under the auspices of the New Music Network
Exploring the present,
imagining a future:
observing attitudes, expectations, and aspirations in the new music scene.
by John Davis
General Manager, Australian Music Centre
12 December 2003
(Photo of John Davis by Bridget Elliot)
What we have in the Australian new music scene is difficult to quantify
beyond describing various
streams of influence, exploring thematic issues
such as geography or landscape, or celebrating diversity of approach.
Listing examples of outstanding quality in the creation and presentation of Australian new music is not a challenge, and at the same time, few people involved in new music would have problems in compiling a long list of shortcomings or challenges in the scene. But are current expectations realistic in the current context? What are our aspirations for the future, and are they realistic?
I was initially reluctant to accept the invitation to deliver this address. The work that we do at the Music Centre is by its nature mostly invisible — we connect with people involved in music: students, teachers, educators, composers, performers, presenters, individuals and organisations and institutions. We make connections, we plant seeds, offer options, identify possibilities, and provide directions. We are used to working behind the scenes, stimulating and empowering people to attend to what is necessary to create and present the work. And when that work is realised, what we have contributed may not be evident, or even traceable. Nor should it be. Our role is to provide support for the creation and presentation of music.
And so making public comments is not something that I am used to, and has caused me to consider things in an entirely different way. I have been greatly challenged by this process; however I have found it to be particularly stimulating, so I am grateful to Marshall McGuire and the New Music Network for inviting me to speak.
I want to start, as have others who have delivered this address, with Peggy. I never met her. I’ve read all the stories. I have heard more stories from those who knew her. And I’ve observed the curious dynamic of ownership of Peggy that exists. This dynamic is quite understandable. We see the world from our own perspective, interpret it accordingly, and reflect it back from our own viewpoint.
And with Peggy, I suppose I own a part of her too. Not just from her involvement with the Australian Music Centre in its early years, but also from the fact that Peggy was the first Australian to have a work performed in an ISCM Festival — The Choral Suite in ISCM’s 15th festival in London in 1938, performed by the BBC Singers conducted by Sir Adrian Boult. I have had a great deal to do with ISCM in recent years, and I have always had great pride in the fact that an Australian was represented there so early (relatively) in ISCM’s history.
My involvement with ISCM has not only been about getting Australian works recognised, but also contributing an Australian perspective to that international community, and assisting in that community flourishing. As Peggy also contributed, through her work with the American Composers Forum.
ISCM has just held it’s 80th festival. And the AMC next year celebrates 30 years since its Articles of Association were registered. So I feel that I have inherited something from her, and sometimes this feels like a great responsibility.
And in all this, I am very conscious of and sensitive to what George Orwell once wrote:
"Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."
For this address, I have taken the liberty of taking the chapter titles from Peggy’s planned but unrealised book of collected essays titled "Apollo’s House" (as outlined by James Murdoch in his biography of Peggy). I have outlined some thoughts and interpretations of my own pertaining to these chapter titles. I also want to refer to previous addresses, and take up some of the many relevant points raised by James Murdoch, Barry Conyngham, Liza Lim, and Roland Peelman. I’d like to draw some threads from their contributions, and from others, to bring you another perspective.
And I want to ask some questions. I don’t claim to have many answers, and I mistrust anyone claiming to have the answers — on anything. Many of the most important questions of our time have no absolute answers. I recently read a quote which reassures me somewhat — and is the first agricultural reference I will make:
"A good question is never answered. It is not a bolt to be tightened into place, but a seed to be planted and to bear more seed toward the hope of greening the landscape of ideas"
And in dealing with the challenges that confront us in new music we should remember that our position is not unique. All around the new music world composers, performers and presenters are facing the same or similar challenges in their own contexts. New music has always faced challenges. Things are changing, as they always have, and always will. And change is not something to fear, we have other options to choose. We can ignore it, we can resist or deflect it, we can fight it, we can initiate alternative change, or, we can adapt.
