s and 1980s each received a round of applause as their names were read out by the Dean and they walked up to the platform. In the afternoon, their seniors from the 1940s, 50s and 60s were more exuberant, making no attempt to hide their pleasure and delight in the occasion. Every single one was given a second round of applause on their return from the platform, with an extra burst reserved for anyone who appeared to find

I had spent most of the previous six months and all of the previous six weeks preparing for the two Recognition Ceremonies and speaking with many of the participants, but I was completely unprepared for the waves of emotion that swept through the Great Hall on the day. It was as if most had never imagined themselves in this situation; there was a dream-like quality about the proceedings.

once in a liFetimeBy micK le moignan

Photographs by Dan White

recognition for my life in music!” The hunt for our “Missing Musos”,

as we rather cheekily called them, began in earnest with three advertisements in The Sydney Morning Herald towards the end of September 2009. For a while, a pleasing handful of responses arrived every weekday. When the invitations went out in December, the musicians’ bush telegraph really sprang into action: the phone calls and emails started coming in almost as fast as Graham Wright and I could answer them.

Inevitably, we had to disappoint a few people who replied too late for us to print a certificate and include their names in the printed program, but they and hundreds of others will be invited to take part in future Recognition Ceremonies, possibly later this year, depending on the availability of the Chancellor and Vice-Chancellor, and we promise to roll out the red carpet again

climbing five steps more of a challenge than it might have been 40-70 years earlier.

It was heart-warming to see sprightly Nancy Tuck bounding up the steps at 95 years of age – and 94-year-old Robert Dunn, whose birthday on 6 June 1915 makes him exactly one month younger than The Con itself! For me, the story that encapsulates the spirit of the day came when I rang a lady and invited her to take part, only to be told:

“Oh, that’s such a shame! I’m going into hospital in the second week of February to have knee replacement surgery, so I won’t be able to come.”

I commiserated and said she would be more than welcome to attend the next ceremony when she had recovered. Three days later, she called back to say:

“Listen, I’ve decided, bugger the knee op! This is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I’m not missing it: it’s

for them and provide an equally warm welcome and another terrific reunion party.

If you qualify, or if you know someone who might qualify for an invitation, please contact Graham Wright at The Con:Tel: (02) 9351 1202 Email: [email protected] Graham will be delighted to hear from you.

As the Dean, Professor Kim Walker, summed it up at the reception:

“We called you the ‘Missing Musos’ – and most of you probably had no idea you were missing! I’ll tell you what that “missing” really meant: we were missing you! We were like a tribe that had lost touch with its elders - or a tree, cut off from its roots. But now that we’ve found you, we’re not going to let you go! We hope you’ll come back for concerts and lectures and events for the Friends of The Con - again - and again - and again!”

a ReFlection By anna eleK

As I sat in the Great Hall at the Recognition Ceremony, I realised that recognition has to come first: if you don’t recognise a person, they don’t exist for you.

I wondered how many hours of hard work were represented by the people in that Hall. Even between the ages of, say, six and eighteen, nearly all of us must have spent thousands and thousands of hours in the quiet discipline of practice.

And I thought what a privilege it was to be in this company.

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a soul that is weary. Whether they go out whole again will depend partly on how well you do your craft. You’re not here to become an entertainer, and you don’t have to sell yourself. The truth is, you don’t have anything to sell: being a musician isn’t about dispensing a product, like selling used cars. I’m not an entertainer; I’m a lot closer to a paramedic, a fire fighter or a rescue worker. You’re here to become a sort of therapist for the human soul, a spiritual version of a chiropractor or a physiotherapist, someone who works with our insides to see if they can get things to line up, to help us to achieve harmony with ourselves and be healthy, happy and well.”

It’s quite a daunting prospect, but I believe that’s the real challenge we take on when we decide to be full-time musicians. Our job is not only to master the intricacies of music, so far as they relate to our own instruments, but also to save the planet - or at least, a sizeable number of our fellow human beings, who may come to us at their

darkest hour, in dire need and distress! You see, I think when we embark on

the long course of study and practice and preparation that leads us to becoming professional musicians, we can’t just opt out of all social responsibilities. If our world’s future is going to be characterised by an irresistible wave of wellbeing, harmony, mutual understanding, equality, fairness and peace, we can’t expect it to be brought to us by our governments or the armed forces or big business.

And I doubt if it will be sponsored by all those wise men from the various religions in the world, either, because all through history, right up to the present, presumably from the best possible motives, they’ve caused more war than peace. If there is to be peace on the earth, if we are ever going to understand how the invisible and intangible elements of life fit together, that knowledge will be discovered and developed by us, the artists of the world.

Why Music? is a question all music-lovers will answer in their own way. We would like to hear why music is important to you, preferably in 100 words or less. Please send your contributions by post or email to [email protected] A selection will be published in the next issue of CON tribute. The writers will receive complimentary concert tickets.

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Photograph by Dan White

8 contribute issue 1 • 2010

t he type of questions most people tend to ask musicians (and tertiary music students) tend to circle around

“why music?” “Why have you chosen to be a musician?” they ask, and “What will you do for a job?”

The typical conservative parents may well imagine their music-loving child growing up to become a doctor, a lawyer, an engineer, an accountant or a computer scientist – just about anything, rather than a full-time musician! My own parents questioned my sanity when I left the world of computer science to return to a life of music. They reproached me by saying “What a waste of all that studying you did!” - or even worse - “You’re wasting your time!” It wasn’t that they didn’t appreciate music: on the contrary, they listen to classical music almost all the time, whether they are out or at home. I think they just don’t understand the real value of music in society.

I’d like to explain exactly what I think the function of music is – and it’s something very different to what the ‘arts and entertainment’ section of the newspaper suggests. I believe what we do in our beloved castle (The Sydney Conservatorium of Music) has nothing to do with entertainment or frivolity, whatever the media would like to claim. In fact, it’s quite the opposite.

Let’s begin with one of the greatest and most profound compositions of all time, the Quartet for the End of Time written by Olivier Messiaen in 1940. The Germans captured Messiaen when France entered World War II and he was held in a prisoner-of-war camp. Fortunately, he met a sympathetic prison guard who provided him with paper and a place to compose; he was also lucky enough to have some musician colleagues in the camp; a ’cellist, a violinist, and a clarinettist. There was also a piano which Messiaen himself played, since he was a fineorganist as well as a great composer. The quartet was written with these musicians in mind and it was first performed in January 1941 for an audience of prisoners and prison guards at the camp. Today, we know it as one of the masterworks of all time.

Given what we have learnt about life in the Nazi concentration camps, why would any sane person ‘waste time and energy’ writing (or even playing) music while imprisoned there? They would have had barely enough strength to find food and water, to avoid a beating, to stay warm or escape torture - why did they bother with music? Or any other form of art, for that matter. Yet, from the depths of the most destitute place on earth came poetry, visual art and music; Olivier Messiaen clearly wasn’t the only “crazy fanatic”. Why? These camps were without money, without recreation, without relaxation, without respect, without hope - but they were not without art. Art is an essential aid to survival, a vital part of the human spirit, a fundamental expression of who we are. It is one of the ways we say, “I am alive and my life has meaning!”

Music is not a luxury; it’s not an eccentricity to be fed by the crumbs that fall from the rich man’s table; nor should it be funded by the leftovers from our government’s budget. It is not a plaything or an amusement or a relaxing pastime. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives; it gives us a way of expressing our feelings when we have no words, and a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we can’t do it with our minds.

Karl Paulnack (esteemed pianist and Director of the Music Division at the Boston Conservatory whose address How Music Works I’ve been quoting ad hoc throughout this piece) charges us, the musicians of today and the future with this responsibility:

“If we were a medical school and you were here as a medical student practicing appendectomies, you’d take your work very seriously, because you would imagine that some night at 2am, someone is going to waltz into your emergency room and you’re going to have to save their life. Well, my friends, some day at 8pm, someone is going to walk into your concert hall and bring you a mind that is confused, a heart that is overwhelmed,

Why music?By Donn menDoza

Donn Mendoza is a third-year keyboard student who wrote this article last year [edited by Adam Szabo & Tim Harries] for The Con students’ magazine, Conversation

“our job is not only to master the intricacies of music... but to save the planet!

”

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it is clear that, for the young musicians as well as the audiences, these performances will live on in the memory because they were ground-breaking for the future. Finances allowing, there will be many more such tours in years to come.

The Dean & Principal, Professor Kim Walker, says: “I dream of the time when an overseas tour or a semester studying in another country and another culture will be a standard part of every student’s time at The Con. It’s so enriching for them. It’s not only a reward for all those years of dedicated practice: it’s the gateway to the next level of excellence.”

With the assistance of major bequests, such as those left to the SCM by George and Margaret Henderson and Zelda Stedman, several major expeditions will take place this year: the Chamber Orchestra has been invited to the Bronnbach Festival in Germany before going on to Berlin.

