A few interesting things have occurred in the last week, more so to do with the last 3-4 days. There has been the good, and the unfortunate (not the bad or the ugly).
The Unfortunate
It was the front headline for the Coffs Coast Advocate on Wednesday. Blues Fest’s Funds Cut read the headline as the round of funding from Arts NSW had the Bellingen Jazz and Blues Festival miss out on making the list. Not only is this a huge blow to the festival, which is a nationally recognized arts event with people travelling from all parts of Australia to attend, but a huge gap left in terms of the arts for the mid-north coast. Armidale, Tamworth and Dubbo received funding out west, the Hunter and Newcastle region to the south and Lismore to the north are our closest neighbours to receive funding. Sufficient funding obviously went to the metropolitan areas of NSW, and even further south to the Riverina and surrounding regions. Basically all the areas of NSW received funding except for the mid-north coast, extending from about Taree up to Woolgoolga and possibly a little further north. It’s quite a gaping hole when no one received funding in all areas of the arts. Then again we don’t know how many people/organisations applied for the grants. All I can say is that I sincerely hope there is some way the Bellingen Jazz and Blues Festival will be able to function this year to celebrate their 20th birthday, otherwise it would be a tragedy for the town to not be able to hold this defining music event.
The Good
On the other hand, if you turned to page three of the Coffs Coast Advocate on Wednesday you would’ve noticed an article on the sheet music sale at Reuben Fox’s piano store (including a picture of Reuben playing the piano with myself and one of his sons looking on). This was a terrific way to start the year not only for the store but for clientele and members of the music community to meet, catch up, and have a bit of an inside peek at the piano industry. I’ve been working for Reuben for over 15 months and I am really enjoying the work repairing, shifting and, in more recent times, tuning pianos. Getting back to the sale, I assisted Reuben with sheet music and piano sale on Friday while Reuben would carry out Saturday with his family. There was, and still is, quite a collection of music available from old leather-bound heirlooms to old publications, choir handbook collections, children’s music, and even the instructional keyboard books for the older electronic instruments. It was always going to be an impossible task to get rid of all of the music, but a good portion has been sold at negotiable prices. There is still plenty of music left, meaning the negotiable sales will continue for some time. Not to forget that the money is going to a good cause as well; supporting children in a refugee school in Conakry in the Republic of Guinea.
While the sale of the old sheet music is going on, there is also a sale on pianos and keyboards with some clients already picking out some of the instruments to take home. Customers of all ages, from children to the elderly, took the chance to come to the back of the store to see the work that we put into restoring and tuning pianos. We even struck up conversations on different styles of music and how they are involved with ensembles located in the area. The general feeling was felt that there is so much more we can do in the area to improve and lift the status of music.
With the first term of 2009 looming so near, I cannot wait for the teaching to begin. Programming and preparation is falling into place, especially assembling clarinet choir repertoire for the Clarence Valley Conservatorium. A busier year will be ahead of me for teaching, and hopefully it will be even busier if I can find more students in Coffs. In the meantime it’s back to preparing resources and fixing pianos. All the best!
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