Melbourne Conservatorium of Music - Theses
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ItemHyper-visibility and under-representation: inclusivity, diversity, and the alternative music scene in Melbourne( 2020)This ethnographic study documents the lived experience of People of Colour (PoC) making alternative and punk music in Melbourne, Australia. Exploring local discourse on cultural diversity, inclusivity and racial difference, I offer previously undocumented Australian perspectives on race and popular music. The study traces issues of whiteness, anti-racism and punk in Australia down to three key components: subculture, genre and capital. Through formal, semi-structured interviews, the study asks how notions of cultural diversity impact alternative music scenes. I argue that PoC in these scenes experience race-based exclusion, both a result of the longstanding erasure of PoC from written histories of Western punk, combined with Australia’s specific position as a white multicultural, settler-colonial nation. In challenging the notion of punk as a white musical tradition, and recognising the specific conditions that foster racism in Australian music scenes, my informants and I discuss how anti-racist values may be meaningfully embodied in local music contexts.
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ItemThe life and musical contributions of Hermann Theodor Schrader (1860-1934)( 2017)This thesis examines the life and musical contributions of Hermann Theodor Schrader. Schrader was an active performer and teacher in Melbourne and Adelaide, receiving his main musical training in Leipzig, Germany.
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ItemSounds from the past: an audio artwork developed from memories of Sri Lankan emigrants in contemporary Melbourne( 2013)Sounds From The Past, an audio artwork developed from memories of Sri Lankan emigrants in contemporary Melbourne, explores the connection between a person’s past sound and music memories, and their experiences of sound and music in their displaced location. Place is a process, and it is human experience and struggle that give meaning to place. (Harner 2001, p. 660) Memory is an integral part of our character and individuality wherever we live. Sound memories provide a diverse path through which migrants can preserve knowledge and reconstruct past practices, usually for present purposes. Our communal roots build the social identity, with both geographical and psychological memory offering insights into the very core of our identity. This research focuses on the sound and music memories Sri Lankan emigrants bring from their mother country, and how second generation immigrants continue to respond to Sri Lankan sounds within the Australian sound and music environment. Ten members of five Sri Lankan families were engaged in recorded conversations regarding their memories of environmental sounds, music, and language, both from their motherland and from contemporary Melbourne. Their recorded interviews shed insight on the connection between their past and present sound and music memories, and shape the foundation for the Sounds From The Past audio artwork which is intended to provide understanding of, as well as enhance, the immigrant experience.
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ItemFritz Bennicke Hart: an introduction to his life and music( 1993)This thesis presents a broad study of the life, times and creative output of the English born Australian composer Fritz Bennicke Hart (1874-1949) concentrating on the formative period of Australian cultural history in which he lived and contributed. It examines and evaluates Hart's particular personal achievements, relationships with his contemporaries, and his work for various Melbourne and Hawaiian musical institutions. It argues that the creative output of Hart, particularly that associated with the Celtic revival, reveals much about contemporary perceptions of Australian identity and culture. The thesis includes an introductory contextual examination of Hart's music. A comprehensive cross-referenced catalogue of all known manuscript sources of Hart's music, including a detailed description of the manuscript sources of his operas, is included as an Appendix.
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ItemEdward Goll: Melbourne pianist and teacher: the war years 1914-1918( 2007)This thesis examines the foundational period and early contribution in the Australian career of the prominent concert pianist Edward Goll focussing on the years 1914--1918. The multifarious opposition that Goll faced during the war, mainly arising from contention regarding his nationality, forms the setting of this study which is then juxtaposed against a discussion of Goll’s contribution to music in Australia during that period. The educational value of Goll’s large and catholic repertoire, the benefits of listening to an artist of Goll’s high calibre and the impact and popularity of his concerts were recurrent themes in the press, and were qualities for which he was to be later acknowledged. These aspects of his contribution as a performer are followed by a discussion of Goll’s pedagogical contribution as one of the first pianists to introduce the concept of "weight-touch" to Australia.