The Modern Music Ensemble (MME) and the Jazz Big Band ( JBB) will represent the Australian and NSW Governments,

the University of Sydney and, of course, The Con at the World Youth Carnival of the Shanghai World Expo in July. The MME, directed by Daryl Pratt, is known for its presentation of innovative programs, featuring the work of leading Australian composers, including Matthew Hindson, Stuart Greenbaum and Elena Kats-Chernin. For Shanghai, the MME line-up will consist of both students and Faculty staff. The JBB, consisting of five trumpets, four trombones, five saxophones and a rhythm section of bass, piano, guitar and drums, led by composer/conductor, Bill Motzing, will work with students from the Jazz unit of the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in an international cultural exchange on the world stage.

In October, at the start of a US tour, the Chamber Orchestra has been invited by the Juilliard School to perform with them at the Lincoln Center in New York. The Con is only the second music institution in the world to be invited to work with Juilliard in this way - the first was the Royal College of

Music in London. And the Royal College of Music and our Early Music Ensemble have just set up an exchange program whereby they come to Sydney one year and The Con goes to London the next.

The extent of ensemble and orchestral touring in 2011 and beyond will partly be determined by the support received from benefactors and bequesters. A special fund has been set up for this purpose, so that financial year-end and other gifts to the SCM can be directed towards this life-changing purpose.

There are plans to arrange for a small group of benefactors to accompany the orchestra on some overseas tours: anyone who may be interested in doing so is invited to contact our Development Officer:

Guy Elron Tel (02) 9351 1406 Email [email protected]


from their host conservatoires. Wherever they went and whatever they played, they were acclaimed for their exceptional artistry and skill. Encores were demanded and they bowed their appreciation of the applause more times than they ever did in the Verbrugghen Hall!

Audiences of leading music educators marvelled at students from so far away demonstrating such intuitive understanding of the most complex European music and such fluency in execution. The Director of one of the conservatoires observed that since only Austrians could play Mozart, the only possible explanation for this anomalous performance must be that the orchestra was led by a conductor who had been trained in Vienna! All agreed that Maestro Imre Palló had coaxed outstanding performances from his young charges - but that did not explain away the excellence, the precision, the artistry, the bravura...

One of the wonders of live music is that it is of the moment: the whole experience can never be fully shared. Yet

invaDing euRope...anD BeyonD!

The foundation of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music in 1915 was an amazing leap of faith. Courageous young Australians were flocking overseas in their thousands, to die in the filthy nightmare of Gallipoli.

a t this unforgettable time of horror, the NSW Government dared to dream of a different world, a world

in which music mattered, a world in which young Australians would go to Europe, not to kill and be killed, but to demonstrate their musical ability. Their mission would not be to make war, but to bring joy and pleasure to the people of many nations.

This brave new world was not built in a day: it has taken the hard work and commitment of several generations of musicians and music-lovers almost a century to bring it about - but it has come to pass. In October 2009, 34 members of the Sydney Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra (26 undergraduates and 8 postgraduates) went on tour to five of the great nurturing places of European music, the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester, the Lausanne Conservatoire, the Paganini in Genoa, the Mozarteum in Salzburg and finally Vienna.

They gave a wide range of different concerts, sometimes with guest soloists

“it’s not only a reward for all those years of dedicated practice: it’s the gateway to the next level of excellence.

”


Current orchestral students at The Con are lucky enough to play under the baton of a conductor who combines a brilliant international reputation with an outstanding ability to nurture raw talent in young musicians.

one moRe aDventuReBy micK le moignan

W hen in 2003 Professor Kim Walker accepted the University of Sydney’s invitation to become Dean and Principal of the SCM, Maestro Imre Palló was a colleague at Indiana

University’s prestigious music school in Bloomington. Over a farewell lunch, she enquired tentatively whether he and his wife, Janet, might ever consider coming to Sydney. Imre replied that he had long dreamed of visiting Australia but in the course of a long career spent conducting orchestras all over the world, no-one had ever invited him to appear Down Under. He felt, however, that he had “one more adventure left in me, if the occasion should arise.”

In 2005, he came to Sydney to give four weeks of master-classes and “fell in love with Australia.” That year, he took a sabbatical from Indiana to be a visiting Professor at the SCM and in 2006, with impeccable timing, he retired from Indiana, becoming Professor Emeritus there at the same time as taking up his current position as Professor and Chair of Conducting and Opera Productions at The Con.

At first, Imre was frankly disappointed with the standard of the students: the level of dedication and determination was not what he was used to in Bloomington. He worked with Associate Professor Peter Dunbar-Hall to develop a brand new curriculum for the small number of conducting students, with important additions, such as more aural preparation and a requirement to participate in ensembles, concerts and opera productions. Most significantly, he insisted that student conductors should practise with small orchestras for at least four hours a week: “I fought for twelve years to establish this at Indiana: Kim Walker set it up here immediately! It’s a very strong drawcard for students.” Now, the conducting enrolment has trebled, from 3-4 to 10, with postgraduate candidates preparing for DMA, PhD and M.Mus degrees.

All candidates have to do a test in front of an orchestra. Imre says it’s not difficult to tell whether they have the talent and personality required:

“It’s like all auditions – you know at once, or within a minute. You listen longer to be sure that you were correct, but 99% of decisions are made in the first minute.

Of the qualities he is looking for, personality is at the top of the list: “How to conduct, I can teach them, but how to be a conductor – that,

they just have to have in themselves.’’Musicianship is vital, of course, in a conductor, but so is humility: “They shouldn’t believe they are infallible! And they need humility

towards the music and humility towards their fellow musicians: they are all professionals, they all have diplomas, and they all know more about their instruments than you do! You should show respect: never question a fellow musician’s will to play to his or her highest level. If you achieve that, you are a good conductor.

“And you only achieve it if they feel you trust them to do it better than ever before. Trust from a leader is a major motivator for anybody. A scared musician will not play well; a scared trapeze artist will fall.”

In terms of music, Imre had a charmed start: born in Budapest, his godfather was Zoltán Kodály (1882-1967), the Hungarian composer

who developed a radical new philosophy of music education. Kodály had a strong influence on Imre’s early musical training. As a student of orchestral and choral conducting at the Vienna Academy of Music, Imre served as a musical assistant to Herbert von Karajan and Professor Karl Böhm at the Vienna and Salzburg Festivals.

After several years conducting the Wuppertal Opera and the Deutsche Oper am Rhein in Dusseldorf, he spent more than two decades as one of the Principal Conductors of the New York City Opera and was also Music Director of the Hudson Valley Philharmonic in up-state New York. He has appeared with many other American, German, Canadian and other national opera companies and orchestras and joined the School of Music at Indiana University as Chair of Instrumental Conducting in 1994.

It was a particular pleasure to return to Salzburg and Vienna in October 2009 with the Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra:

“I felt they didn’t quite know how good they were.” Before the first concert, at the Royal Northern College in

Manchester, he told them: “We didn’t come here to compete. We came to give a concert

and enjoy our music-making. Don’t try to do more than you’ve ever done before.”

As it turned out, he recalled: “They became more and more comfortable and freer and freer – maybe too free in Genoa – so we pulled it back. It didn’t have the real bite of the previous concerts. It’s just a matter of concentration, simply sitting up a little more.”

Imre’s first paid engagement was in 1972, so his fiftieth year as a conductor will be completed in 2012, which is the the last year of his contract in Sydney.

‘My whole life was led by God: I strongly believe in that. The decisions are made up there but He continually throws me surprises. ‘Man plans and God decides.’ - it’s an old Hungarian proverb.”

Asked how his conducting has changed in the past 50 years, he says it has been a journey towards humility:

‘In the beginning I went out to prove I am the best! I was number one and music was number two. Now, music is number one and I am number seventeen. Music is higher than anyone involved in its performance. A baton makes no sound: you can blow it, you can throw it – but you have the whole picture in front of you. You are the smith who - hammers – no, it’s not the right word – who moulds – who leads the musicians to a togetherness, For the audience, the focus should be on the players. The conductor facilitates the playing of the music for the good of the composition.’’

The word “baton” conjures up the image of a relay race, which is not inappropriate when you reflect how often the torch is passed directly from one generation of conductors to the next. Imre learned first from Kodály, then from von Karajan, Böhm and later Antal Doráti. It’s tempting to imagine our current conducting students telling their own protegés, in 50 years’ time, how lucky they were to learn from the great Maestro Imre Palló.


“in the beginning i went out to prove i am the best! i was number one and music was number two. now, music is number one and i am number seventeen

”


The Con, Alexander Sverjensky, who made her play a European technical program of Clementi, Cramer, Czerny, then early Beethoven sonatas, late Haydn sonatas and composers of the Russian School. “It was no longer individual pieces, but a process - and it all seemed incredibly rigid!” Three years with Sverjensky were followed by studies with Gordon Watson and Nancy Salas.

