ACO, Artistic Director Richard Tognetti and ANU student James Monro: “When the tuition stops, the music stops.” Photos: Martin Ollman.
National and overseas arts luminaries are tuning up to save the ANU School of Music, including Richard Tognetti, who made an impassioned speech from the stage on Saturday night against the proposed cuts that the Canberra Symphony Orchestra has labelled a national embarrassment.
Tognetti’s intervention came at a performance of the Australian Chamber Orchestra at Llewellyn Hall, introducing a musical protest from ANU student and rising cellist James Monro.
“When the tuition stops, the music stops,” the internationally acclaimed violinist and ACO artistic director told the audience when Monro’s cello fell silent.
Tognetti said the 60-year-old School of Music was a national and international asset that was a training ground for musicians who give life to the national identity.
“Let us hope that in marking the School of Music’s diamond anniversary we are also not preparing its obituary, but if the current trajectory continues, that is where we are heading,” he warned.
Tognetti said you wouldn’t close down a national park to save on upkeep, yet when it came to a national cultural park such as the School of Music, some believed disestablishing it under the cover of restructuring was an acceptable solution.
“It is not acceptable that in a country like ours there could be no place in the public system to learn the clarinet, the cello, or the drums somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney,” Tognetti said.
He urged the audience to make their voices heard in whatever way they could, such as signing the student petition, or writing to a local member, the Federal Government and ANU leadership.
Earlier in the week, Tognetti and ACO members wrote to chancellor Julie Bishop, vice-chancellor Professor Genevieve Bell, college dean Professor Bronwyn Parry and members of the University Council, telling them that the Australian and international music community was watching closely and would not stand by and let the School of Music die.
Tognetti called the changes a betrayal of the school’s founding vision, its students, and of the cultural responsibility the university bore.
He said they were hard to reconcile with the university’s statutory obligations under the Australian National University Act (1991), which requires ANU to provide “facilities and courses at higher education level and other levels in the visual and performing arts, and, in so doing, promote the highest standards of practice in those fields”.
“What is at stake is not simply the structure of a school, but the future of music education in Australia,” Tognetti said.
ANU students protested against the cuts at the ACO concert at Llewellyn Hall.
He said the new proposals echoed 2012 curriculum changes that had taken the School of Music to the brink, causing lasting damage to its standing.
The school was being shortchanged in its agreed funding, which raised serious public interest questions about the financial analysis being presented to justify the cuts and the motivations behind it, he said.
Tognetti warned the ANU that if it persisted, the protests would only grow, with the local and international artistic community mobilised.
“The erosion of the school’s mission, its pedagogical integrity, and its cultural significance will be met with sustained and vocal opposition from educators, artists, alumni, students, and supporters across the country and beyond.”
He called for an immediate moratorium on the proposed changes and a fully transparent and independently moderated consultation process.
The CSO had offered its constructive support to prevent the School of Music from being absorbed into a new School of Creative and Cultural Practice and the paring back of music degrees, particularly the axing of performance studies and one-on-one tuition.
But CEO Rachel Thomas said the ANU’s response delivered in an email indicated that it believed the proposals to be a fait accompli.
Ms Thomas said the CSO would up the tempo in its campaign against the proposals and call on the support of the arts community in Australia and overseas.
“It’s really important that the community see CSO take this position, and the national arts sector as well,” she said.
“We plan to apply as much pressure as we can on ANU to call off these changes. They’re a national embarrassment.
“It’s not the sort of thing that we want to see happening in the nation’s capital.”
Ms Thomas it was a matter close to the heart of many in the community, and nationally, saying people had reached out to her from all kinds of places.
She said there was a concern that this erosion of the arts could be happening around the country.
“I think that that’s generally the concern from these organisations, that it’s OK to cut back on arts and culture in order to balance the budget,” she said.
The CSO fears for its pipeline of musicians and the viability of the orchestra if the School of Music and performance study is lost, as well as for the arts sector generally and music education in the ACT.
