SITTING ON A GOLD MINE

In exploring the past and present of string teaching in regional Western Australia, Rita Fernandes finds examples of both progress and regression, all pointing to the fact that where there is opportunity, there is demand and potential

Karijini National Park in the northern Pilbara region of Western Australia (see map, right)

LEAD PHOTO GETTY

Western Australia is dubbed ‘The Golden State’, and that’s no coincidence. Not only is its main city, Perth, the sunniest capital in the world, but the state also boasts a gold industry that in 2021 was worth AUD22bn. Western Australia (WA) has made its fortune from its natural resources (it produces 99 per cent of Australia’s iron ore and 74 per cent of its petroleum). It covers a huge area of almost a million square miles, stretching 1,500 miles from the tropical north to the temperate south of the continent. The majority of WA’s relatively small population of 2.7 million is centred on Perth, with the remaining 600,000 spread throughout the regions – the equivalent of just one person for every two square miles. Yet it is regional WA, with its wheat farms and diamond mines, that has made the state the behemoth of natural wealth it is today. Whether it’s exporting megatons of iron or gigalitres of oil to the US or China, WA’s financial potential has been recognised, and certainly exploited.

Golden potential in other areas of regional Western Australian life has yet to be extracted, however – one such being string playing. Delve deep into the past and present of string teaching in regional WA and you find heart-warming stories of string education supporting community and mental health programmes, but also unfortunate examples of regression. All these examples back up one claim: given the opportunity, there is musical potential in every corner of this vast state.

Map of Western Australia indicating mentioned places and populations

‘GOVERNMENT PROGRAMMES BUILD THE LARGEST BASE OF PLAYERS, WHICH MEANS THAT THERE ARE MORE PEOPLE ADVOCATING FOR STRINGS AT EVERY LEVEL’–

MAP FILIPE FERNANDES. TUCKEY PHOTO NIK BABIC

String education and the building of musical communities in regional WA is a tale of both virtuous and vicious cycles. Let us begin with the virtuous.

The coastal town of Albany in Menang country, 260 miles south-east of Perth, is home to 38,000 people – making it one of WA’s largest regional towns.

Helen Tuckey

It has a thriving music and string scene. To understand why, we should start by looking at WA’s Department of Education Instrumental Music School Services (IMSS). It provides free instrumental tuition to more than 460 schools across the whole of WA, 70 of which offer strings. Of these, 65 are in Perth and the remaining 5 are all in the Albany area. ‘Government programmes build the largest base of players, which means that there are more people advocating for strings at every level,’ says Helen Tuckey, West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO) violist and president of the WA Chapter of the Australian String Teachers Association (AUSTA), which organises and supports workshops, festivals and eisteddfods across WA. The chapter’s regional representatives are in Albany, the South West and Geraldton.

Former veterinarian Helen Grandage moved to Albany from Perth 15 years ago, during her selfproclaimed ‘rather enjoyable mid-life crisis’. She is AUSTA’s Albany regional representative and teaches 90 violin and viola students through IMSS across the town. ‘IMSS provides free lessons to students whose families are unlikely to have considered the possibilities of an instrumental education for their child. It’s not necessarily about making the musicians of tomorrow, but about providing the opportunity to experience all that music education can offer.’ Former IMSS cello teacher Julie Parish adds, ‘Who knows where it will take them? They can do music but also become future audience members in the community.’

2017 AUSTA cello workshop in Albany with a mix of amateur players, teachers and students, including Preston Clifton (seventh from left) and Julie Parish (fourth from right)

That said, IMSS’s Albany programme has indeed created musicians of today and tomorrow, including WASO double bassist Jack Charles. ‘Only now do I realise how much of a privilege it was living in Albany compared to other parts of regional WA. I was even spoiled with a beautiful Höfner bass that IMSS purchased for me,’ he says. Another example is former IMSS cello student Preston Clifton, a current member of the Melbourne-based Dutala Ensemble – Australia’s first Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander chamber group: ‘Albany is thriving because of its strong sense of community and mateship. People play for the enjoyment rather than pursuing it for money. The world would be a little poorer without musicians from Albany.’

Preston Clifton

But school programmes come with their frustrations, such as the necessity of group teaching and limited support from non-musical families. Fortunately, Albany is also home to a host of passionate private teachers. ‘It’s great to see the two systems working together. Kids then come together for the youth orchestra,’ says Andrew Patrick, head of strings at IMSS, who also spent three and a half years teaching regionally. ‘There’s no place for competition because we know we’ve only got each other!’ says Grandage.

Jack Charles

The Albany Entertainment Centre opened in 2010 and seats over 600

WORKSHOP PHOTO LOUISE SANDERCOCK. CLIFTON PHOTO RENEE SMITH. VENUE PHOTO COURTESY ALBANY ENTERTAINMENT CENTRE

Albany also benefits from a lucky set of circumstances.

It is home to a large retired population that is willing to spend money on cultural activities. And it is ‘just far enough away from Perth that it’s slightly awkward for people to just pop over’, says Grandage. Factor in the community’s hard work, and a culture of music is born. Loyal audiences are created. Youth and amateur orchestras, such as the Albany Chamber Orchestra and Albany Sinfonia, are formed. Eisteddfods and festivals are rendered feasible. Music shops, such as the Classical Music Shop run by Parish, are financially viable.