In 1972, she graduated from The Con as Student of the Year and for the second year running won the Shadforth Hooper Prize (previously awarded to Janet Ritterman and Roger Woodward) and the ABC Keyboard Competition. Three years of Whitlam Government-funded Australia Council grants sent her to Indiana University to study under Menahem Pressler of the Beaux Arts Trio. Accepted into the prestigious Artist Diploma programme, the world was at her feet. But the years of unremitting practice had taken their toll. She had had no time for some of the normal development processes that others take for granted. She became anorexic, before

n ow a Professor of Music at the prestigious Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan, Cherie’s

journey began in Christchurch, New Zealand, where at the age of two, she surprised her parents and her older sister, Sandra, by going to the piano (which she had never seen played) and picking out the notes of tunes she had heard on the radio.

She had found her vocation. Half a century later, “The sound of the piano still ignites my imagination.” It was an unusual childhood: family life revolved around Cherie’s lessons, practising, competitions and concerts all over New Zealand. By the age of ten, she was nationally known and winning the adult competitions in NZ Eisteddfods. Her early teacher was Christina Geel: “She became like my mother! - encouraged me to learn new pieces quickly and gave me a thirst for repertoire.”

When Cherie was 14, the family moved to Sydney. Her father took her recordings to the ABC and was advised to have Cherie study with the legendary piano teacher at

For Professor Cherie Broome, “music is a language without words”. It has taken her around and across the world and enabled her to embrace, in Italy, a culture and way of life that matches her temperament.

a neW lease oF liFeBy micK le moignan


that condition was properly understood. Her sister, Sandra Carter, observes:

“As a young person, you do as you’re told and don’t necessarily stop to work out why. Her teachers didn’t want to interrupt her intuitive talent.”

Cherie felt there was something missing, something vital she had failed to learn. She wanted to understand how the interpretation of the score related to the physical act of playing. She was sure there must be more to playing the piano than just intuition and a beautiful melody.

She had tried asking all her teachers such questions and the answers were always the same: “You know how to do that!” or “Practise more!” or “Don’t be silly!” She had always relied on her ear and her intuition, but now there was conflict between her emotional and intellectual responses. She desperately needed to analyse what she was doing. She began to lose confidence in her gift: “I thought - maybe my talent’s going away!”

Still searching for what she thought of as the missing link between the score and the physical action of playing, she continued her studies at the Mannes College and the Juilliard School in New York, then via the Aspen Music Festival to Austin, Texas, but she found no answers that satisfied her and the fundamental doubts remained.

On 30 October 1978, Cherie received a phone call from Sandra that rocked her world. At 56, her father had suffered a fatal aneurysm. She came back to Australia to find her mother had aged overnight and she felt powerless. “My father was the most important person in my life.” She could no longer continue playing the piano and took a job as a secretary in an auction house. Not surprisingly, she learned to type very quickly!

John Painter, later SCM Director, had been a mentor (and her second study cello teacher) since 1967. He asked her to come to the Con, where she happened to pick up the Australian Music Teachers’ Association handbook which would lead to the turning point of her life.

In it, she read notes from a seminar being given by a visiting lecturer from Italy, Lidia Baldecchi Arcuri, on “the physiology and mechanics of playing the piano”! On tenterhooks, Cherie rushed to the Con and asked Warren Thomson, founding Head of External Studies, if she could meet the lecturer. “You’re too late!” he replied, “I’ve just taken her to the airport.” On seeing her distress, he added: “But I’ve got some good news for you: she’s coming back in May!”

It seemed a long way from January, but Cherie was encouraged enough to begin practising again. She was appointed as Richard Gill’s repetiteur in the Opera

School and accompanied recitals at The Con. By May, doubt and despair had taken over again and she decided not to go to the meeting with Professor Arcuri. Her mother was shocked and said it would be discourteous not to turn up: “You’ve never done that before: you’d be letting yourself down!” So Cherie went to meet Professor Arcuri, coincidentally in the same room where she had spent many years studying with Sverjensky and Salas, and played for her the Mozart Duport Variations.

Professor Arcuri’s response was simple and instantaneous: “All you’ve got to do is take off the weight, lighten the touch...” She proceeded to explain the twelve fundamentals of piano playing. “It was like a revelation: those words were the light, everything I’d ever wanted to know. A burden of tons of weight lifted off me: as soon as I realised I could be elastic, my natural technical ease returned”.

The following morning at 6am came another life-changing phone call: it was Lidia, offering Cherie a full scholarship with living expenses to study in Italy and live with the Marchesa Guendalina Cattaneo Della Volta at her palazzo in Genoa. To accept the offer, she had first to turn down the Queen Elizabeth Silver Jubilee Award she had been offered, to return to New York, but she had no regrets. In Italy: “I went back to the beginning and learned to play the piano all over again - perhaps really for the first time. At last, I was able to put the devils to rest. I found my spiritual centre.”

She gained the Diploma from the Paganini Conservatory, married an Italian and has been teaching her own distinctive approach to piano playing and concert performance ever since.

Cherie re-established her link with the Sydney Conservatorium of Music when in October she attended two concerts in Genoa by the SCM Chamber Orchestra on its European tour. She was astonished by the quality of playing and the level of musicianship: “I was so proud of the Orchestra’s performance and struck by the intense concentration of the students. The Beethoven symphony was a truly memorable performance, going right to the soul - and the Mills was for me a discovery- wonderful!”

Cherie hopes to develop an ongoing relationship between the SCM and the Accademia Internazionale della Musica in Milan. She wants to encourage students from The Con to go and study in Italy and is working at setting up an exchange program and a scholarship scheme. There is likely to be keen competition for this programme: the recipients may have an intense and possibly life-changing experience!

“i went back to the beginning and learned to play the piano all over again – perhaps really for the first time

”


u ntil recently, there was a division between theory and practice: the hallowed halls of university music departments were the site of largely silent musicology research, while conservatoria

were where musicking – performance and composing – took place. This artificial division has now broken down. Today, it is hard to imagine a music degree programme without musicking, since music exists in and through performance, but it is equally hard to justify a university music programme that has no research activity.

Research allows us to explore what music is about. In the recent past, much of our research activity was in ‘traditional’ areas, resulting typically in journal articles, reports, and books. Since 2006, however, we have come a long way in joining this to research focussed on performance and composition. This enabled us in the 2009 ‘Excellence in Research Australia’ trial to shine, achieving a score well above the national average and the Go8 average, precisely for the mix of print-based and creative outputs: we submitted many performances, recordings, and broadcasts of new works, and new takes on older repertoire, along with curated events, compositions commissioned for international festivals, and more. We have also rapidly increased our submissions to the Australia-

wide HERDC (Higher Education Research Data Collection) and the University of Sydney’s research collection: in 2006, we submitted research work worth 44 points but in 2008, by increasing in our reporting of performance and composition, we achieved 449 points.

Last semester, 155 students were registered for MMus, Doctor of Musical Arts and PhD degrees at the Con – and that number rises with each new semester. The research projects that students and staff are developing range widely, concerning vocal production, music in hospitals, hearing and health issues among musicians, the creation of operas, ensemble pieces and books, exploring sustainability in world music, how verbalising affects our perceptions of music, Christian music, music remembered by Holocaust survivors, music and music education in Australian communities, piano and sound technology, projects involving commercial partners and government agencies and much more. This year, we will develop a new CD and DVD label for research-led projects, and provide funding for a number of internal research projects. But, as the number of projects grows, we need to build capacity by finding ways to better support our research students, postdoctoral research fellows and staff.

CONtextsthe alFReD hooK lectuRe seRies

Alfred Samuel Hook (1886-1963) was an architect and an expert on structural mechanics; he designed the steel reinforcement for the country trains concourse at Sydney’s Central Station. A founder of the Faculty of Architecture at the University of Sydney in 1918, he continued to lecture there until he retired as Dean in 1949. The inaugural President of the Royal Australian Institute of Architects in 1929, he saw architecture as “an art vital to people’s prosperity” and believed that designs for small homes, which constituted 95% of all building enterprise, should be the main focus of architects’ attention and provided at a modest cost. His other love was music. From 1936 to 1945, he gave regular lunch-hour talks on the history of music, illustrated by the University’s collection of gramophone records. The present lecture series is funded by a generous bequest from Doreen Robson in memory of Professor Hook.

All lectures on FridAys At 4.00pm, followed by a reception, with associated concerts at 6.00pm

26 March richArd toop “Ten Years In: a European Perspective on 21st century composing”

23 aPrIl proFessor Keith howArd “What is world music: Whose world, whose music?”

14 MaY Judy BAiley oAm “Music and language” 13 augusT dr mArtin JArvis “The application of Forensic Document Examination Techniques to the Manuscripts of J. s. Bach” 10 sEPTEMBEr proFessor peter sculthorpe“Writing music about climate change”

24 sEPTEMBEr roy howAt “chopin and his legacy in France”

22 OcTOBEr Andrew Ford “The second Viennese school in the 21st century: still new?”

Free entry to lectures, bookings not required.

