The Elder Conservatorium of Music, also known as "The Con", is Australia's senior academy of music and is located in the centre of Adelaide, the capital of South Australia. It is named in honour of its benefactor, Sir Thomas Elder. Dating in its earliest form from 1883, it has a distinguished history in the intensive professional training for musical performance, musical composition, research in all fields of music, and comprehensive music education. The Elder Conservatorium of Music and its forerunners have been integral parts of the University of Adelaide since the early 1880s.
History[]
The Elder Conservatorium of Music was formally constituted in 1898 as the result of a major philanthropic bequest from the will of the Scottish-Australian pastoralist, Sir Thomas Elder, whose statue stands outside Elder Hall. The history, however, goes back further than 1898. An earlier philanthropic donation from Sir Thomas Elder had helped to establish the Elder Professorship of Music in 1883, with the first incumbent taking up the post in 1884. At the same time, Sir Thomas Elder had established endowment funds in parallel for the Royal College of Music in London and the Music Board of the University of Adelaide to support the Elder Overseas Scholarship (in Music). 1883 was also the year in which the privately owned and run Adelaide College of Music was jointly established, by the young Cecil Sharp (later to become famous as collector of folk songs) and the Leipzig-trained pianist, Gottfried Immanuel Reimann. For the first few years the new school of music at the University of Adelaide (which focussed on composition and theory) and the Adelaide College of Music (which focussed on practical training in performance) complemented each other. In 1898 the two schools were merged.
In its current form, then, the Elder Conservatorium of Music is a product of three mergers: one in the late nineteenth century (1898) with the Adelaide College of Music; one in the late twentieth century (1991), with the School of Performing Arts of the then South Australian College of Advanced Education; and one at the beginning of the twenty-first century (2001), with the School of Music of the Adelaide Institute of TAFE (aka Flinders Street School of Music). Formerly a Faculty of the University (the Faculty of Music) it is now constituted as a professional School within the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. Since 2002 it has been an associate member of the Association of European Conservatoires (AEC), and is also a partner school of the Helpmann Academy, an umbrella body created by the State Government of South Australia to promote collaboration between various schools of visual and performing arts.
There have so far been only seven incumbents of the Elder Professorship of Music, all of whom have also served as Director and/or Dean of the Elder Conservatorium of Music and have provided the artistic and academic leadership for the institution: Professor Joshua Ives (1884–1901); Professor Matthew Ennis (1902–1918); Professor Dr. E. Harold Davies (1918–1948); pianist and arts administrator, Professor John Bishop, OBE (1946–1966); the tenor, Professor David Galliver, AM (1966–1983); German conductor, Professor Heribert Esser (1986–1993); and composer, Professor Dr. Charles Bodman Rae (since 2001). Since the late 1970s the administrative position of Director of the Conservatorium has from time to time been occupied by a Staff member other than the Elder Professor of Music. In this category can be included: the clarinettist, David Shepherd; the pianist, Clemens Leske; the horn player, Patrick Brislan; and the pianist, David Lockett. Since 2010 the Director has been the noted choral conductor, Carl Crossin, OAM.
In 1886, Professor Ives established the first Australian public music examinations system, modelled on that of the Guildhall School of Music in London. This directly led to the establishment of the Australian Music Examinations Board (AMEB). In 1898, through the Elder Conservatorium, the University of Adelaide was the first in Australia to establish regulations for the degree of Doctor of Music (DMus), and in 1902, Edward Harold Davies was awarded the first Australian doctorate of music. In 1918 the University became the first in Australia to award a doctorate in Music to a woman, Ruby Davy. In addition to Davies and Davy, recipients of the DMus award have included: Tristram Cary, OAM; Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, CBE; Graeme Koehne; Bodman Rae; David Lockett, AM; and Ross Edwards, AM.
In addition to the Elder Professors, many distinguished composers and performing musicians have been members of staff, including: Sir Peter Maxwell Davies (composition fellow); Prof. David Cubbin (flute); Clive Carey (singing); Jiří Tancibudek (oboe); Gabor Reeves (clarinet); Beryl Kimber (violin); Clemens Leske (piano); James Whitehead (cello); Lance Dossor (piano); Richard Meale (composition); Tristram Cary (electronic music); Janis Laurs, (cello); Stephen Whittington (composition); Keith Crellin, OAM (violist, resident conductor and head of strings). In the 1990s Prof. Andrew McCredie held a personal chair in musicology. The Australian String Quartet was established in 1985 and since 1991 has been quartet-in-residence at the Elder Conservatorium. In 2011 a new contemporary music ensemble, the Soundstream Collective, was established as ensemble-in-residence.
The Bishop years are generally considered to have been some of the most exciting and progressive in the history of the Elder Conservatorium, with initiatives such as the appointment of the University of Adelaide Wind Quintet, and the establishment of the Adelaide Festival of Arts (of which Bishop was the inaugural Artistic Director). The years since the appointment of Bodman Rae in 2001 have also witnessed transformational changes that have re-established the position of the Elder Conservatorium as one of Australia's leading music academies. In 2005 the Elder Conservatorium received a Classical Music Award (from the Australasian Performing Rights Association) for "outstanding contribution by an organisation" (the only Australian music academy to have won such an award), in recognition of its music program for the 2004 Adelaide Festival of Arts (curated by Bodman Rae). In 2007, 2009 and 2011 the Elder Conservatorium hosted the National Music Camp (Australian Youth Orchestra's annual summer school, founded by Bishop).
