Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Stuart Greenbaum  

My involvement with the Australian Music Centre spans over 3 decades including becoming a represented composer in the early 1990s to sitting on the AMC board for 6 years in the new millennium. Across that time, the AMC's representation services and projects have allowed my career to flourish in ways that I could not have achieved by myself. I have made professional contact with many musicians and ensembles through AMC connections. Sometimes because they found and bought my scores through the AMC and at other time through the projects they have administered or curated (including the 2009 Trans-Tasman composer program with NZTrio). That program feels like the gift that keeps on giving as NZTrio will be back in Australia this month at Ukaria (Adelaide) and Tempo Rubato (Melbourne) again playing The Year Without a Summer - the work for piano trio commissioned by that AMC program.

Over the last decade or so, it has also been amazing to see the benefits of digitising the AMC score library for all of our Represented Artists. This is not just a convenience, it has become transformative at a time when the music publishing industry needed to reinvent itself. This week my oboe sonata is being played in London by musicians I don't know. They found the score and part at the AMC and either bought the hard copy or (more likely) bought the digital version in PDF which they can access instantly. The impact of this accessibility of music for composers is hard to overstate. But it is the result of a lot of hard work by the AMC's small but dedicated team making and keeping this library relevant and alive all around the musical world.

The AMC is a national treasure without whom my own career (and those of many others) would not have been what they are today and may be in the future. This is an organisation that has rigorously ensured that they look after all their constituents (composers, performers, students, teachers, scholars and audience) and would greatly benefit from all forms of support we can provide.

Sincerely,

Stu

Prof Stuart Greenbaum
Head of Composition
Melbourne Conservatorium of Music
The University of Melbourne

AMC Represented Artist