Further inFormAtion on lectures and details of concerts available on the scM website: http://sydney.edu.au/music /784


Why ReseaRch?By Keith hoWaRD

It is no accident that the arrival of Professor Keith Howard as Associate Dean for Research from London’s celebrated School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) has coincided with a huge upsurge in research activity at The Con. Keith is a distinguished ethnomusicologist with a special interest in the music and culture of Korea and other Asian countries. He is the author of 16 books and 100+ academic papers on various aspects of “world music” – the traditional music of indigenous nations, tribes and communities.

Keith is a passionate advocate of research as a way of preserving world music while it is still possible. He surprised diners at the recent Dean’s Gala Dinner with the vehemence of his plea for music research across the board, arguing cogently that many activities already undertaken by scholars and musicians at The Con need only to be written up and methodically recorded, to qualify for much-needed additional funding.


The Symposium will focus on the traditional musics of China (and East Asia more generally), their preservation and sustainability. Sessions will explore cultural heritage policies, regional and minority musics, and the crucial roles of music in ritual.

At a time of great global change, UNESCO has recognised many threatened performance arts and crafts as ‘Masterpieces in the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity’, including three genres in each of China, Japan and Korea. The symposium will be given by distinguished researchers from Australia, China, Korea, Vietnam, Singapore, Japan, Europe and America who are each at the forefront of the discussions on preservation and sustainability. Papers will be supplemented by films (taking in Bali, India and Siberia as well as East Asia) and three first-rate performances: a remarkable Taiwanese nanguan literati troupe, Korean dance, zither, and flute, and Australian-based Chinese musicians.

The symposium will also feature a calligraphy exhibition and workshop by artist Liang Xiao Ping, Founding President of the Australian Oriental Calligraphy Society, co-presented with the Confucius Institute, University of Sydney.

“Preserving Tradition, Facing the Future in Asian Musical and Visual Cultures” is supported by the Commonwealth through the Australia-China Council of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

pReseRving tRaDition, Facing the FutuRe in asian musical anD visual cultuResa 3-Day symposium pResenteD By con ReseaRch at the syDney conseRvatoRium oF music

thuRsDay 8 apRil to satuRDay 10 apRil, 2010 symposium leaDeR: pRoFessoR Keith hoWaRD Keynote speaKeR: pRoFessoR helen Rees, pRoFessoR oF ethnomusicology at ucla.

Full price $250

speciAl price For Friends oF the con $100 (calligraphy class extra)

more inFormAtion And Full progrAm At: http://sydney.edu.au/music/international/symposium

or From: elAine chiA International Development Manager, sydney conservatorium of Music Email: [email protected] Ph: +612 9351 1214

Photographs by Dan White. Hyelim Kim playing a Korean Taegum


i first encountered Kim Walker when I attended a dazzling series of lectures she gave at the Art Gallery of NSW.

It was truly a virtuoso performance, scholarly, eloquent and yet deeply personal and passionate, with a freshness and honesty that was delightfully engaging. I cannot remember any speaker who has opened my eyes and ears so skilfully to the vital importance of music in our lives.

Since the turn of the century, thanks to the vision of Bob Carr, The Con has had the building it deserves, a building fit for its purpose, which I take to be providing a secure base for those who love and value music and wish to develop their appreciation and their musical gifts and skills.

I knew at once that, in Professor Walker, The Con had found the leader it deserved, a leader of the calibre of Goossens or Verbrugghen, with the vision and imagination to see that The Con can be so much more than a regional music school: it should be a national arts institution and a world class conservatorium.

Knowing Australia, knowing Sydney, I also knew that such a leader would face bitterness and vindictive challenges from small-minded, unworthy opponents, envious and jealous of her vision. The tall poppy syndrome is the least attractive of our national characteristics.

To carry out her vision for The Con, Kim Walker needs a world class faculty, which she has gathered with remarkable speed. There are so many brilliant and dedicated musicians and music teachers that naming some would be invidious. Suffice it to say that they have helped to raise performance standards beyond recognition.

But that is not enough. Performers, however brilliant, need an audience. And that is where I felt I might be able to make a small contribution...

Diane Collins, in her evocative book Sounds from the Stables (2001) says the first Director, Henri Verbrugghen: “believed fervently that if the Conservatorium was to survive in the unsophisticated environment of early twentieth century Sydney ... it needed to create a great body of intelligent and well informed listeners. Only when this had happened could the Conservatorium and the traditions which it represented achieve a durable connection with the city... Relentlessly, the Conservatorium sought a sense of connection – a synergy with the city.”

Verbrugghen would be overwhelmed to discover that now – one century on – Sydney is a thriving, international city, a throbbing environment of style and sophistication. And popular parlance has created a descriptor for his vision of ‘connection’ in the phrase ‘community engagement’.

The history of community engagement is rooted in social and political change. In post-industrial Western societies where individualism is highly valued the emphasis is on ‘connecting people to possibilities’. The essential philosophy of community engagement is ‘participatory democracy’. ‘Engagement’ refers to a broad range of interactions between people, including education, communication and various levels of participation.

This philosophy is at the core of my practice as a ‘community connections’ consultant and it is this philosophy that stimulated my vision for proposing some formal strategies to develop public participation at The Con.

My proposition to the Dean went like this: Increasingly, there is recognition that organisations benefit from cultivating a ‘community of constituents’ – people who

believe in the organisation’s goals and dreams, people who are prepared to embrace its vision, enjoy its activities, identify with it and support it in various ways.

Two organisational goals were identified at The Con that could be achieved through community engagement strategies:

• To develop a Friends of The Con program for people to join The Con and participate in a variety of music and music-related experiences where they would meet others with similar interests, learn, enjoy and give back to the work of the Con.

• To recruit and train an army of volunteer ambassadors to take up hands on tasks on a monthly roster across each calendar year.

There is growing acknowledgement of the critical role played by volunteers. A new and smarter ethos of volunteering is emerging and the profile of people who volunteer is changing: they have less time to give and greater skills to offer. They demonstrate emotional maturity; they are highly educated, with significant life experience. They expect their time to be well managed and that they will be thoughtfully matched up with designated tasks that will add value to the organisation. They want to do rewarding and creative work.

It is essential that volunteers are happy and that their time is well spent. An unhappy volunteer will not stay long. Accordingly, once people willing to sign on as volunteers have offered their services, they have to be interviewed.

An interview is a ‘conversation with a purpose’. It is the subtle process of learning about a person, creatively answering the questions ‘Who will want to do this job?’, ‘What can this person contribute to accomplish The Con’s mission?’ and ‘How can we harvest the best of what they have to offer?’

The army of thirty five volunteers at The Con is making history: their contribution is highly significant, particularly at this time of severe budget restrictions. They are easily recognised by their distinctive red and black scarves; we need to recognise their work with public acknowledgement of their value. They are our community ambassadors, our links into the wider community.

In a recent text, By the people: a history of Americans as volunteers (2005), Susan J. Ellis and Katherine H. Campbell wrote:

‘The cumulative effect of volunteer actions, occurring as they do in every decade, makes it apparent that our history has been shaped by everyone.’

The Friends of The Con program was launched in the winter of 2009 and we have recruited over one thousand Friends. The key to The Con’s success with the Friends program is our determination to place the Friends at the centre of the Con’s work. We have designed a calendar of creative events for them: it is a combination of Con concerts, lectures and artistic collaborations with other art forms – music and film, music and dance, music and theatre.

We intend to listen to our Friends. They are our ‘ear to the ground’, our friendly constituents. We will also listen to suggestions about how they would like to ‘give back’ to the work of The Con.

a little help FRom ouR FRienDs – & volunteeRsBy maRgaRet helman

margaret helman is a highly experienced community relations consultant. as Deputy Director of the australian Bicentennial authority (nsW) and in many other positions, she has selected and trained many thousands of volunteers. she is the architect of the Friends of the con and con volunteer programs.



g uests were greeted on the forecourt with a glass of champagne to enjoy in the late afternoon sunshine to the strains of Peter

Dunbar-Hall’s distinctive Indonesian Gamelan. A string quartet followed and then there was a brass fanfare to summon the audience into the Verbrugghen Hall, where they heard Ji Won Kim demonstrating the expertise on violin that won her the ABC Young Performer of the Year Award last year, Kevin Hunt’s jazz piano version of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring and the Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra under Maestro Imre Palló, first reprising one of the successes of their European Tour, Richard Mills’ Sequenzas Concertante and then performing the first movement of Beethoven’s Fourth Symphony.

In between the musical items, Dame Janet Ritterman and Professor Kim Walker spoke passionately about the value of The Con to the community and the importance of community support to The Con. A surprise encore was the Dean herself playing Una furtive lacrima from Donizetti’s opera L’Elisir d’Amore on bassoon. Proceedings in the Hall, whimsically compèred by Guy Noble, concluded with Frank Tamsitt playing William Walton’s Crown Imperial on the great concert organ.