Industrial zone surrounding the open Super Pit gold mine in Kalgoorlie

KALGOORLIE PHOTO GETTY IMAAGES. COOK PHOTO NIK BABIC. MOORE PHOTO EDIFY

‘YOU’RE OUT IN THE DESERT, AND YOU HAVE THESE PEOPLE RESPONDING SO POSITIVELY’

Music-related initiatives become likely recipients for government grants, creating infrastructure such as the Albany Entertainment Centre. And for ensembles wishing to extend their regional outreach, a town offering a 618-seat purposebuilt concert hall is a no-brainer. Albany has consequently welcomed educational initiatives by the Australian Chamber Orchestra, WASO and the Brodsky Quartet, to name a few.

But while Albany is the musical poster child of regional WA, other areas have not been so lucky. The discontinuation of many ground-breaking initiatives left little to no string education in once musically active towns. Back in 1994, Tuckey, along with then AUSTA WA president Karin Griffin, filed a submission on behalf of AUSTA to the Federal Senate Inquiry into arts education to argue for more regional string education. In the intervening 28 years she has worked tirelessly to improve the matter through her work with AUSTA, but explains that in the larger scheme of things, regional string education has significantly regressed in the past decades. Why? ‘Two words,’ she says, ‘Richard Gill.’

Richard Gill (1941–2018), was a famed Australian music educator, who in the mid-1980s moved to Perth to become dean of the now-defunct Western Australian Conservatorium of Music. It was not Gill’s presence that saw the demise of regional music education, but his departure. During his time, he created community-level Conservatorium outposts in the regional towns of Kalgoorlie and Port Hedland. British bassoonist and conductor Peter Moore and his Scottish wife, clarinettist Lorna Cook, who moved to Perth in 1985, ran the Kalgoorlie outpost.

Lorna Cook

Peter Moore

Kalgoorlie, in Wangkatja country, 375 miles east of Perth, is a town of 30,000. It is home to the enormous Super Pit open gold mine and sports an anachronistic English colonial architectural style – the consequence of the late 19th-century gold rush. The programme, which Moore and Cook ran from 1985 to 1986 (and which continued for a short while after that), offered students at what was then the Kalgoorlie Technical College free instrumental lessons and a music appreciation class. Instruments, which could be rented cheaply, were flown in from Perth. ‘It was wonderful,’ says Cook, who taught the clarinet, double bass and saxophone. ‘You’re out in the desert, and you have these people responding so positively. We had an initial enrolment of 93!’ Moore, who taught the bassoon, oboe, violin and viola, says, ‘You’ve got to get the locals on your side. They respected me and I certainly respected them.’ The pair recall the community chatting about upcoming concerts over coffee, powering a then-virtuous cycle. But the programme was the first of many to be cut owing to bureaucratic problems back in Perth, which ultimately led to Gill’s departure in 1990.

WASO was, and still is, an active supporter of regional educational initiatives, albeit in a more limited capacity these days. UK musician and current Perth-based IMSS violin teacher Neil Barclay led its Education Chamber Orchestra (EChO) from 1998 till 2004. It consists of 15 WASO players who tour the state to perform for children in regional areas, allowing them to try out the instruments post-concert. ‘It was a revelation for many,’ says Barclay. ‘They thought music only came out of speakers! Sometimes you become a little jaded in this industry, but experiences like these make it all worth it.’ The programme reaches sparsely populated areas, from the Kimberley and Pilbara regions to the Goldfields and Wheatbelt. At the same time, WASO also supported Tuckey’s string duo Two-Part Invention, which taught across the Kimberley region, often in majority Aboriginal areas. ‘Kids in these schools were starved of music and therefore very receptive,’ she says.

The WASO’s Education Chamber Orchestra performing in north west WA for schoolchildren, with Neil Barclay (fifth from left) and Helen Tuckey (eighth from left)

The full WASO currently undertakes tours in areas including Geraldton, Kalgoorlie, Albany and Esperance, although not as often as current assistant concertmaster Semra Lee-Smith would like. ‘I’d love to see more connections between WASO and rural communities, but touring is expensive and with WASO only being state-funded, little money is set aside.’ She also explains that the lack of regular follow-up after these tours does not allow for sustainable plans in regional areas.

Anna Cavallaro, AUSTA’s regional representative for Geraldton in Amangu country (260 miles north of Perth with a population of 33,000), is a more recent example of school string tuition. Cavallaro set up a string programme in a private school, offering free violin lessons to all pupils in years 5 and 6 (ages ten to twelve). It was well received by some, but because of limited musical activities in the community, the benefits of string teaching were not common knowledge: ‘We’re sending the wrong messages. For it to work, it’s got to happen on more than one level. We’ve got a great AUSTA programme, which really motivates the kids, but ultimately it has to come through government.’

