The digital era means there are less CDs being made, but for many people they still have their place. If you ARE going to print CDs, you can at least print them in eco-friendly CD packaging.

CDs are the second biggest source of pollution in the music industry.
Using card-base packaging instead of plastic cases reduces this pollution by 95%.

Wesley Mission today released a 10-point plan to build better mentoring support in our community after its latest research report revealed that three in four young people who have been formally mentored have been able to set realistic goals and realise an expanded and positive view of the future.

More than two thirds of young people believed they would benefit from a mentoring relationship over the next 12 months with work/career planning, education and practical matters like getting a driver’s licence.

Among the other findings in Give kids a chance are:

• Fifty three per cent of all young people have no real clarity about what they want to do in life and no clear plans for the next few years in terms of their career
• A third of young people are hungry for more adult guidance and support than they currently receive

• Between one-half and two thirds of those mentored report positive outcomes with educational attainment, quality of relationships, employment prospects, anti-social behaviour and reduced smoking/drinking/drug use

Click here to read more about the Give Kids a Chance report.

Even though listeners have become used to the thin sound of compressed music played through tiny computer speakers, they complain that it really becomes uncomfortable when they turn up the volume in order to hear more musical details. Loudness wars take place when we try to get attention. We speak louder and louder. Even if we do not understand the language being spoken, we pay more attention to louder voices, they seem more exciting. But with music, the excitement comes from variations in loudness, pitch, rhythm and timbre.

Background

For several years, the Federal Government has been planning to write a National Cultural Policy.  In early 2010 there was a submission process and we have excerpts of those submissions on this website.  In mid-2011 the Minister, Simon Crean, invited another round of submissions on the National Cultural Policy.  The discussion paper framed the questions and discussion in a different way but many of the issues have not changed since the previous round of written submissions.

Some submissions are online – click here to have a look.

The Music Council of Australia made a very substantial contribution with a detailed and wide ranging submission.  You can read all 104 glorious pages of it here. This is our submission, which is supplementary to the MCA’s.

Submission on the National Cultural Policy

Alongside the submission by the Music Council on a wide range of topics, the Australian  Youth Music Council presents the following discussion of four topics:

• Small Grants
• Youth Participation
• Career Development
• Management

The Floating Land Festival is taking off on the Sunshine Coast today until Sunday 5th June. Conceived in 2001 as an outdoor sculpture exhibition, Floating Land has made a name for itself as one of Australia’s leading Green Art events. Re-engaging the community with nature has sparked the imagination of writers, performance artists, musicians, photographers, academics and scientists. In 2011 Floating Land is celebrating its sixth year as a ten-day program of workshops and events, bringing people from across the Asia-Pacific together with communities on the Sunshine Coast.

What it’s all about…

Floating Land is an ongoing conversation about creativity, the environment and culture. The 2011 theme, Water Culture, continues this conversation and acknowledges that people of the Asia Pacific region face adverse consequences of climate change due to their close relationship with, and dependence upon, waterways.

The theme recognises that we are living in times when previously accepted models for development are being questioned. The idea that science and technology are tools for dominating our natural and cultural environments has given way to a broader outlook, encouraging decision-making based on innovative thinking and creative responses that incorporate social, cultural and heritage values. The present challenge also requires that our response be grounded in the relationships between people and communities, their knowledge, experiences, visions and values.

Water Culture will examine the impact of our lifestyle choices on our ability to sustain a healthy planet. It will promote the need for intergenerational equity, to ensure that our children and their children will inherit the same diversity in natural and cultural resources enjoyed by previous generations.

Visiting Asia Pacific artists join local and national artists, performers, new media artists, musicians, photographers, academics, scientists and cultural practitioners to create and deliver messages that explore shared concerns and issues surrounding climate change; in particular are the impacts of rising sea levels on coastal and island communities and the cultural and environmental impact of water as commodity.

Want to check it out?

The focal venue is Boreen Point at Lake Cootharaba in the UNESCO-listed biosphere of Noosa, with satellite locations at Coolum and Cooroy on the Sunshine Coast.

Check out the program at http://www.floatingland.com.au/program

Thursday, June 30 – Sunday, July 10, 2011 Ages 18 – 28 (with some flexibility)

Direct from the USA, Malcolm Dalglish and Australia’s own Mark O’Leary are assembling a small troupe of singers, composers and musicians to perform at the Festival of Voices in July. The adventure will start on remote Maria Island off the SE coast of Tasmania. You will workshop repertoire for six days amid the stunning natural beauty of coastal Tasmania, developing a program with composers Malcolm Dalglish, Moira Smiley, and Joshua Stephen Kartes. You will then travel to the beautiful harbor town of Hobart and be featured performers at the festival. Intrigued by this unique pairing of wild nature and urban charm? The intensity and intimacy of a small ensemble? And participation in Australia’s largest vocal festival?

Visit: http://www.festivalofvoices.com/ for further information.

Cost: $1400 AUD

Includes sheet music, learning mp3s, and Festival of Voices registration with accompanying benefits, Stomp, Holler and Sing workshop fees, food and lodging on Maria Island. Does not include travel to Tasmania or food while in Hobart at Festival of Voices.



The West Australian Symphony Orchestra’s Composition Project is part of their Young and Emerging Artists Program, and provides an opportunity for aspiring composers at a tertiary level in Western Australia to workshop with a professional composer and an ensemble of diverse musicians.

WASO are very pleased to welcome back James Ledger as the 2011 Director and Tutor, and the four talented students from local universities UWA and WAAPA who have been selected to participate in this year’s program and compose a piece for EChO.

Follow their journey throughout the project on the new blog, Blogposer, where the participants share their experiences of composing their work. http://blogposer.wordpress.com/

This week, the National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) officially announces the launch of ‘Artscareer’, a brand new, independent, non-commercial, online portal dedicated to the career development of artists and art educators. It encompasses a number of artistic disciplines – dance, drama, inter-arts, literature, media, music, visual arts. Artscareer is the one stop shop for everything needed to pursue and develop a career in the arts.

The MCA has relaunched the Resound, a program which links pledges and donations of musical instruments with musicians of all ages and ability who have lost instruments in natural disasters such as floods and bushfires.

Resound started in the wake of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires and delivered 250 musical instruments to grateful musicians who had been affected by bushfires. It will now work to provide instruments for victims of the recent floods.

For more information see www.resound.org.au.

The Australia Council has released another research paper, which “looks at ways in which the policy relationship between these often polarised sectors of arts and creative industries might be re-thought and approached more productively.”