Currency House

* Platform Papers 35 May 2013

THE MUSIC OF PLACE: RECLAIMING A PRACTICE
Jon Rose

‘How do you maintain live music in a culture that does not value it?’ asks Jon Rose, acclaimed improvising violinist and instrument maker. ‘The practice of music has lost its key functions and roles in society’, he writes. ‘The proof of this lies in the steep decline of monetary worth for both practitioner and the art form itself. Music's social worth is also questionable as it is steadily removed from the education curriculum. This is not a uniquely Australian phenomenon, nor is it confined to music practised on the fringes of society; it is a problem common to all music forms.’ Rose rejects blaming popular music and digital downloads, delves deeper and proposes a way to change the culture.

* Arts and Public Life Breakfast with David Sefton

At The Tea Room, Sydney 29 May
BOOK HERE

At The Tea Room, Queen Victoria Building, Sydney
Tickets $50 Bookings essential to Currency House Inc. by Thursday 23 May

* Platform Papers 34 February 2013

IT'S CULTURE STUPID!
Reflections of an arts bureaucrat
Leigh Tabrett

In 2005 Leigh Tabrett was appointed to lead the Queensland Government’s arts agency and began a major program of funding reform. In a trenchant reassessment of these years she explores her own frustrations and reveals how the lack of clarity among decision makers about the core purposes of government funding has profoundly damaged the system.
‘A fundamental clash of cultures’, she concludes. ‘How can we have a national system of public
support for the arts in the absence of any clear sense of purpose?’ Her paper offers a powerful argument for a better way.