Four orations delivered by noted musicians and luminaries will explore the state of classical music in Australia in the contemporary age as part of the ABC 2024 Boyer Lectures throughout November. The first in the series, this Thursday October 31st at the ABC Ultimo Studios, sees Professor Anna Goldsworthy (pictured) look at the connection between life and music.
Professor Goldsworthy is Director of the Elder Conservatorium of Music at the University of Adelaide who recently contributed to the ARIA Award winning Thirteen Ways to Look at Birds with Paul Kelly, James Ledger and Alice Keath. She said of her oration:
“Performing is an act of communion: with the composer, with your colleagues, but also – critically – with your audience, which almost wills the experience into being. It offers a mode of connection that can feel telepathic. It was the internet before the internet; it is a social media that feeds rather than depletes.”
The lecture will be broadcast on ABC TV and ABC iview on November 1 and later heard on ABC Radio National on November 2.
I too have been thinking about the modern impact of classical music since the second survey of Canberra this year saw ABC Classic fourth in the region, with the biggest growth in listeners. There are very few pockets of Australia that can’t listen freely access that station. As we measure podcast consumption I wonder just how many Australians listen to some classical music every week, on ABC Classic, or otherwise. Based on Canberra, more than you would think.
ABC Chair Kim Williams AM said:
“The Boyer Lectures started initially as The ABC Lectures in 1959. It is the major broadcast public lecture series presented in Australia, where leading Australian (and in some instances international) contributors are invited to express their thoughts on major social, cultural, scientific or political issues.
2024 will see the 65th anniversary of the ABC/Boyer Lectures and this year hosts four distinguished speakers presenting an anthology series addressing classical music in Australia today. This will be the first time music features as a Boyer Lecture subject.
The Boyer Lectures have long been a cornerstone of Radio National’s output and are one of the highlights in Radio National programming annually. To hear the series address music seriously will be, I have no doubt, a rare and special treat for many Australians.”
Composer, writer, and ABC broadcaster, Andrew Ford, the long term presenter of The Music Show on Radio National, will host the four speakers and link the series. After Professor Goldsworthy will be lectures on Radio National by Lyn Williams AM, founder and director of Gondwana Choirs, Australian composer and former Artistic Director of the Perth Festival, Iain Grandage, and violist, conductor and composer, Aaron Wyatt.
Picture of Professor Anna Goldsworthy by Alex Frayne