About 140 of the audience of 400 or so stayed to enjoy a formal dinner in the Atrium, interspersed with further musical delights from Rising Star, 12-year-old violinist, Harry Ward, accompanied by the ever-popular Gerard Willems on piano and four wonderful singers from The Con’s Opera program, Erika Simons, Anna Yun, John Donohoe and Lorenzo Rositano singing a variety of passionate arias.

Over coffee, a persistent diner literally manhandled a not-too-reluctant Gerard Willems back to the piano to bring the Gala to a close with a flamboyant flourish.

The evening was a fine reminder that for all the serious hard work and the unswerving pursuit of musical excellence on the part of our faculty and students, and for all the power of music to evoke profound emotions and lift our spirits to another realm, it can also be fantastic fun!

the Dean’s gala 2010The Dean’s Gala, traditionally held just before the start of a new academic year, is not so much a musical banquet, as a tantalising taste of the wide variety of musical styles that will be explored more fully in the year’s concert program.



contAct detAils

auditions for the next round of intake for the rising stars program will be held during the week of 1 June.

Enrolments for semester 2 of the introducing & exploring music (for 3-10 year olds) course close Friday 23 July.

Enrolments for the autumn term of the community program close Friday 23 april.

For more information and to download application/enrolment forms go to www.sydney.edu.au/music/openacademy or call:

Young academy allan scott-rogers Ph 02 9351 1207

community academy anthea Parker Ph 02 9351 1208

Professional academy Justin ankus Ph 02 9351 1209

opening DooRs to ouR Rising staRs

It is often forgotten that The Con’s Open Academy provides tuition for twice as many students as the Conservatorium does in its role as the tertiary faculty of the University of Sydney.

t hey do not study full-time and most of them will not make a career as professional musicians - but what they

learn here will enrich and enhance their lives. Most will develop a love and appreciation of music that will be an enormous source of pleasure and comfort to them.

According to the Con Open Academy Manager, Justin Ankus:

“The Academy is there to open the doors of the castle to the people of Sydney and NSW.”

Classes are offered to all ages from 4 to 84. Subjects include vocal training, music theory and jazz ensemble opportunities as well as specialised music tuition for gifted and talented children and those just starting out. The Academy also provides professional development opportunities for musicians and music teachers through events such as the Piano Teachers’ Festival.

Rising Stars, the Academy’s flagship program, has 70 young students for 2010 who receive tuition from SCM faculty in their own instrument, music skills, rehearsal and performance. This is a unique training opportunity for young performers of exceptional promise.

Public concerts are presented at 11am on Saturday mornings free of

charge, where relatives, friends and members of the general public are invited to hear tomorrow’s star performers today.

Joy Lee, the Rising Stars Coordinator, who developed a program at the Australian Academy of Music in Melbourne before SCM Dean Kim Walker persuaded her to bring a more all-embracing program to Sydney, believes strongly that every child should have the right to learn an instrument and talented young players need access to the best tuition:

“Rising star musicians, with their high aspirations, ambition and enthusiasm - what a

pleasure it is to help nurture their talents!” The forerunner of the Open Academy

was the Extension Studies Unit started by Professor Warren Thompson in 1974 but the underlying philosophy goes right back to the foundation of The Con nearly sixty years earlier. Its purpose has always been to promote the enjoyment and love of music in the NSW community and to develop the knowledge and skills of musicians and music students.

Today, the Con Open Academy works with organisations like the Smith Family to offer music tuition to students who might not otherwise have such an opportunity. It encourages a broad cross-section of the community to care about music, to respect and value it and to see how it can benefit their lives.

outstanDing achievements By Rising staRs in 2009

Rachel Siu 11 year old cellist, became the youngest winner of the National Youth Concerto Competition.

Emily Sun 17 year old violinist, was awarded the Perry Hart Memorial Prize through the Balmain Sinfonia Concerto Competition. The prize includes the loan of the A.E.Smith violin for a period of 2 years.

Harry Ward 13 year old violinist, won the junior section of NSW Secondary Schools Concerto Competition.

Angela Wong 12 year old pianist, won the Allan’s Youth Piano Competition for the second year running.


“what a pleasure it is to help nurture their talents

”


t his is The Con’s ambitious project to commission 101 new works by seven international masters, eight Australian “marquee” composers, 16

significant Australian composers and a further 70 Australian composers- including some budding young apprentices. The Con is working with co-patron Ars Musica Australis and a group of financial supporters to drive the project, which will run for the next five years to celebrate The Con’s centenary in 2015.

The new works will span all genres and all 43 musical instruments taught at the Conservatorium will be featured. Most of the new works will have premiere performances at The Con.

Dean and Principal, Professor Kim Walker is passionate about this project: “We hope and believe it will generate joy and a profound experience for music lovers everywhere, now and 100 years into the future… Importantly, our students will be speaking the musical language of the future through their direct involvement”.

Reflecting on John Corigliano’s visit, Professor Walker said: “Crossing the street the other day one of our performers in the orchestra said to me, ‘Just when he spoke about the music it all made sense to me.’ They weren’t talking about performing the piece - they were talking about a career, a lifetime in music.”

In addition to working directly with the students and faculty, John Corigliano appeared at Sydney Ideas, the University of Sydney’s international public lecture series. Here, the winner of an Oscar, a Pulitzer Prize, a Grawemeyer Award and three Grammies was asked to answer the question that is most often put to a composer:

How do you write a new piece of music?

Corigliano offered an in-depth look at his approach to building a piece of music. In the course of his lively talk he offered frank commentary, entertaining anecdotes and samples of piano performance to illustrate how he overcame various hurdles to create Conjurer, a percussion concerto for Dame Evelyn Glennie.

Some composers, he said, can rely on sudden inspiration to bring them elements of their scores already formed, but this has never been the case for him. His soundscapes are consciously built from the ground up into the compelling scores of boundless imagination that we know and love.

When he first started composing, he followed the traditional forms “that were used since Haydn developed them way back in the early classical period, by every composer through Mahler into the twentieth century…but in the mid 1970s, I started to think of those forms, those big architectures, as pre-fabricated housing. And I thought: why don’t I make my own forms?”

Given the wealth of different influences and inspirations for today’s composers, a simple answer to the question of how he writes is that today there really are no rules, so he makes his own, but planning is still important: “An architect wouldn’t build a building if he didn’t have a plan for the whole building- he wouldn’t start just laying bricks.”

Starting with a clear reason for writing a piece, Corigliano then begins to plan his architecture. But when it came to writing a percussion concerto, he was filled with a sense of horror. “I don’t like them, because I can’t remember anything that happened, even though it sounded very exciting during the piece.”

The first thing he did was to write notes on the inherent problems he saw in a percussion concerto and how they might be overcome. First, how could he make the soloist stand out as the focus of the piece, given the variety of instruments played by a percussionist? Next, it is generally the orchestra that plays the melody and dominates. There are also lyrical and melodic limits with percussion instruments: the xylophone, marimba and vibraphone, for example, do not sound for very long after they are struck.

In response to these issues, Corigliano decided to pick out the many colours of percussion by paring back the orchestra to only the strings. “I tried to pick a homogenous section with the orchestra – and the most homogenous section is the strings, because they're really all the same instruments, just bigger. Although they can sound very differently played in different ways, they can also sound like one big sound in and of themselves.”

He then looked at dividing the percussion instruments into families. His first attempt was in terms of pitched and unpitched percussion, but he was unhappy with this approach: “because there are many in the unpitched category that are really pitched, like temple blocks. And then I finally decided on the three basic elements of what percussion instruments are made of: wood, metal and drums - that is, skin.” It was solving these problems that made it possible for him to write the Percussion Concerto.

Each movement with the orchestra is preceded by a cadenza for each of the three percussion instrument groups. Wood lent itself to a staccato first movement, the second movement features melodic, lyrical metal and then all kinds of drums fill the final movement with a loud blaze of glory.

Only once the overall foundations of the piece are laid down does Corigliano begin to flesh out the detail - drawing out the piece on sheets of paper to link his ideas together in writing. Then he can write the music, putting the detail into a minute-by-minute timeline.

To conclude, a recording of the Percussion Concerto was played to the accompaniment of further comments from Corigliano. Overall, the evening provided a fascinating insight into the origins of a piece of music in the mind and imagination of a master composer.

In 2010 a highlight of the 101 Compositions for 100 Years program will be a new work for string orchestra and narrator by National Living Treasure Peter Sculthorpe, to be premiered at The Con on 29 October. Several new 101 commissions will also be premiered in May at the ISCM World New Music Days festival in Sydney. The Con is thrilled to be co-hosting this event, which is being held outside Europe for the first time. See following pages and visit thecon.com.au for more details.

