Article
A strange philosophical paradox
Richard Tognetti
In the light of the events that bring us all here tonight, I would like to propose a scenario known as a strange philosophical paradox. A ship is in Port Phillip Bay made of wooden boards and as each board becomes old it is removed and stored in a warehouse. Later, when all the boards have been replaced with new ones, a different ship is built with the old boards ostensibly identical to the new one. So now there are two ships in the bay. The question is asked, which one is the real ship?
So it is with Australian National Academy of Music. As you are aware, the Government had announced that they wished to close this wonderful Academy in its present incarnation with a desire to replace it with another institution entitled AIMP. The people of Australia came forward – not just the so-called elites but people from small towns and big, politicians from the Greens, Liberals and Labor, Alan Jones to Janet Holmes à Court, Paul Kelly to Barry Humphries – and they were galvanised to plead with the Prime Minister to reverse this decision.
The Government couldn’t get it right, so they deflected, dissembled and strategised and now they have announced today that ANAM will close but the name will be appropriated in the guise of another organization. Will the real ANAM please stand up?
[At this point the ANAM Orchestra walked on stage to rapturous applause.]
I personally don’t come out lightly to endorse or support something, and I sure as hell don’t stand lightly here tonight.
The proposal promises a “better alternative” to what Brett Dean and his faculty and students “produce”. The flow on effect of Brett Dean’s work is profound and broad-reaching. Consider again the names on the open letter to the Government. Consider the groundswell of opinion on the online petition. Consider all the musicians in all the orchestras throughout the country and beyond: MSO, WASO, TSO, QSO, ASO, SSO, Orchestra Victoria, the AOBO, Australian Chamber Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Berlin and Vienna Philharmonics, and on it goes. These are the opinions that count. So what of the better “alternative”? An alternative proposal will always threaten the essence that the real ANAM has created. ANAM was gestated 14 years ago and has variously stumbled, grown and now bloomed. In the words of John Painter, the visionary who conceived ANAM; “the place is finally producing in the way originally intended.” It is this essence that I, and every musician I know and respect, endorse. The Government’s new so-called “better alternative” is a mirage mired in mirrors and smoke screens.
There is no greater endorsement of an institution’s reputation than to appropriate its name and therefore reputation. In the strongest possible terms, the question must be asked who serves to gain from the ring barking of this, the original authentic ANAM, and the construction of the mirage ANAM announced in desperation today? It seems it’s safe to say that the student body would be last on the list. When faced with an actuality as stunningly effective as the real ANAM, anyone parading the notion of a “better alternative” runs the risk of being revealed as a false prophet.
I wonder what Beethoven would say about this?
Richard Tognetti
28 November 2008