We're Back!

Mitchell Conservatorium is open for music lessons again. We are looking forward to lots of wonderful music-making this year by our students, staff and guest artists.

Georg Mertens, featured in the Youtube clip above, is one of our guitar and cello teachers. His performances which you will find on his Youtube channel are always of a high quality, and always feature interesting notes about the music and even the instruments used to play them.

If you are interested in playing classical guitar, you will love the new Australian Guitarist website, which features information about Australian guitarists and luthiers [pronounced LOO tea uhs, and meaning guitar-makers. But why say guitar-maker when you can say LOO tea uh!]

I'm fairly sure that you will find information about guitarists you already know about, but also plenty of new information to strum your strings, too!

Oh look! They even feature Danny McKay from Melbourne.

But if you want to continue or begin your own musical journey on guitar, or almost any instrument, please come in to Mitchell Conservatorium, in the West Wing of Bathurst Court House in Russell Street, Monday to Friday, from 10 AM to 5 PM. Or you can ring our friendly staff on 02 6331 6622.

Who Am I?

Guten Tag. Today is my birthday. Do you know who I am? I was born on 27th January, 1756 in Salzburg, Austria. I died in December, 1791, just a few weeks before my 36th birthday.

In my short life I wrote over 600 pieces of music. My father put some of the first pieces I wrote into a book for my sister, which is called Nannerl's Music Book. You can find a copy of these first pieces here, which is a special internet site from Germany, which contains copies of all of my music. You might like to download the pages and try them out. Some of them are easy, but some are harder than they look!

Here is a short extract from a film about me called Amadeus, which is my middle name. Do you like the laugh they gave me?

Win a Fan Pack

At Mitchell Con, we are always looking to improve. We want you to let us know what we are doing well, and to please help us to modify those things we could do better.

We need your help! Please download this survey and hand it in to the Bathurst Office from Wednesday 19 January, 2011 or post to PO Box 1387 Bathurst 2795 to go into the draw for a Fan Pack, which includes concert tickets, a book voucher and CDs.

She's looking good!

This young lady is all set to explore the wonderful world of Music in 2011. How about you? You can learn almost any instrument at Mitchell Conservatorium, as you can see if you head over to our revamped website.

What is your fancy?
Voice

Harp

Trumpet

Drums

Cello

Piano

Flute

Mitchell Conservatorium has qualified teachers for all of these instruments and about twenty others. Which one will you explore?

Please call in at Bathurst Court House, West Wing in Russell St, or ring 6331 6622 during office hours to begin or continue your musical journey.

How Musical Are You?

Are you game to have a crack at this BBC test? It's fun, though I found the very first question the hardest in the whole test. So don't let it put you off: it gets easier.

I think that you will find that you are more musical than you think. In reading my results, I scored better on the self-assessment questions ...

What Good is Music?

The University of Sydney's Robyn Ewing thinks that the arts should be embedded in all school subjects, to stimulate creativity and imagination. A paper published in January, 2011 by The Australian Council For Educational Research

highlights international research that shows students who are exposed to the arts:
1. achieve better academic results
2. are more engaged at school
3. are less likely to leave school early
4. have better self-esteem than students who do not have access to the arts.

The proposed national curriculum for the arts, to be published in 2012, mandates at least two hours a week of arts subjects such as dance, drama, media arts, music and visual arts from Kindergarten through to Year Eight.

But is two hours per week of one of the arts enough? 

Everyone benefits from exposure to the arts. Music lessons, performing in and attending concerts and learning to create your own music are just some of the opportunities which Mitchell Conservatorium provides to stimulate imagination and creativity in all of our students, from the tiny tots to our growing number of adult students.


If you would like the chance to engage with music for the first time, or to re-engage, please come into our office in the West Wing of Bathurst Court House in Russell St, or ring our friendly staff on 02 6331 6622.

An old friend

Does this piece of music stir you? Maybe it reminds you of where you were when you first heard it? Or it might bring back an old TV advertisement!

It made a wonderful opening to Stanley Kubrick's 1968 film 2001:a space odyssey

It is only the first few bars of a tone poem by Richard Strauss for an orchestra which included pipe organ, and a large number woodwind, brass and percussion players, as well as a string section with more players than usual.

If you would like to see an enthusiastic student group perform this work, you might enjoy the performance I've embedded below by the Macau Youth Symphony Orchestra.

The young man playing the tympani (the large drums you can see at the back of the orchestra) is really going to town!



If you kept watching and listening, you would have also enjoyed the orchestra's rendition of the theme from John Williams' Star Wars. Kubrick's 2001 film featured music that had been composed prior to his film being made. None of it was written for his iconic film.

But the music in Star Wars, and also about 300 other films, has been specially crafted by John Williams. He has been writing film music for about 50 years now and has made more money from film composing than any other composer. And, if you add up all of the money that all other film composers have made, he has also made more than all of that, too. I hope he knows some worthy charities to support!

If you enjoyed listening to this music, you might find attending concerts by the Macquarie Philharmonia and the Bathurst Chamber Orchestra even more enjoyable. You can't beat live orchestral music!

Please stay tuned for more great music links in 2011: both old friends and new ones.