Tuckey teaching violin to school children at the Holy Rosary School in the Kimberley town of Derby in 1995

Semra Lee-Smith

ECHO PHOTO COURTESY NEIL BARCLAY. TUCKEY PHOTO COURT ESY HELEN TUCKEY. LEE-SMITH PHOTO NIK BABIC

Government presence is the missing ingredient in all these examples. ‘The biggest reason for a lack of strings in regional areas is availability of teachers on the ground. And for string education to work, a culture must already exist,’ says Andrew Patrick. Examples such as Albany show that the greatest chance of such a culture existing is precisely through the initial presence of government-funded programmes. And so begins the cycle. ‘To get strings off the ground you need at least one person who’s really passionate,’ says Patrick. It is true that these individuals exist, and will always exist, from Gill to Tuckey, but in the end, they are just that: individuals. ‘Often regional string programmes are dependent on one superhero person. When they go, what is the plan?’ says Tuckey. Without substantial financial and institutional support, especially from government organisations, sustainability is quite simply off the cards.

So, what does it take to create a sustainable musical community from the ground up? This is something most city folk never have to consider. First, you need dedicated people who can convince the community of music’s benefits. The population must feel valued, whether that’s through government attention or through having teachers on the ground, not simply flown in from the big city. Often, the ‘superheroes’ are remarkably versatile, playing several instruments. The presence of various genres can also be a pathway to the often-inaccessible world of string playing. Albany, for example, has fiddling groups and offers non-classical categories in their eisteddfod. ‘You must set it up so it’s easy – with things like provision of free or rentable instruments,’ Moore says. This was and is the case with Parish’s shop and IMSS. And programmes need to make financial sense: ‘When you’re setting up a school programme with government money, you have to be really sure it’s going to work. Jobs won’t immediately be full-time, so teachers would have to supplement their income,’ Patrick explains.

But there will always be obstacles when it comes to teaching in any regional area, especially WA. Distances are enormous. Transient populations will never lead to towns becoming cities. And by virtue of towns existing purely for their natural resources, they will continue to exist. Regional populations aren’t going anywhere, so we need to go to them. If it can be shown that string education is worthwhile in regional WA, there is no excuse for a lack of string tuition in any regional area of the world. ‘Someone is just going to have to accept there’s a cost attached to it. You need that pioneering approach you had in the gold rush,’ says Moore.

Strings, specifically, are a double-edged sword, especially in regional areas. They are some of the most difficult instruments to learn and require patience. And, especially in country towns, they hold an elitist stigma. But their tactile nature, Barclay explains, makes them an indispensable educational tool. ‘You can feel the strings, the bow, the vibrations, and how they affect the sound.’ Grandage adds, ‘The beauty of strings is that you can start them really young when they’re all sparkly-eyed.’

For Tuckey, ‘Saying it’s not worth teaching strings is like saying, “Art should be taught but you can’t use the colour purple.” You’re simply limiting choices.’ Grandage points out that, ‘Learning an instrument is important for a country kid for the same reasons it’s important for a city kid. It demands resilience, problem-solving and teamwork. Why should country kids be denied that?’ Tuckey and Lex Randolph – aviolinist currently establishing a string programme in Wyndham, a Kimberley town of 940 people – also point out sociological arguments. ‘In country towns with social problems leading to high incarceration rates, music is something to focus on. It gives kids pathways,’ says Tuckey. Randolph adds, ‘There is research proving the benefit of music education in areas such as mental health, which is incredibly relevant in remote Aboriginal communities.’ Cavallaro says, ‘These kids live through droughts, floods, bushfires – you name it. They bring a unique element of regional life to the industry.’ But it is Cook who puts it most simply: ‘The short answer is: “Why not?”’

AUSTA regional representatives (left-right): Helen Grandage, Anna Cavallaro and David van der Tang (since replaced) for Albany, Geraldton and the South West respectively

Lex Randolph (fourth from right) performing at the Waringarri Arts Centre in Kununurra

KUNUNURRA PHOTO SARAH DUGUID. AUSTA REPRESENTATIVES PHOTO COURTESY HELEN TUCKEY

‘YOU NEED THAT PIONEERING APPROACH YOU HAD IN THE GOLD RUSH’

‘I remain optimistic about regional string teaching,’ says Randolph. ‘With the increase of online performance, distance learning can supplement in-person programmes. Ideally, I’ll get support from IMSS, AUSTA and others who are invested in its success.’ Ceaseless in her dedication to the cause, Tuckey hopes to set up more regional representatives. ‘Western Australia is a place of massive opportunity,’ she says, ‘and I’ll continue agitating until my dying days and encourage others to do so!’

Regional string education’s past proves that it is a fragile task, demanding continual assessment. With the involvement of such small populations, if one piece of the puzzle is lost, whether that be government intervention or one energetic superhero, the likelihood is that the musical activity will cease. But these stories also reveal an endless pit of potential. ‘Something you appreciate in remote locations is how much people value what you have to offer. There will always be demand there,’ says Barclay. When, without fail, every example of regional string education, past or present, indicates widespread appreciation, it is difficult to justify non-action.

When we discover mineral riches below us, we instantly build sustainable systems to nurture, extract and export their potential most efficiently. Why should musical potential be any different?

With thanks to Helen Tuckey, Semra Lee-Smith and Meg Holch