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Item'In tune with the times': the history of performing pitch in Melbourne( 2011)On 6 March 1909, Nellie Melba (1861–1931) presented a set of French diapason normal (a1=435) woodwind and brass instruments, known as the ‘Melba Gift’, to the Marshall-Hall Orchestra in Melbourne. Although she would benefit from use of the instruments in her later Australian opera tours, Melba made the gift primarily to help establish the French diapason normal as the uniform standard of performing pitch in Melbourne. At the beginning of the twentieth century, orchestral playing in the city was marred by tuning problems, and Melba’s gift formed part of a wider movement to standardise pitch in Melbourne. Melba’s set of instruments draws attention to an aspect of music making in the city, the frequency at which musical instruments are tuned, that, although fundamental to musical practice, has not yet been the subject of scholarly investigation. The aim of this PhD thesis is to explore how issues of performing pitch have shaped musical life in Melbourne. Focussing on the pitch of local pipe organs, orchestras, military bands, and civilian brass bands, this thesis traces the various standards of pitch used in Melbourne from the mid nineteenth to late twentieth centuries. It examines local discussion on pitch, and shows how practice has been driven by practical needs, economic considerations, aesthetics, and cultural attitudes. The thesis highlights local concern to keep up to date with international practice.
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ItemChamber music audiences: access, participation and pleasure at Melbourne concerts( 2003)This thesis examines the social role of chamber music. It argues that in contemporary Australian society the chamber music audience is largely unobserved and under-theorised, and redresses this with a study of Melbourne concert audiences. An analysis of the chamber music 'scene(s)' in Melbourne finds that audience-ship is a socially constructed practice accessed through a particular habitus that facilitates participation and pleasure at concerts. In this way access and participation is acquired through social vehicles that exist outside the concert hall. The thesis also finds that chamber music is not simply one unified cultural form, but a diverse set of music genres and cross-fertilised forms with some striking differences in the audiences of ‘new music' concerts compared with other forms of chamber music. Through an analysis of survey data and self-narrated audience biographies the thesis demonstrates that, for those with the necessary habitus, chamber music constitutes an important source of cultural capital: it is a worthwhile object of desire, an indispensable and irreplaceable means of pleasure and happiness and plays a worthwhile role in the public and private lives of individuals. The habitus that facilitates an appreciation for chamber music is not available to everyone and in an era of confused egalitarianism this finding challenges the claim that access to the arts and high culture has been democratised. Particular cultural precursors arc necessary in order to derive access, participation and pleasure in high cultural events such as chamber music concerts. In this way access, participation and pleasure of chamber music remain off limits to most Australians.
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ItemChamber-music in Melbourne 1877-1901: a history of performance and dissemination( 2009)This thesis examines the history of the performance and dissemination of chamber music in Melbourne during the period 1877 to 1901. It explores the role and development of chamber music in concerts held by Melbourne’s leading musical societies and public subscription series, and various concerts featuring local and touring performers. Discussion is placed within an international context and the thesis asks whether local musicians were influenced by contemporary developments in Europe and if so, was the primary influence English or German? The bulk of the thesis explores the history of some of Melbourne’s musical societies and public concerts and focuses in particular on the repertoire that was performed, methods of program construction, the perceived ‘educational’ value of chamber music and performances within educational institutions. It demonstrates that performances of chamber music flourished during Melbourne’s economic boom of the 1880s, and that although performances declined during the following depression of the 1890s, standards of performance had improved, audiences were better educated and informed about chamber music, and Melbourne was relatively quick to introduce contemporary chamber repertoire. The first chamber works by local musicians and composers were also composed and performed in Melbourne during this period. The availability of competent musicians was a significant factor and played a role in determining the type of repertoire that was performed. With large numbers of competent pianists and string players, and very few wind players, present in Melbourne during this period, for example, the repertory tended to focus on works for piano and/or strings. The contribution of local and international performers, particularly English and German-born and/or trained instrumentalists, is also considered. English and German musicians not only had an impact on the shaping of the repertory, but also influenced the way that concerts were organized. These influences, however, often overlapped and were not always clearly defined.