University of Melbourne continues support for elite music training
Media Release, Friday 21 November 2008
The University of Melbourne has welcomed the opportunity to continue its association with training for Australia’s elite classical music students, following Arts Minister Peter Garrett’s invitation to create a new Australian Institute of Music Performance (AIMP).
University of Melbourne Acting Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter McPhee says the University has provided the legal underpinning for the provision of elite music performance training for 14 years through the Australian National Academy of Music (ANAM).
ANAM has been a subsidiary of the University of Melbourne with an independent board and its funding has flowed through the University, since its inception in 1994. ANAM has had complete operational independence from the beginning and the University has never sought to influence the nature of its programs.
AIMP will also be a subsidiary of the University, with an independent board and the continuation of Commonwealth funding. There has been no transfer of extra funds to the University of Melbourne.
Professor McPhee says AIMP will have no more funds than its predecessor. “The beneficiary here is not the University, but the students, as with administration centrally handled much more funding will be available for the music program."
Professor McPhee said the University asked by Arts Minister Peter Garrett to develop a new approach to training for outstanding music performers of the future, to fulfil better the original vision.
“The original concept was that this elite training facility be linked to a music school, not to operate in isolation as eventuated at the South Melbourne Town Hall,” Professor McPhee said.
“This is now possible with students of AIMP able to benefit from the music-rich resources of the new University of Melbourne School of Music - which brings together two outstanding music education facilities, the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Music (which awarded Australia’s first Music degree in 1879) and the Victorian College of the Arts School of Music in April 2009.”
Pro Vice-Chancellor Professor Warren Bebbington, a former Dean of Music at Melbourne, says this new School of Music will at last bring to the Asia-Pacific region a school of the size and complexity of the leading music schools of the world, such as the Julliard in New York or the Guildhall in London.
“Students in AIMP will thrive in this rich and vibrant environment of musical excellence with improved access to a range of orchestras and ensembles,” Professor Bebbington explained.
“Like Julliard and Guildhall too, the new Melbourne School will be set in a comprehensive arts precinct at Southbank in Melbourne, with access to neighbouring recital venues, theatres, other artform schools in the Victorian College of the Arts, and of course the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, with which it is hoped educational programs and internships can be developed.”
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