Page 762 - Week 03 - Tuesday, 19 March 2019
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enriching our community and enriching the people around them through their participation in the arts. We must celebrate them. We must encourage them, and this Labor-Greens government must acknowledge them.
MS LEE (Kurrajong) (4.05): I thank my colleague Mrs Dunne for bringing on this matter of public importance for debate today. It goes to the heart of the importance and value of providing a first-class education for the ACT’s young people and in this instance for our aspiring writers and performing and visual artists. Mrs Dunne has been a strong advocate for the arts community here in the ACT and her speech just now highlights her strong commitment to the delivery of quality arts programs and the educational opportunities for people who wish to pursue a career in the arts.
For young music students wishing to pursue a career in classical music or jazz, the H course was seen as a long-running and successful entree for students. It provided unique and, for some, otherwise unaffordable opportunities to be tutored by the leaders in their music fields. As we know, the H course for Canberra music students in years 11 and 12 is no more. It became a victim of either an ideological or a funding stoush, depending on what sources you wish to believe, between the ANU School of Music, artsACT and the ACT government.
The H course and its predecessors have been running since 1982. Thousands of students have benefited from the course which gives them high level music theory tuition and supervised instrument practice in a tertiary environment. The results go toward their Australian tertiary admission rank, or the ATAR, and it is one of a number of H courses available to ACT students. The 2017 Education Directorate annual report says that 169 students from 17 colleges completed an H course through the Australian National University extension program in 2016, with 30 students completing H courses at the School of Music.
When I raised the axing of the H course in a motion in the Assembly last year I reflected on the range and depth of musical talent among the graduates of the H course and the beneficiaries of the rather small but effective financial support. I noted how blessed the ACT is in music talent. I spoke of the Canberra Youth Orchestra, the Canberra Symphony, the National Capital Orchestra, Canberra Sinfonia, and the Maruki Community Orchestra, not to mention the numerous choirs that also call Canberra home, and the depth of talent in our schools, many of which have their own jazz bands, brass bands, ensembles, string and chamber orchestras. Anyone who has had the opportunity to attend a concert at any number of our schools, both government and non-government, will agree that the standard of the music on offer is exceptionally and amazingly high.
Given that the population of Canberra is only one-tenth of the size of Sydney, to have five orchestras or ensembles, not including the Duntroon Military College Band and the numerous school groups, would seem a very rich supply of music delivery. But that is not by accident, as we have learnt. Leonard Weiss, the now 26-year-old conductor of two of those orchestras is a graduate of the H program, as are many of
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