And so to Peggy’s Chapters for Apollo’s House:
CHAPTER 1: The Climate of Dissolution
Peggy quoting Plato:
"A change to a new type of music is something to beware of as a hazard
of all our fortunes. For the modes of music are never disturbed without
unsettling of the most fundamental political and social conventions."
There is no doubt that our Australian new music scene for some time has
been going through a significant period of immense change, just as our
society has. There are the funding issues, the issues relating to support
infrastructure, public subsidy, philanthropy and sponsorship, the education
system, the ABC, and so on.
And perhaps the most dramatic change is in the artform itself, the massive
expansion across the breadth and depth of new music. Peggy composed what
is essentially concert music, and opera. Now, "new music" in
the sense that we use it covers a far broader spread of art musics, covering
not only concert music, but also contemporary jazz and the broader world
of improvisatory practice, electronic / acousmatic musics including multimedia
and its many forms, sound art / installation, and the many cross-genre
and cross-artform collaborations and new hybrids.
Look down the list of members of the New Music Network,
or through the resources at the Australian Music Centre, and there are
examples of all of these.
It was only a few years ago when someone said that we are in a golden
age of Australian composition and performance. My view is that at any
time over the past 30 years, at least, this could have been said.
We see the world from our own perspective, interpret it accordingly, and reflect it back from our own viewpoint.
I am reminded of a Robyn Dunn song that goes "….in the future,
these will be our golden years; in the future, this will be our history…"
So if we choose to accentuate the positive, what is golden about our current
landscape?
- we have more new works being created and performed, in a more diverse
range of contexts, than perhaps at any other time in our history, from
the grassroots in education and the community sectors, to the professional
level, nationally and internationally;
- we have more performing groups and presenting organisations that either
specialise in, or regularly include in their programs, contemporary works;
- performance standards in new music ensembles have risen considerably
(in particular over the last decade), and continue to do so, and our very
best compare with the best anywhere;
- our Australian musical voice has something different to say, and if
we say it with passion and commitment, in a way that articulates our difference,
and demonstrates our specific perspective and expertise (not someone
else’s), the world wants to listen. And so do we.
And not-so golden?:
- as Barry Conyngham pointed out in his address, as a result of the fashion
for premieres of works over the past 20 years, and the funding available
to encourage this, there is an ever-growing body of repertoire that has
not been performed again after the premiere (and there are works that
have gone on to become classics of Australian repertoire, with many performances
by many performers in many different contexts);
- for those that do present contemporary works, some do so with insufficient
rehearsal time, budgets that do not cover artist fees at an appropriate
level, ineffective marketing, and shallow thought given to programming.
- survival is difficult. The necessary perseverance to continue to write or perform can be difficult to sustain.
The greatest danger is the scenario where too many artists — either
established, emerging, or embryonic - choosing to opt out because it’s
all too hard.
CHAPTER 2: Technique and Inspiration
Peggy quoting the Spanish writer, poet, historian,
philosopher and politician Salvador de Madariaga
"Genius and talent are different types of the human spirit which
may be distinguished in that talent is mostly conscious, continuous, methodical,
analytical, critical, skilled in matters of form — while genius is
above all subconscious, discontinuous, free from all method, synthetic,
fertile in matters of substance."
AND
CHAPTER 3: Musical Materials
Peggy quoting FRANK LLOYD WRIGHT:
"Organic form is a natural evolution from the nature of the materials
used."
Peggy had a lot to say about compositional process. The need for the artist
to "journey inwardly", by making "silence" and "time",
to "integrate the emerged and submerged sources, and integrate them
into an organic form."
All composers today face the challenge of finding the space and time to
create. Performers face the same challenge. Money can provide a level
of freedom, but perhaps there is not as much money available as there
was in say, the 1980s. There are certainly more artists competing for
it.
So what happens to those artists who miss out on funding? What does
one of our most talented, young, emerging composers who called me recently,
do? She had been told that another of her proposals to a funding body
had missed out - again.
