ANU School of Music


The ANU School of Music is a school in the Research School of Humanities and the Arts, which forms part of the College of Arts and Social Sciences of the Australian National University. It consists of four buildings, including the main School of Music building – which contains Llewellyn Hall – and the Peter Karmel Building.
The School of Music's teaching encompasses performance tuition, alongside musicianship, musicology, sound recording, and ethnomusicology.

History

The School of Music was established under the name Canberra School of Music in 1965 with Ernest Llewellyn as the founding Director. The original plans for the School were prepared in the 1960s when the Department of the Interior recognized the need to establish centres for art and music study in the national capital, with the vision of providing high-level performance and practice. Sir Richard Kingsland, Secretary of the Department from 1963 to 1970, provided valuable support for Ernest Llewellyn's vision. The Canberra School of Music was established in 1965. It was first located in the Canberra suburb of Manuka and in 1976 moved to its current site on Childers Street between the Australian National University and the city centre, becoming the first purpose-built music school facility in Australia.
Llewellyn's vision for the school was based on the Juilliard School; he regarded Isaac Stern, with whom he had studied at Juilliard and who was his longtime friend, as the "father" of the school. He set the School up with a hand-picked staff and a focus on the training of soloists, chamber and orchestral musicians. As part of his grand plan he also envisaged the development of a national symphony orchestra based in Canberra. This has never been established, although Canberra has its own professional part-time orchestra, the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, based in Llewellyn Hall.
Responsibility for the Canberra School of Music passed from the Department of the Interior to the Minister for Education and Science, John Gorton. Control was transferred in 1974, and Sir Richard was the first Chairman of the Canberra School of Music. The Kingsland Room in the School of Music is named in his honour. The current School of Music building was opened in 1976. In 1987, the Canberra School of Music combined with the Canberra School of Art to create the Canberra Institute for the Arts. In 1992, it became part of the Australian National University. In 2001, the Peter Karmel Building was opened to house the Jazz and Percussion Areas, and the Centre for New Media Arts. An extension to the Music Library was completed at the same time. In 2004, the National Institute of the Arts was dissolved, with the Schools of Music and Art becoming part of what was then the ANU Faculty of the Arts.
In 2007–08 the future of the School of Music came under review by the Australian National University. In 2012 the School of Music was subject of heated public debate, as the University responded to an annual running loss of $3 million, with a reduction in the University's internal subsidy and overhaul of the School's curriculum and staffing arrangements. The Head of School at the time, Professor Walter resigned shortly after in June 2012 to take up the Headship of the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts. Professor , a graduate of the University of Cambridge and a prominent conductor and musicologist, was appointed to replace him and took up his post in August 2012 and resigned in August 2015.
Kenneth Lampl, Head of School from March 2017-2019, has described the commencement of his tenure as a 'new era' A graduate and a former staff member of the Juilliard School, Lampl has said he is creating a 21st-century music program "whose purpose is to nurture outstanding musical artistry through the intersection of performance, composition and technology". He believes it is also grounded in Llewellyn’s original Juilliard-modelled conservatory style of musical training, and the school is continuing to link traditional elite performance training in classical, jazz and contemporary practices with cutting edge technological advances in audio engineering, mixing, song writing and multimedia. The School of Music is home to one of Australia’s finest recording studios and also offers an exclusive program in composition for film and video games.

Staff

Past and present staff include:
The School of Music complex is situated on the south-eastern edge of the Australian National University campus, between the School of Art and University Avenue, bordered on the north-western face by Childers Street.
The complex itself consists of four buildings; two of which are demountables. The demountable buildings, which are joined, were installed in the 1990s and house some of the graduate facilities as well as some administration and technical capacity of the Music area and are colloquially known as "The Shed".
The two permanent buildings, the main School of Music Building and the Peter Karmel building are both built in contemporary architectural styles.

Building

The main School of Music building was designed for the National Capital Development Commission in 1970 by architects Daryl Jackson and Evan Walker. The architectural works of Jackson at this time can be seen to be in parallel with those of noted U.S. architect Paul Rudolph, most notably his 1960s interpretations of Le Corbusier's later works.
The following, taken from the Australian National University's Heritage Factsheet on the School of music, provides a physical description of the building and its architectural merits and heritage:
The building is heritage-listed by;
Refurbishments to the main School of Music building in 2008 after a storm caused serious damage to the roof have included the complete refurbishment of Llewellyn Hall.

Llewellyn Hall

The main School of Music building houses Llewellyn Hall, a 1,400-seat concert hall that not only hosts events of the School, but is also the venue for concerts by musical organisations of the city and the nation, smaller rehearsal spaces, teaching studios and offices.

Peter Karmel Building

An addition to the School of Music is the Peter Karmel Building, opened in 2001. The work of MGT Architects, this building is discretely separate – both in a site planning and architectural manner – to the original building.
The Peter Karmel Building was designed as a new freestanding addition to the Canberra School of Music to accommodate numerous practice and performance functions for the School, with specific accommodation of the Jazz and Percussion Departments and the Australian Centre for Arts and Technology. The two-storey building forms a new Entry Court to the School of Music complex and provides integrated connections between practice and performance spaces in both the original School and new addition. The façade design commission by artist Marie Hagerty was intended to be an opportunity for the artist to work with the large-scale architectural forms in their three-dimensional landscape setting to create a patterning, 'marking', and enlivening of the glazed and solid surfaces of the building's exterior.
The building, named after former ANU Vice-Chancellor Professor Peter Karmel, was designed and project managed by Guida Mosely Brown Architects in conjunction with commissioned artist Marie Hagerty. It currently houses the Centre for New Media Arts, the Jazz Department and the Percussion Department. It also contains the fourth most important performance space in the ANU campus, the Band Room.