Tuesday, July 12, 2016

Melbourne Conservatorium - today's Victorian Announcements

Today saw some exciting announcements in Victoria! Wooo hoooo!!  I'm a singing Italian opera tonight!
http://www.premier.vic.gov.au/investing-in-the-next-generation-of-creative-talent/

Quote from the Press Release: "Melbourne’s Southbank is set to become one of the world’s best training grounds for the arts, with the construction of a new Melbourne Conservatorium of Music to add to the best cultural precinct in the nation.
Acting Premier James Merlino today announced the project – a partnership between the Andrews Labor Government and the University of Melbourne – which will expand and relocate the University’s elite music education and research facility from Parkville to Southbank, opening to students in 2019."

Quote from Daniel Andrews' Facebook Page: "Say you've just finished high school in Victoria, and you're an absolute gun violinist or pianist, and you have your heart set on a career travelling the world in a famous orchestra.
Well, right now the first thing you would do is move overseas, because the music conservatories in Europe are second to none.
That's all about to change.
Today, I can announce that we're going to build the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music (MCM) in Southbank.
It'll be the world's best training ground for musicians of every instrument and every discipline.
And it will create 2,000 jobs."

Quote from Gary McPherson:
Thanks Catherine,

Yes, this is really great news for our Conservatorium.  It’s been a very very long time coming but the new building will really make a huge difference. I’ll attach a photo of what it will look like (it will be located immediately behind the MRC). 



We’ll still retain the Parkville (old) conservatorium building plus also the St Kilda Road music building and hope to get a fourth building at Southbank that is a dedicated practice facility for our students. The new building however, will house most of our performance program.

I have a very large ARC grant in that I should know the outcome of by the end of this year. It would help establish a hub for the teaching of instruments to rural students who don’t have access to specialist teachers. If we get the funding we’ll also be embarking on professional development courses for teachers, streaming concerts and lectures and workshops and trying as best we can to support music teachers throughout the state. We had a very successful all day session at the Melbourne Recital Centre a few months ago where our two wind symphonies performed with another 5 school ensembles. Next year, I’m hoping to expand our connections with school ensembles by booking the MRC for a few more concerts.

There’s so much to do but at least we’re making some progress on a few fronts. With a new building it will be so much easier to do more of the things we hope can support music in schools

Gary
                                                                                                               
Professor Gary McPherson 
Ormond Chair of Music and Director
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
The University of Melbourne

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