This composer returned to Australia last year after several years
overseas, where she achieved a level of success that encouraged her to
continue to compose. She worked hard, and wrote a great deal of music
which attracted attention. She involved herself in the musical life of
the city where she lived, and established relationships with other artists
that resulted in a number of collaborations, commissions, and other opportunities.
She chose to return to Australia because she felt that creatively she
should be here. Since her return she has continued composing, establishing
collaborations with performers and other artists, and has also has organised
and presented concerts that she has paid for, supported by her modest
earnings from working in the retail sector.
In my conversation with this composer, she related to me her communication
exchange with the funding body, in an attempt to improve her application
for the next funding round. And was told that her application was perfect,
all the criteria had been appropriately met, all of the financial details
were appropriately calculated and presented — but the funding committee
didn’t like her style of music.
And what does one of our very well-known established composers do when
he discovers that in spite of planning well for future projects and commissions,
sometimes up to 4 or 5 years in advance, he discovers that the negotiations
for a major project occupying most of the coming year have fallen through?
A sink-or-swim approach to these scenarios could be seen as appropriate.
Such situations arise in many areas of our society. There aren’t
the resources to provide an adequate safety net. And one might say that
the established artist should be in a position to adapt to such a situation,
as a small business person should during fluctuations in their business.
Find alternative supplementary income, as Peggy did. Is this fair?
And what happens to the emerging artist? There is a danger of them
choosing to opt out completely. And unfortunately some of the best and
brightest do.
And the result of this is that those who would otherwise be contributing
to creating the future of new music are diverted away, and are lost to
the cause.
There are no easy answers, but recognising and nurturing talent seems
such a simple investment, and is an absolutely essential one.
CHAPTER 4: Westward to the East - (a subject dear to Peggy’s heart)
Peggy quoting the poet, critic and translator Edwin
Muir, writing on a particular artist:
"Regarded from one point of view, he remained content at the
point where his contemporaries, started: regarded from another, he was
at the end where they hoped their explorations would bring them."
Both Liza Lim and Roland Peelman have spoken eloquently about this matter
in previous PGH Addresses. Liza spoke about the myth of multi-culturalism,
about the need for self to be acknowledged in this context, and how she
came to see multiculturalism as a way of being in the world as an artist — a way of working that not only negotiates journeys between
the boundaries of different cultures, but also works with differences
and territories within a culture. She spoke of embracing multiple
perspectives as an artist, and this process requiring a structural change
in one’s thinking.
Roland also spoke about the embrace of multiple perspectives —
both in terms of his own displacement through migration, and in his intercultural
musical explorations out of the Western canon — rather than provoking
a crisis of identity, having deepened and strengthened his sense of self,
and his sense of belonging within this community, socially and musically.
Expanding this to a more general perspective, and to a political perspective,
regarding "Westward to the East", in contemporary Australia,
and even more specifically in the new music scene, there is indeed much
work to be done in the negotiating the journey across and within different
cultures, and indeed across music genres. And as Roland Peelman argued,
the polarised dualities in the contemporary world, of North — South,
East — West, rich — poor, even culture — commerce, art
— entertainment, at worst have been misused by extremist ideologies,
or at best, offering simplistic, politically marketable solutions to complex
issues.
And it’s very evident in what we see and hear in the cultural
sector, in what gets supported, or receives attention, not necessarily
by the mass media, but even the arts media. And yet there is far more
of worth happening than that which receives attention in any media.
Not that there is anything wrong with that. ‘Twas ever thus.
"Twill ever be. "Tis the nature of the new.
CHAPTER 5: The Counterfeiters
There is no quote for this chapter from Peggy so I
don’t know what she may have been referring to. I want to talk here
about the assumption that I make when someone says that they are a composer
or performer or whatever, the assumption I make that they are truthful,
and the immediate respect I must pay to their yet-to-be-established credibility.
I am often disappointed, but just as often, pleasantly surprised and impressed.
It’s very interesting to see how someone’s attitude can improve
once they see that they are taken seriously.