In 2009 the Australian federal government, through the Australian Research Council, carried out a trial for the first comprehensive assessment of research in all Australian universities. The submission from the Elder Conservatorium of Music was assessed, along with the musical research of all other Australian music academies, tertiary music schools, and music departments, in the category of 'Creative Arts and Writing' (category 19) and was awarded the highest possible rating (grade 5), signifying that it "...well exceeded world standards..." for its research. Since then it has been the only Australian music institution to achieve the top research rating in each of the subsequent research assessment exercises: ERA 2010, and ERA 2012. It is thus the only Australian music academy to have received this accolade of the highest possible rating for its research in all three research assessments. Its principal research strengths lie in the fields of Composition and Performance (specifically, the performance of new, innovative music works).
Academic Programs[]
The Elder Conservatorium of Music has been awarding degrees and diplomas in music - equally, to both men and women - since the end of the nineteenth century. It is sometimes erroneously said that the early degree programs were modelled on those at the University of Cambridge. It is true that Professor Ives had graduated (albeit as an external candidate) with the MusB degree from Cambridge, and the academic robes are based on those from Cambridge, but the degree programs of the University of Adelaide were - and to a large extent still are - based on the Scottish rather than English model. This reflects the fact that most of the founding fathers of the university were Scots. Furthermore, the Cambridge MusB degree was taken as a second, postgraduate degree, whereas the Elder Conservatorium's BMus degree is a first degree award. The differences are most striking when viewed from the perspective of educational opportunities for women. Whereas women were not able to graduate from the University of Cambridge until shortly after the Second World War, they were graduating from the Elder Conservatorium of Music (and the University of Adelaide as a whole) fifty years earlier.
The Elder Conservatorium offers a single academic undergraduate degree, a Bachelor of Music, with eight areas of specialisation including Classical performance, Jazz performance, Composition, Musicology and Ethnomusicology, Music Education, Music Technology and Popular Music. A one year Honours program is offered for all specialisations. Postgraduate awards include: the graduate diplomas; Master's degrees in Composition, Performance, Music Technology, Musicology, Ethnomusicology and Instrumental Pedagogy; the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), available in Performance, Composition and Musicology; and the higher Doctorate of Music (DMus). A large number of adjunct staff includes most of the principals of the highly regarded Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.
Since 2002 the Elder Conservatorium has been unique among Conservatoria in Australia in being a dual-sector institution also offering pre-degree specialist programs in Music, including Certificates in Classical performance, Jazz performance, Music Technology, and Composition, and Diplomas in Sound Engineering.
The Elder Conservatorium provides a comprehensive range of higher degrees by research. In 2004 it introduced to Australia the concept of the PhD degree by examination of a portfolio of recorded performances, a concept since emulated by other institutions. Hence it is able to offer the PhD degree by several modes of investigation and examination: Musical Composition (by portfolio of original creative works); Musical Performance (by portfolio of recorded performances); Musicology and Music Education (by conventional, text-based thesis). An application for the higher Doctorate of Music (DMus) can be considered in the fields of Musical Composition, Musical Performance, or Musicology, or in any combination of these three disciplines. Since 2004 the Elder Conservatorium has had the largest concentration of music research students in Australia.
Facilities[]
Elder Music Library[]
The Elder Music Library is the largest music library in the Southern Hemisphere, containing just under 30,000 books, over 5400 journal volumes, over 120,000 music scores and around 22,000 sound recordings.
Elder Hall[]
Elder Hall is one of Australia's finest and most historic concert halls. Building commenced in 1898 and it was officially opened in 1900 by the then Governor of South Australia, Lord Tennyson. Its spacious interior features a magnificent hammer-beam roof modelled on the Middle Temple in London, and a three-manual organ built by Casavant Frères of Canada. Elder Hall is the primary focus of the Conservatorium's successful annual concert series. Conservatorium concerts are also given in several other locations, including the Adelaide Town Hall, and St Peter's (Anglican) Cathedral in North Adelaide.
Electronic Music Unit[]
The Electronic Music Unit was founded in 1962 as a result of the engagement of Dr. Henk Badings as composer in residence at the Elder Conservatorium. Its facilities include recording studios, a computer suite and an historic collection of analogue synthesizers dating back to the 1960s. It is also used as a public venue for concerts of contemporary and experimental music. It was the first such studio in Australia. Many distinguished composers have been associated with it, including Henk Badings, Peter Tahourdin, and the designer of the legendary VCS3 synthesizer, Tristram Cary. The Electronic Music Unit offers a Bachelor of Music degree in Sonic Arts, and postgraduate studies.
Performing ensembles[]
The Elder Conservatorium maintains a large number of ensembles including: the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra (conducted by Keith Crellin OAM); the Elder Conservatorium Chamber Orchestra; the Elder Conservatorium Wind Orchestra (conducted by Robert Hower); the Elder Conservatorium Chorale (conducted by Carl Crossin OAM); the Elder Conservatorium Jazz Orchestra (directed by Dustan Cox); and the jazz choir ‘Adelaide Connection’. There are also other choirs, big bands, numerous small jazz ensembles, and chamber music groups. The Conservatorium usually presents one major opera production each year. Recent productions have included: Monteverdi's Orfeo (2002), The Marriage of Figaro (2003), The Magic Flute (2005), and Dido and Aeneas (2008).