1 oF 101: BuilDing music With John coRiglianoBy gRaham WRight

It was an audience buzzing with anticipation that filled the Verbrugghen Hall last September to hear the The Con’s Modern Music Ensemble premiere John Corigliano’s Mr Tambourine Man, a work based on the poetry of Bob Dylan, scored for Pierrot Lunaire ensemble. One of the most celebrated composers of our time, John Corigliano was the first international marquee composer of 101 Compositions for 100 Years.


a t a personal level, Matthew’s ballet, e=mc², specially composed for the UK’s Birmingham Royal Ballet Company, was recently awarded the prestigious

South Bank Show Prize and has been nominated for an Olivier, the top British theatrical award. His latest work, Crime and Punishment, for double bass and strings, comes to the Sydney Opera House in March.

Perhaps even more remarkable is the coup Matthew has pulled off by successfully bidding for the ISCM World New Music Days Festival, which will be held in Sydney from 30 April to 9 May. This is without doubt the most important new music festival in the world, with 82 new works chosen out of 700 entries from 52 countries. The successful bid was made by a partnership between the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, the Aurora Festival, ABC Classic FM and the Australian Music Centre, with further support from the Australia Council for the Arts, Arts NSW and Ars Musica Australis.

As well as continuing to build a substantial body of work as a composer, Matthew combines his role as Associate Professor and Chair of the Conservatorium’s Arts Music Unit at the Camperdown campus with being Chair of the Music Board of the Australia Council and President and Artistic Director of the Aurora Festival, which he founded in 2006 to bring music to Western Sydney. He has recently been appointed guest music curator at the Campbelltown Arts Centre, from 2010-2012.

Born and brought up in Wollongong, he started learning Suzuki violin at the age of six with Hiroko

Primrose, Richard Tognetti’s first teacher, who once told Matthew’s father: “He’ll never make it as a violinist, because he’s doing everything in his head and not with his fingers!”

Matthew composed his first piece aged 12, sitting at the piano, and just wrote it out and played it for his own amusement. He didn’t know anyone else interested in writing music. When he joined the Junior String Orchestra at the Wollongong Conservatorium, he tried something more complex, for two violins, viola and cello, writing out the parts separately. He didn’t know there was such a thing as a score until it became apparent that he’d miscounted the number of bars rest in the cello part and the conductor asked to see the score.

Matthew remembers that “being in orchestras were the happiest times of my teenage years, I hated school with a passion.” He nearly accepted a traineeship at BHP in computer programming, but the offer of a place on the B.Mus. composing course at the University of Sydney arrived just in time. Even so, it was a big risk, but then he believes in taking risks:

“In Australia, you can take a chance and you’re not going to end up starving. No risk, no reward. I tell my students to take risks - if you don’t do it at 18 or 19, when will you do it? Step outside the mainstream. You might as well give it a go. It’s the same with the ISCM World New Music Days - people should take a chance and hear some music they’re not familiar with: if you don’t, you might miss out on the piece that will change your life.”

After Sydney, he went to do a Master’s degree at Melbourne: “But I couldn’t get on with the Melbourne orthodoxy at the time that demanded blind adherence to a hard-core European modernist aesthetic. I said - enough! I don’t have to do things the way everyone else does it. So I decided to forge my own path, which is really important as a composer.”

Unusually, for a composer, he spent eleven years teaching in a school, as Director of Strings, but by the time he was 30, in 1998, he had achieved the goal he had set himself, to be writing pieces for professional ensembles. He left the school in 2003 because he had too much composing work, but the next year the offer of a Lectureship at Sydney was too tempting to refuse.

His energy and enthusiasm seems almost boundless: he’s working hard on his international profile through his publishers, Faber Music, and last year he had more works performed overseas than in Australia. According to The San Francisco Chronicle: "Hindson has amazing range. He could probably wring a concerto from the sound of a doorbell. His source material ranges from classical to Metallica to soothing melodic riffs that may have been extracted from an elevator. Best of all, it works." You don’t need a crystal ball to see that Matthew Hindson’s brilliant career still has a long way to go. In fact, in the words of the song, “You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet!”

29

iscm World new music Days 30 april – 9 may 2010

t he ISCM Festival was founded soon after the First World War and has been held annually since 1922. This

is the first time it has ever been held in the Southern hemisphere. Previous ISCM festivals have included the world premieres of works by many important composers, for example Alban Berg’s Violin Concerto and Ravel’s Piano Concerto for Left Hand. Australian works have regularly featured in the festival since 1938 in London, when Peggy Glanville Hicks’ Choral Suite was performed in a program which included Benjamin Britten’s Variations on a Theme of Frank Bridge and Bartók’s Sonata for Two Pianos, Percussion and Celesta.

In Sydney, there will be performances by some of Australia’s top music ensembles,

from established professionals such as the Goldner String Quartet, The Song Company and Topology through to emerging artists including the Sydney Conservatorium of Music Big Band, Sydney Symphony Fellowship and the Sydney Children’s Choir. Fresh from their recent success at the Sydney Festival, outstanding Sydney-based Ensemble Offspring will present three performances, including a breakthrough concert of music by young composers from Australia, Greece, Sweden, South Africa and Russia. In addition to the influx of international composers and delegates, there is a strong international performing presence at the Festival. Belgium’s Spectra Ensemble will perform at the Campbelltown Arts Centre; and the NZ Trio will perform at the Eugene Goossens Hall (ABC Ultimo Centre) in Sydney. Groundbreaking composer Annea Lockwood (US/NZ) of Piano Burning fame will be in residence at the Campbelltown Arts Centre to install some of her piano works and to showcase a recent video work, Bow Falls. The 2010 Festival includes a special category of radiophonic works – 13 pieces specifically written for radio broadcast. ABC Classic FM will broadcast these and other concerts on radio throughout Australia, as well as via the web.

heaR the WoRlD’s neW music heReBy micK le moignan

Matthew Hindson’s brilliant career as a composer and music promoter is riding the crest of a wave. His recent successes enhance the reputation of The Con by taking new Australian music to the world and bringing the world’s new music here.


iscm world new music dAys venues sydney conservatorium of Music, campbelltown arts centre, Joan sutherland Performing arts centre (Penrith), Eugene goossens hall (aBc ultimo centre), Parramatta riverside Theatre, Blacktown arts centre and st. Finbar’s church, glenbrook.

For more inFormAtion, including A complete list oF composers And perFormersplease go to www.worldnewmusicdays.com.au

FestivAl pAsses (22 concerts) adult $250 concession $125 student $75

Friends oF the con oFFer Full pass – $225, give code FrIEND when booking.

individuAl concerts from $10; some events free.

BooK FestivAl pAsses At www.cityrecitalhall.com/book/id/680 or call the box office on (02) 8256 2222


a s American master-composer, John Corigliano’s favourite flutist, (she prefers this term to “flautist”)

Alexa travels the world to play the solo in Corigliano’s Pied Piper at major concert venues. What she is excited about right now is having secured funding from the University of Sydney’s hotly contested international visiting researcher program to bring US super-group, Project Trio to Australia in July 2010. At the time of writing, a decision on a further application to the Australia Council for the Arts is still pending. Project Trio will conduct a series of workshops and masterclasses culminating in a concert at the Verbrugghen Hall on Sunday 25 July. Other concerts may be scheduled if, as Alexa expects, demand for tickets rapidly exceeds supply.

Alexa herself played recorders from the age of four, transferring to flute at eight – not, she says, because of any deep inner conviction that this was her future vocation, but simply because her parents wouldn’t let her take up the bagpipes! Health problems including asthma, bronchitis and collapsed lungs meant that during her schooldays, she spent about four months a year in bed, but she is sure that

her flute playing helped to get these problems under control. She’ll always be a chronic asthmatic, she says, but nowadays, years can go by without her having to use an inhaler.

She attended Auckland University because, as she puts it, “I didn’t know any better!”and then the State University of New York at Stony Brook to do a Master’s degree and a Doctorate of Musical Arts. There, a flute teacher from Juilliard, Samuel Baron, took her under his wing. A big-hearted man, he generously allowed her to work with another celebrated flute teacher from Yale, Tom Nyfenger. She encourages her own pupils to study with other teachers if they can.

She applied for the position of Principal Flute in the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra, not really expecting to get the job, but thinking that the audition would be good experience and might mean a free trip home! As it turned out, she was not only offered the position, but allowed to postpone it until she had completed the residency requirements for her doctorate. She stayed with the NZSO from 1987 to 1998, always teaching and busy with solo work, until she moved to the University of Colorado at Boulder for several

years before accepting Kim Walker’s invitation to come to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in 2006.

Alexa loved Corigliano’s Pied Piper from the first time she heard it, on the recording by James Galway, for whom it was composed. She was intrigued to discover several differences between the score and the recording and went to meet the composer in New York to ask him about them. She found his approach surprisingly free: “He doesn’t really care about whether you play the right number of notes, what’s important to him is the shape of the gesture. But he is very demanding about the phrasing and the character – the impression the music is giving.” Since that first meeting, she has worked closely with Corigliano and made the Pied Piper her own – to their mutual delight.