But there are many who talk the talk, but fall short on the results — as I guess we all do to some extent, from time to time. And I am speaking
here about the entire new music scene, artistic, organisational / corporate,
and bureaucratic.
But talking the talk is such an important requirement for survival in
our environment, whether it’s about gaining attention, gaining funding,
enlisting support, negotiating a collaboration or a partnership, attracting
a sponsor, selling an event, competing.
Walking the walk can be more difficult. You have to live up to your propaganda.
You have to be able to manage things so that outcomes are met, so that
more propaganda can be created, and your survival chances increased.
And in the corporate part of the cultural world, where managers in an
environment of immense change need to meet the many expectations that
exist, there is the assumption that they will have the ability to appropriately
manage that change. More often than not they don’t. In striving to
implement change we managers sometimes overlook the fact that we are dealing
with people, and as a first step, people need to be committed to change.
Managers sometimes also overlook the fact that without the artistic work,
without the continuing investment in that artistic work, and the people
who create that work, our management function is irrelevant.
And in our current environment this is where falling short is so common — we are all aware of the many examples, I don’t need to identify
them.
I want to talk briefly about performance of new music, because there is
some degree of counterfeiting in our performing environment, perhaps a
result of many factors such as lack of rehearsal or unfamiliarity with
the particular musical language. This does us all a great deal of harm.
We have all heard performances of new music where the players through
their body-language appear insecure, despite their efforts to disguise
it. It has caused many to turn away from attending performances of new
music. And it has been used by some presenters to justify their stand
of not performing new music.
In a book just published by the Centre titled Musicianship in the 21st
Century: Issues, Trends and Possibilities, Tony Gould writes about
performance requiring at attitude that goes beyond the regurgitation of
repertoire, that "demonstrates openly that everyone involved is taking
responsibility for every note played. Commitment or lack of it is easily
detectable".
And what a different experience an audience can enjoy when this all works — regardless of the musical style of the repertoire. And we are fortunate
to be able to enjoy this from many Australian performers.
CHAPTER 6: Opinion and Judgement
Peggy quoting the philosopher Eric Fromm:
"While irrational faith is the acceptance of something
as true only because an authority or the majority say so, rational faith
is rooted in an independent conviction based upon one’s own productive
observing and thinking."
Opinion and judgement often appear as invective, driven by the need to
enforce. And in our musical world this happens far too frequently.
Peggy had a reputation for never doing this, but she
was also known to have a sharp tongue.
I recently attended a seminar at a festival in Auckland.
A dozen New Zealand composers, from several generations, spoke about their
creative lives, their inspirations and their aspirations. They all spoke
with openness and an honesty that surprised me. There was no judgement,
no criticism, no political or aesthetic agendas. It was about them as
individual artists, as a community, about their work, and their place
in that community.
I couldn’t imagine a similar situation here, where
so many composers gathered together could do this.
On criticism and writing, from Keith
Gallasch’s Keynote Address at the International Critics Symposium,
held during the Queensland Biennial festival of Music in Brisbane earlier
this year:
"We need writers to provide the big picture — to monitor development,
engage with and graphically describe works and patterns of change. It
would be great to see arts writers and reviewers championing the arts,
the reviewer as hero — you don’t see much of that. You see caution,
discretion. You see the compulsive rush to judgement — premasticated
art. You see reserve, you see anxiety, a rearguard action as the certainties
of discrete artforms blur. The reviewer’s role has been pretty much
reduced to the show by show review, another form of fragmentation and
atomisation besetting the arts. We need commitment, not blind, but eager
and open, and responsive."
PAUSE
I said earlier that I mistrusted anyone claiming to have absolute answers to questions, particularly about music, and especially an absolute opinion about musical style. I see it as another kind of fundamentalism. And of course we know about the dangers of fundamentalism of any kind in our world.
CHAPTER 7: Our Cultural Erosion
Peggy quoting Winston Churchill:
"Never have so many owed so much to so few."
