Page 2289 - Week 06 - Wednesday, 9 May 2012
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There are some other things that it has which seem to be forgotten by these moguls at the ANU administration. It was one of the places in Australia that saw the birth of electronic music. A lot of people might not particularly like electronic music, but tough luck. It was basically born there. Keith Humble, who was operating out of Melbourne at the time, and the late Don Banks basically put electronic music composition on the map. Don Banks was in fact recruited for the very purpose of kicking off an electronic music laboratory and composition school.
One of the other technicians that we had employed in those days was John Tucker, who is Kerrie Tucker’s husband and a guitarist, for those people that did not know that. He is an excellent guitarist.
We forget about the work that Professor Larry Sitsky has been doing. He has been doing it for decade after decade after decade. I can remember working with him when he was the head of piano and Don Hollier was the head of organ at the school. Don Hollier was an expert in church music. There was nowhere else in the country where we had a recognised expert in either performance or composition in church music, but we had it here because Don Hollier used to do it, and the performances at St Andrew’s were legend.
Not only was there connection with the Canberra School of Music; there is also connection with the Canberra City Band. Way back when Bill Hoffman—WL Hoffman of music critic fame—was actually the Canberra City Band bandmaster they had their practices at the School of Music in Manuka. He used to teach musicianship on the way to getting some of our students qualified at licentiate level.
What we have here is an ACT born and bred institution. It is part of our fabric. It is part of our soul. When I saw it go to the ANU I wept, because I knew that Ernest Llewellyn’s prophecy would come true. Because it is now part of the federal government’s purview and responsibilities, as the minister indicated, the only way we can stop it is to stand up in this place and, on behalf of the people who live here, the successive students that have gone through it and the ones that we hope will come forward, say, “You cannot do this.”
This is not the same as the Research School of Social Sciences. A civilisation is judged by what it leaves behind, and the best way that these messages are left behind is in an artistic form. If we gut the School of Music the way this is going to gut it, we are going to deny the people of Australia going forward into the future a window into what is in our artistic souls. I, for one, want to lend my voice to stopping this.
I thank Mrs Dunne very much for putting this up because I was wondering how I could actually make this expression before I went overseas. I thank the Greens for their support and I thank the minister and the government for what they are doing. I do not thank the ANU for this act of academic bastardry and musical cannibalism—because that is exactly what it is.
This is probably the most deplorable act that I have seen come out of the ANU since I got here in 1968. I ask each and every member not only to support this motion but to
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