Melbourne gets Australian first Music Symposium

In an Australian first, Melbourne will get its first Music Symposium On November 12 with Music Canada’s Amy Terrill, University of Liverpool Chair of Architecture Professor Robert Kronenburg and musician, manager and producer James Black announced as speakers.

City of Melbourne has told TMN the invited attendees are from all over Australia and across all music industry sectors, including live, media, creators and policy making associations.

Titled We Can Get Together, the Inaugural Melbourne Music Symposium at Melbourne Town Hall will act as a warm-up to Melbourne Music Week. It came out of the City of Melbourne Music Strategy 2014-17, which aims to brand Melbourne as a music capital with a global profile.

As the first ever national event to explore the concept of what makes a music city successful, the symposium will see attendees discuss: availability and viability of venues and spaces, the role of festivals and events, education and employment, synergies and co-operation between industry and government, research and demographic analysis and resolving tensions between amenity and development and music performance.

“We are a city that lives and breathes music, but our city is also growing at a rapid pace,” said Councillor Rohan Leppert in a statement. “Our role as a capital city council is to work with the music industry to ensure that as the city grows, so too does our live music sector.”

Amy Terrill, Music Canada’s VP of Public Affairs, is the lead author of the June published report The Mastering of a Music City, Key Elements, Effective Strategies and Why it’s Worth Pursuing.

Professor Robert Kronenburg wrote the books Live Architecture: Venues, Stages and Arenas for Popular Music and Flexible: Architecture that Responds to Change. He will discuss the findings in both tomes as well as his current project, The History of Popular Music Architecture.

James Black is a former band member with Russell Morris, Men at Work and The Black Sorrows, and a founding member of Mondo Rock and Ganggajang. Black has also been the musical director, band leader and music producer for the SBS TV show, Rockwiz for the last decade.

Melbourne Music Symposium
Thursday 12 November 2015
9.00am – 6.00pm

Melbourne Town Hall

For more information contact: musicsymposium@melbourne.vic.gov.au