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 International Year of Youth – Dialogue and Mutual Understanding.

August 12, 2010 – August 11, 2011

To celebrate the International Year of Youth and AYMC’s first birthday we’re holding a Youth Music Conference on 25 September, 2010. We want to look at the issues facing young musicians, hear from a range of speakers from different backgrounds, and discuss the way forward for the AYMC and youth music in Australia.

Indent, a project of Music NSW, has been providing all-ages events and opportunities for young musicians for 10 years. Indent dates back to the 1996 Drug Summit where one of the many outcomes was the development of a Youth Entertainment Pilot (YEP) project to promote developments in government policy relating to the staging of under 18’s and all ages events and drug and alcohol free entertainment. Read more about Indent’s background.

This excellent program is now 10 years old so in celebration of ten years of live all-ages drug and alcohol free events MusicNSW has just announced the Indent Ten Year Tour, supported by NRMA Motoring & Services. The Indent Ten Year Tour kicks off in Newcastle on September 24, before winding its way across NSW delivering the best in live music to Cessnock, Sydney, Tamworth, Byron Bay, Tuncurry, Bathurst, Wagga, Bega and Batemans Bay.

Music. Count Us In, for those that don’t know, is a massive school music campaign in Australia, which culminates in almost half a million school students sing the same song at the same time on the same day! It’s happening again in 2010, and the big day is September 2nd.

This year the song was written by young people from different schools, and recorded entirely by students.

Lead vocalist on the John Foreman-produced track, Come Play Your Part, is 15 year old Bobby Andonov, from Williamstown High School in Melbourne. Bobby has been singing and dancing since the age of 6. He’s a student of renowned vocal coach, Susie Ahern (Kylie Minogue, Guy Sebastian and Anthony Callea) and he’s through to the finals of the latest series of ‘Australia’s Got Talent’ on channel 7. Listen and register your school.

As well as the program song, Come Play Your Part, there are two extra songs this year.  Find out more about the songs and the students who wrote and recorded them or watch the “making of” doco on this year’s Music. Count Us In songs:

12 August 2010: International Youth Day (Theme: Dialogue and Mutual Understanding)
The UN General Assembly on 17 December 1999, in its resolution 54/120, endorsed the recommendation made by the World Conference of Ministers Responsible for Youth (Lisbon, 8-12 August 1998) that 12 August be declared International Youth Day.

Eastside Fm in Sydney have an interesting initiative to get more young people in the driver’s seat as presenters and producers of jazz radio programs. It is led by a group of volunteer broadcasters from the station that have seen a need for more young people to engage with the music and the medium of radio.  They are looking for high school students and young adults with an interest in this music to become involved.

This is specific to the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney, but it might inform people wanting to do similar things (for any genre of music) around the country, particular in community radio.