Making our garden grow: Training pathways for Queensland's musicians

Abstract

Leonard Bernstein's Candide closes with the following lines: 'Let dreamers dream what worlds they please, those Edens can't be found, The sweetest flowers, the fairest tress are grown in solid ground. We're neither pure, nor wise, nor good, we'll do the best we know, We'll build our house and chop our wood and make our garden grow.' Cloaked in the composer's rich harmonies, the text, based on Voltaire's complex satire, addresses the broader question of what makes for sustainability and success, both in life and art. Appropriately, this short selection concluded the Queensland Conservatorium's 60th Anniversary Gala Concert in early 2017, thus providing a timely reminder of the need to constantly reinvest the necessary resources in our precious home-grown talent. In Queensland, as elsewhere, the performing arts have often suffered from a lack of suitable training pathways and culture infrastructure.