Thanks to Alexa’s energy and enthusiasm, music-lovers in Sydney will be able to find out all about her latest discovery at first hand in July. The Project Trio and the technique of “beatboxing” developed by their flute virtuoso, Greg Patillo, could be about to start mingling with the more conventional music that wafts from the rehearsal rooms at The Con.

i n August last year, two graduating flute students, Shaun Barlow and Angus

McPherson, came with me to the National Flute Association’s Convention in New York, to meet the Project Trio. The other members of the Trio are Eric Stephenson (cello) and Peter Seymour (double bass). All three are elite classical musicians in their twenties with degrees from The Cleveland School of Music and Rice University of Houston and impressive experience in top professional orchestras.

Project burst on to the scene a little over two years ago with a new kind of music, blending their classical skills with eclectic popular musical styles. With 40,000+ subscribers and over 40 million hits on YouTube, they are reaching a vast audience all around the world. They have also released 3 CDs and have a frantically busy performing schedule but they still manage to fit in outreach presentations and workshops for many thousands of students.

Greg Patillo is THE best known flutist for the internet generation. His playing features “beatboxing”, which means playing a flute while making percussive sounds that mimic the percussion heard in popular genres like rap. Greg is a generous, friendly person, only too happy to spend time explaining this art. Shaun and Angus were blown away by Greg. After spending a few hours with him and then practising beatboxing while

busking in the holidays, they have become adept at the technique and are enthusiastically passing it on to their fellow students.

At first, beatboxing sounds really, really difficult. The combination of beat boxing and flute playing is incredible, as if the flutist is supplying his/her own back-up group! It is hard it is to imagine how to do this at first, but Greg is a terrific teacher.

He begins by asking people to repeat two simple words “Boots” and “Cats”, over and over, in a very steady rhythmic way. If you morph these into a kind of stage whisper, and over- emphasise the consonants while taking away all of the vowel sound, you have it.

For instance, the “B” of boots becomes a short raspberry sound, like spitting fuzz off your lip. “Boots, Cats” becomes something like; “Bbb-Tss-K-Tss, Bbb-Tss-K-Tss”. Another of Greg’s favourite

workshop words is “Barbecue”. With the vowels taken out, this word sounds like BBb, a slightly higher/softer Bbb and a K, almost replicating the beginning of the Queen song “We Will Rock You”.

So what about the Project Trio? Does this mean we’ll see flutists beatboxing their way through the senior recitals or doing impressions of Jethro Tull’s Ian Anderson on stage at The Con? Purists can probably relax, but let’s not forget that connecting with the audience is a vital aspect of being a performer.

We expect our classical students to emerge from the Con with the ability to play the standard classical repertoire in a compelling, convincing way. That is our legacy and we are certainly going to continue our tradition in the classical music that has been developing for centuries. But The Con’s excellence also

includes leading at the cutting edge. We want our students to be up with the latest developments in musical styles and techniques.

This is where hosting Project in Australia is a fabulous learning opportunity, especially for our classical students. Many of the world’s elite classical performers are also adept in jazz, world music and popular genres such as hip hop. Project is an inspirational, shining example of this sort of versatility. The members of Project Trio are virtuoso performers in their own right and they’re used to working with classical music students. I don’t expect every student will walk away from this experience wanting to copy what Project does, but we do want our students to see and experience what creativity and classical skills can produce, to see how limitless their careers can be.

31

classicoolBy micK le moignan

Associate Professor Alexa Still is excited. And when the six-foot-tall flute virtuoso with waist-length blonde hair gets excited, everyone tends to hear about it. A New Zealander with an infectious laugh and a smile that warms up the room, The Con’s Chair of Flute has the easy confidence and charm of a person who does something so well that there is nothing left to prove.

the pRoJect tRioBy alexa still

I first met up with Greg Patillo, the flutist of the Project Trio, in 2008, after seeing his “Inspector Gadget Remix” on YouTube. Ever since, I’ve been trying doggedly to arrange for my students to work with him.



monochRome memoRies

It is June 1953. In far-off London, epicentre of the British Empire, flags are flying for the Coronation of young Queen Elizabeth. The occasion is marked, with impeccable timing, by a New Zealand mountaineer who becomes, with his Sherpa companion, Tenzing Norgay, the first men ever to climb the world’s highest peak, Mount Everest. For this gallant gesture, Edmund Hillary is instantly knighted by his grateful sovereign.

a t home in Sydney, the Opera School and the Student Orchestra of the NSW Conservatorium of Music

are climbing a mountain of their own, by

mounting in the Verbrugghen Hall six performances of Richard Wagner’s Valkyrie, conducted by their revered Director, Sir Eugene Goossens and Dr Noel Nickson. Alan Ferris plays Siegmund and the vocal coach is Leo Demant.

What could possibly link the great event on the world’s stage with the Teutonic masterpiece on The Con’s stage? Curiously, it is the sixth and final name in the list of viola players in the orchestra: Rose, Miss L.

As soon as the curtain comes down on the final performance of Valkyrie, Louise Rose will exchange her bow for a bridal trousseau and fly across the world to join her

sweetheart, the Kiwi conqueror himself, and spend the rest of her life as Lady Hillary.

Her chums at The Con think this a splendid reason for a farewell party. The accompanying photograph and somewhat speculative identifying caption have been provided thanks to a concerted effort on the part of Peter Weiss, John Lyle, Brian Strong and Ron and Vanessa Cragg.

Peter Weiss recalls that Goossens reprimanded him later for his louche way of lying on the mantelpiece, but since he soon afterwards awarded him the Florence Yeoman Scholarship, he couldn’t have been too cross...

t he Music Circle of the Women’s Club of Sydney had donated the handsome sum of two hundred pounds to the

Conservatorium to commemorate the Club’s sixtieth anniversary. Just over 5% of the fund would be used each year in perpetuity to provide a prize of Ten Guineas. It was named in honour of the founder of the Music Circle, a legendary Mosman-based piano teacher of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century.

Miss Shadforth Hooper, originally a pupil of de Beaupuis, went to Vienna to study under Leschetitsky and fell under the spell of Teresa Carreño, whose “loose-armed” method of piano playing was said to be responsible for her “velvety richness of tone.” Sadly, Miss Hooper declined to join the Conservatorium when it was founded, preferring to retain her independence.

Introducing the winner of the first prize, Sir Bernard Heinze, Director of

the Conservatorium, said that a London examiner had predicted a brilliant career for her, saying that in the pianistic field, she could be another Joan Sutherland. With the benefit of hindsight, it is clear that Janet Palmer, now Janet Ritterman, amply fulfilled that prediction, albeit in the field of music education, rather than piano.

Subsequent winners of the Shadforth Hooper Prize included Roger Woodward and Cherie Broome but in the nineteen-eighties, the authorities at the Conservatorium decided that, since inflation had reduced the relative value of the prize, it should be discontinued and the balance added to the general Prize Fund. We are delighted to announce that Miss Shadforth Hooper’s name and memory are being celebrated again, for this year at least, by the award of a prize of $2,000 to Tony Deng Yi Lee as the outstanding pianist of 2009.

three ages of Janet ritterman (née Palmer) Clockwise from top left: arriving at The Con for the first time, to sit a piano exam; the prizewinning student pianist of 1962; a moment of reflection, 48 years on (Photo by Dan White).

valkyries identified (with apologies for any errors and omissions) Back row (L toR) Joan Mackerras (Violin), John Lyle (Violin), Patricia Wooldridge (Piano and Voice), David Jackson (Cello, m. Philippa Harding), Peter Weiss (Cello), Louise Rose circled (Viola, m. Sir Edmund Hillary), two unknown (women), Heather Hole (Violin), three unknown (men). Middle row Gwen Williams (Piano, m. Dr Bill Benz), Judy Wetherall (Piano), Stanley Ritchie (Violin), Christine Taylor (Piano), unknown (woman), Ronald Cragg (Viola, m. Vanessa Payn (Violin)), John Stender (Violin), Lyndal Edmiston (Violin, m. Leon Stemmler), Heather Hole (Violin), Gwyneth Evans (Viola), Barbara Campbell (Violin), Frances Jenkins (Oboe), unknown (man). Front row Leon Stemmler (Piano, m. Lyndal Edmiston), unknown (woman), Fleur Barry (Cello), Peter Richardson (Flute, m. Maralyn (Voice)), Winifred Durie (Viola), unknown (man).

the shaDFoRth hoopeR pRize

The Jan-Feb 1962 issue of Canon, the Australian Music Journal, celebrated the achievement of young Janet Palmer of the NSW State Conservatorium of Music, in winning the inaugural Shadforth Hooper Prize for the outstanding diploma pianist of the year.

paRty oF the valKyRies


harold Brissenden’s violin

F amily traditions count for a lot in music. The late Harold Brissenden, a legendary violin teacher who brought the Suzuki

Method to Australia, is survived by his wife, Nada, who was piano teacher to Gerard Willems, among many others. In a further link, Harold taught violin to Guy Elron, The Con’s Development Officer. One day, Nada hopes Harold’s magnificent violin will be used by their grand-daughter. Until she is old enough to appreciate it, Nada has generously decided that it should be used by one of the top violin students at The Con. Chair of Strings, Associate Professor Alice Waten, has decided that the first custodian should be Rebecca Chan. Rebecca was thrilled to be able to play the instrument in public for the first time in a nationally broadcast concert at Melbourne’s Myer Music Bowl in February 2010, where she played the solo in Bruch’s Violin Concerto.

the gerald Westheimer instrument collection

p rofessor Gerald Westheimer AM, a distinguished neurobiologist at Berkeley University in San Francisco,

came to Sydney last year to receive his Australia Medal from the Governor of NSW, H.E. Professor Marie Bashir. But his journey had a second purpose - to deliver a valuable violin to The Con.

