I am a latecomer to formal music education; like many rock musicians, I had no qualifications at all and when I began to work in theatre in my early thirties, the pressure and variety of work meant that whilst I could never take time away to study, I felt I was getting a serious education with every new project, as it put new demands on my skills and areas of knowledge.
With my family I moved to Sydney in 2013 – I had just turned 60 – and I got a part-time job teaching music at the Australian Institute of Music. All very good until the day the college asked me, in passing, exactly what qualifications I had…. Tutors had to be qualified to a level above the grade they were teaching and I was teaching degree students….Hmmm
The college recognized that over thirty years of professional composing was a reasonable amount of experience, equivalent to a degree. They proposed that if I studied for a Graduate Diploma (which is a sort of Honors Degree level) I could continue teaching there. So, for the first time in forty years, I began to study and I found I really enjoyed it (helped by a student card, which got me cheap tickets for jazz clubs and cinemas). So when I got the Diploma I decided to continue towards an MMus.
My MMus thesis was a comparison between two 20th century requiems, one by Maurice Duruflé, the other by György Ligeti. Now, despite being a card-carrying atheist, I became fascinated by requiems – doubtless a result of ageing and its concomitant mortality salience – and wanted to explore further the idea of musical funeral rites, but this time in a non-religious context.
As a result I am researching for a PhD at Western Sydney University.
I began my studies back in June 2019, initially as a full-time student, but more recently, with the pressures of work, I’ve shifted to part-time. This means that I have until 2027 to complete. The Thesis is titled:
Passing Notes: Using Ritual Theory and Dramaturgy to Understand and Develop the Narrative of the Requiem as a 21st Century, Non-Religious, Musical Funeral Rite.
