By QiQi Lu, AYO Youth Council Co-Chair
How do we better fund music in Australia?
I arrived at the AYO Changemakers Summit with this question persistently circling my mind. I kept returning to the same answer: we need to change the way music is perceived. Music and art cannot be treated as an optional extra, reserved for certain people or occasions. It needs to be understood as part of everyday life for all Australians.
The harder question was: how do we create that change?
As AYO Youth Council Co-Chair and Summit MC, I had the privilege of listening to artists, advocates and cultural leaders approach this question from many directions. Across the panels and conversations, I noticed a common thread: Lasting change does not come only from convincing governments that professional music deserves investment, it also comes from creating a culture in which more people feel that music belongs to them.
Here is what I learnt.
Everyone is an artist
During our first panel, The Artist in Australia, we discussed what it means to be an artist. A unanimous agreement was reached: everyone is an artist.
Artistic expression is not confined to professional practice. People sing, tell stories, draw, dance, make, imagine and play throughout their lives, often without describing what they do as art. Being a professional artist is one way of pursuing creativity; it does not determine who is allowed to create or whose creativity has value.
As Chef Auguste Gusteau famously declares in the famous Pixar movie Ratatouille, “Anyone can cook”. Not everyone will become a professional chef, yet cooking is still something everyone can participate in, enjoy and share. Art works in the same way.
When we make space for people to recognise and exercise their own creativity, art becomes something they belong to and create rather than something they only observe.
This is more than a philosophical distinction. People are more likely to value and advocate for the things they feel connected to. When more Australians have meaningful opportunities to make music, they can better understand why music education, artists and cultural institutions matter. Participation creates belief, and belief can become advocacy.
Change does not always need to be loud
One of my biggest takeaways came from panellist, Queensland Conservatorium Deputy Director (Research) Professor Brydie-Leigh Bartleet, who spoke about “quiet advocacy”: work that identifies an obstacle and changes the conditions around it in a strategic and practical way.
Brydie shared the example of an initiative supporting women entering orchestral conducting. Rather than addressing inequality only through a public campaign, the initiative examined where the main barriers existed. It recognised that some of the people with the power to offer professional opportunities were also, intentionally or otherwise, gatekeepers to them.
The initiative invited those gatekeepers to mentor emerging women conductors. In becoming their mentors, they also became invested in the conductors’ development and success.
There was no enormous public splash, yet the intervention was still highly effective.
Advocacy can be a speech, a campaign or a protest. It can also be redesigning a process, sharing access, opening a door or transforming a gatekeeper into an ally. If we want to create change, we need to understand not only what the barrier is, but also who can move it and what might motivate them to do so.
Art grows when it is shared
Another idea from the Summit has stayed with me: the arts are among the most abundant resources we have. Creativity is not depleted when we share it. As Brydie-Leigh put it, “The more you create, the more generative it becomes.”
As musicians and art-makers, we have an extraordinary ability to give others the confidence and tools to create. We can go to where people already are, share what we know and help light the next flame.
The shortage of music teachers, for example, is cyclical. When young people do not have access to music education, fewer discover the place music could have in their lives. Fewer go on to become musicians, educators, audiences, and advocates. The cycle continues.
The solution can also be cyclical. A workshop, performance or first encounter with an instrument may seem small, yet its impact does not necessarily end when the event is over. It can alter what a young person imagines is possible. That person may create something of their own, encourage a friend, join an ensemble, become a teacher or one day advocate for their generation.
Small actions can ripple outwards, and with time and care, ripples can become waves.
Art gives us somewhere to practise being human
Art is inseparable from being human. People have made music, told stories, danced, painted and gathered to create in every part of the world for as long as we have records of human life.
The arts speak to us physically, emotionally, spiritually and communally. They create spaces in which we can listen, empathise, collaborate, and exist alongside one another. They give us somewhere to practice being human together.
This feels especially important today, when our screen time is at an all-time high and many of the informal places where people once gathered are disappearing. We need to care for the experiences that return us to one another. A rehearsal room, concert, community workshop or orchestra can offer something increasingly rare: a shared experience requiring presence, attention and humanity.
This is another reason the arts need to be embedded in everyday Australian life. Their value is not confined to what happens onstage – it lives in the relationships, confidence, empathy and sense of belonging that form around them.
Give people something to believe in
Change happens through many forms of advocacy. Some are public and immediate. Others are quiet, patient and structural. We need both.
At a recent dinner with AYO Board Chair Scott Harrison , he told me that to raise changemakers, “people just need something to believe in.”
That sentence helped bring the Summit’s many conversations together for me. Artists can give people something to believe in. We can help people feel seen, show them that their voice has value and offer glimpses of futures they may not yet have imagined. We can create the conditions in which people recognise their own ability to contribute.
Through the Summit, I also came to understand that we are more powerful than we sometimes allow ourselves to believe. We do not need to wait until we hold a particular title, possess the perfect resources or receive permission from the right institution before we begin.
As Tim Hollo said, “The best advocacy is doing.”
So, let us do.
Let us create and share work that gives people a reason to care. Let us bring art to places where it has been absent. Let us challenge the systems that determine who receives access, opportunity and authority. Let us plant creative seeds and build spaces in which they can grow.
I love Tracey Corbin-Matchett’s call to action: “If you don’t get invited to dinner, build your own table…”
Perhaps that is the work ahead of us: building more tables, making room around them and involving all the people who have historically and unrightfully been excluded.
If we want music to be better funded, we need people to see that it’s worth funding. We need more people to experience it as something that belongs to them. We need a culture in which everyone can participate, and where artists are valued as essential contributors to public life. We all have creativity, so why is art a luxury, not a necessity?
Toni Cade Bambara said, “The role of the artist is to make the revolution irresistible.”
So let us make it irresistible. Let us create a raucous party that reaches every corner of Australia. Then, when the music is loud enough, we cannot be ignored.