(and I choose to interpret this as sarcasm):
Today we see cultural erosion all around us. The ABC, (again, it seems,
going through changes which have a direct impact on the new music scene),
the education sector (which in regard to music is generally floundering),
the potential impact of the free trade agreement with the USA. And more
generally, our government’s approach to immigration, the many issues
regarding indigenous people, and the issues at the National Museum,.
I read a story recently in a newspaper about our federal
politicians. About how they are fed up with the abstract art that adorns
the walls of Parliament House. It seems that a review undertaken by former
National Gallery of Australia Director Betty Churcher has uncovered, "widespread
dissatisfaction over the collection, and the majority of MPs are urging
change. Out with the new, in with the old, is the catch-cry of many MPs,
who are sick of looking at works which they don’t understand".
"Some object to all abstract art — seeing it as elite and not
representative of broader Australia. Some described the works as dreary,
gloomy, dismal, dark, depressing, the product of a sick mind. Supporters
(very much in the minority) described the works as stimulating, challenging,
forward-looking, and in harmony with the parliament’s architecture."
"Ms Churcher has reported a yearning for good ol’ pastoral landscapes
and wartime prints. Powerful figures, such as Health Minister Tony Abbott
— who has described much of the art as ‘avant-garde crap’
— are leading the charge for change."
And from The Australian’s Frank Devine:
"Government subsidising of the arts has become Australia’s Vietnam-like
quagmire…..quality never improves in sheltered workshops. It’s
time to call in the helicopters for the evacuation"
And Andrew Ford speaking recently about politicians and culture:
"it was really only one generation ago that politicians thought culture
was a good thing. Conservative politicians believed in culture because
it was thought to represent the best of Western civilisation. Small-l
liberals, on the other hand, believed you didn’t merely conserve
culture, you had to subsidise it; you brought it to the masses via public
education, public libraries and public broadcasting. And, note, they wanted
to bring culture to people. They weren’t talking about making art
accessible; on the contrary, the idea was to make people accessible to
art."
There have been comments made recently about sport
and culture, comparing government funding to both areas.
CHAPTER 8: Replanting
No quote used by Peggy here, but I presume that she
would be talking about her vision for the direction of music. I want to
talk about what I would hope for new music and its future health.
I hope:
- That there will always be opportunities for new music to be created
and presented. It will never be easy, and it will always be filled with
challenges. And there will always be artists with the courage to face
those challenges and produce the work.
- That there will always be opportunities and avenues for people to experience
and explore it. Because there will always be people with the desire to
seek these opportunities out.
- That the creators, presenters, audiences, and others develop a strong
sense of community. Because there is strength in unity of purpose.
- That artists enjoy an environment where a sense of collegiality and
co-operation takes precedence over envy, jealousy and fear, and find a
balance between self-interest and community interest.
- And that environment contain the necessary elements to promote healthy
competition within new music, so that a foundation of expertise can be
continually improved
- That critical discourse and debate flourish.
I think of Peggy the artist - not just composer, but also critic, writer,
thinker, activist, advocate, mentor, and hope that there will be many
more who take on at least some of these roles.
I quoted something about planting seeds earlier, and I’d like to
finish with a couple more agricultural quotes.
From an article in the Sydney Morning Herald’s Good Weekend in 1986,
where Peggy described herself as:
"being part of the unpaying aspect of music, the avant-garde spearhead.
They don’t know where they are going, they’re going by intuition,
and they will turn up the furrows that will produce the crops of tomorrow"
Perhaps in her description of herself as being of the avant-garde she means "in spirit", because in many ways I see her as a reactionary (not that there’s anything wrong with that!).
But, according to Orwell, I see myself as more intelligent than the previous
generation, and wiser than the next.
So I offer this wisdom to the next. It’s an old English farmers’ proverb. When planting seeds for our future, we should all adopt it as
our motto:
"One for the rook, one for the crow,
one to rot, and one to grow"
And if we want new music to have a future, we need to invest our energies, face the challenges, and take risks to realise that future. And we must do so with all our energy.