Gerald has played, loved and collected violins ever since he studied music at the Con more than fifty years ago. Accepting, with regret but with strict scientific accuracy, that he is not going to live forever, he has decided to set up the Gerald Westheimer Instrument Collection at The Con, to provide top quality instruments for gifted students.

In 2008, Gerald presented a Bernadel violin dating from 1834; last year, he gave an 1879 Sprenger. In due course, they will be joined by sets of modern and baroque recorders, other instruments yet to be purchased and a substantial music library. Gerald is building up the collection year by year, saving the best violins until last, for the very good reason that he is still playing them!

Giving, Gerald believes, should be fun - and he is thoroughly enjoying the renewed association with The Con that brings him across the Pacific once or twice a year to augment the collection that will bear his name in perpetuity.

35

giFts that maKe a DiFFeRence

top left Guy Elron, Rebecca Chan, Nada Brissenden and Alice Waten with Harold Brissenden’s violin

top right Gerald Westheimer presents Kim Walker with the 1879 Sprenger violin

Mary Turner and Olive Dunk with the bust of George Henderson. Photograph by Dan White

the henderson scholarships

g eorge and Margaret Henderson were hard-working graziers with a deep love and knowledge of music.

They travelled when they could, to see the finest performances overseas, and were always delighted to see fellow-Australians in such companies. Having no children of their own, they decided, without fuss or fanfare, to dedicate their worldly possessions to the cause of helping young Australian musicians to have the best tuition available and to benefit from international experience. As it turned out, Margaret lived on, long after George had gone, but the cruelty of Alzheimer’s had claimed her mind. The estate, by then, was more valuable

than either of them could have imagined, thanks to the booming property prices of the 1990s. In excess of $16million, it is said to be the largest charitable bequest in the history of Australian education.

Fittingly, a bust of George Henderson greets students and visitors as they arrive at The Con. Just beside the main door, few pay it much attention. The executors of the Henderson estate, Mary Turner OAM, George’s niece, and Olive Dunk, his long-term secretary, feel that George would not have minded going unnoticed. As Olive reflected recently:

“Both of them would have been absolutely thrilled if they could see what their money is doing. I often think what a pity it is that they didn’t sponsor some students in their lifetime, so they could have got to know them and seen their musical skills growing. But George was a very shy man; he wouldn’t have wanted a fuss: he just wanted to give young people the chance to become really good musicians.”

playing youR paRtsinceRe thanKs to all BeneFactoRs Who have maDe Donations since 1 JanuaRy 2009 anD to eveRyone Who has leFt a Bequest to the syDney conseRvatoRium oF music.

Thank you for playing such an important part in our work. Your gifts are greatly appreciated as they help to maintain the excellence of The Con.

Brian AbelRobert Albert, AO Lindsay Robert AllanJudith AllenStefan BackmanSibilla BaerNeil Balnaves, AOGregory and Myra BellMarianne BenedekStephen BenedekAnita BeuthienFred Blanks, AMKen BloxsomRobert BrearShirley BrearGeraldine BriegerElaine BriersLenore BucklePeter BuckwellPatricia BurnsBarbara Cail, AMNeil CameronRobert CampbellJohn CassimDoreen CheongBishop Neville Chynoweth, AMDr Kenneth Coles, AMDavid ConstableDavid CooperBruce CorlettRowena Danziger, AMCharles DavidsonOlive DunkIan DunlopEleanor DunnDr Peter Elliott, AMMary EllisonGuy ElronSuellen EnestromAndrew Fairweather

Elizabeth GallowayDeborah GoodinBarbara GordonBetty GowMargaret GraceDr Harris GreenbergAnthony GreggBradley HallDr William Harvey, OAMBarbara HelmRex HobcroftDr William HollandJohn HollifieldGuy HoughtonPhillip Isaacs, OAMOlga JohnstoneBrennan and Anne KeatsPeter KirbyChristine KlinnerNatasha KoureaJohn Lamble, AOMick Le MoignanPatricia LemaireDr Richard Letts, AMJoan LevyW D LevyAnn MacanshSir Charles Mackerras, AC, Kt., CBE Donald MagareyKathryn MagareyNikolas MargerrisonThomas MarishMoya MartinJustice Jane Mathews, AOJoan McCoyAndrew MeikleDerek MinettDr Sarah NelsonDr William Nelson

Ken NielsenGreg O’DeaBarbara OttonHelen PerkesSimon PoidevinAnthea ReevesJassen RoseLeo ScheggLeo SchultzMary SchultzDr Norma ScottProfessor Ann Sefton, AORuth ShanePetrina SlaytorKelvin SmithMorna StauntonHeather TabretiPrasidh TanGavin ThomsonAngela ToppingDavid TurnerSister Anita VaggRachel VallerElsa VerderberProfessor Kim WalkerLynda WalshBeatrice WattsPeter Weiss, AMKenneth WelchDr Barry WhiteMarion WhiteDr Stephanie WhitmontJan WhittyProfessor Sir Bruce Williams, KBERobert WoodleySir Robert Woods, CBEA ZantiotisMargaret Zhou

CORPORATE BENEFACTORS

Balmain Sinfonia Balnaves FoundationBessie Catherine Cook TrustBuckwell & PartnersCentral Coast ConservatoriumColes Danziger FoundationEarly Music Association of NSW Inc Helpmann Family FoundationKillara Music ClubOpera LunediPeter Weiss Foundation Sisters of St Joseph, NSW Province Sydney 76 Ionian Club IncorporatedSydney Conservatorium Association (Inc)Sydney Opera SocietyTrust Company Limited

BEQUESTS RECEIVED

Estate of the late Arthur J MayerEstate of the late Edward John Roosevelt VimpaniEstate of the Late Georgina Byron PurssEstate of the Late John Anthony GilbertEstate of the Late Susan Meller

We also wish to thank those donors who prefer to remain anonymous.

inDiviDual BeneFactoRs

lorenzo rositano, a magnificent young tenor in his fourth year in the Opera school, winner of one of the greenberg-gurney-Jensen scholarships for Opera in 2009 and 2010, with one of his generous benefactors, Dr harris greenberg.Photograph by Dan White


Universities and conservatoria are always changing: they renew and re-invent themselves with a fresh generation of students every year. All of our students eventually leave The Con (although some succeed in staying for a surprising number of years!) – but The Con never quite leaves them.

It was wonderful to see the welter of emotions of the pre-1990 students when they came for their Recognition Ceremony in February 2010: the defining moment was sometimes when they recognized each other after so long!

Membership of The Con is a privilege that continues for life.

Many of our past students are deeply grateful for the chance they were given to pursue their chosen course of studies and make music

the central element of their lives. Some like to give other young musicians the same chance by setting up scholarships. Some choose to provide an instrument or to support our brilliant opera program, which achieves so much with so little. Others prefer to help our orchestras and ensembles to have the life-changing experience of touring overseas.

All our benefactors believe The Con is worth supporting. All gifts are welcome - at whatever level may be appropriate for each individual.

Giving is tax-deductible for Australian taxpayers and every gift will be acknowledged and appreciated and will make a difference.

It’s an investment in the music of the future.

Why give?

All over the world, universities are realising that education doesn’t stop when you take your degree. Graduation literally means a step on the way to a life that will be richer and more fulfilling – precisely because of the abilities, the skills, the knowledge, the contacts, the very patterns of thought and habits of intellectual enquiry that we develop in youth and practise for a lifetime.

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taKe noteWatch the DvD

rEtrosPEctivE 2009 and MorE

1 The Con (inc. SCM Jazz Big Band conducted by Bill Motzing)2 Performances (inc. Corigliano’s Pied Piper with Alexa Still) 3 SCM Chamber Orchestra – European Tour 20094 Fieldwork – Con students study gamelan and dance in Bali 5 Con Open Day 2009 – 10,000 visitors in five hours 6 Dean’s Gala Address by Dame Janet Ritterman, DBE

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verbrugghen hall, sydney conservatorium of Music

BEEthovEn’s ninth “choral” syMPhony

Friday 28 May 6.00pm and Saturday 29 May 4.00pmSCM Symphony Orchestra & Combined Choirs. Conductor: Imre Palló. Soloists: Anke Höppner (soprano) and Barry Ryan (baritone)

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CON tribute Issue 1 - 2010