I have been reflecting on the nature of mentors in our lives. It is not surprising that this has been front of mind. Our National Music Teacher Mentoring Program has just launched its new name Music in Me. It seems like such a simple thing, a name change – but there is always an appropriate amount of navel gazing, conversation and reflection that goes hand in hand with these sorts of transformations. It is why I love transformation… although sometimes you end up where you started – but I digress. Thinking about the incredible impact of the late Richard Gill OAM and finishing the Australian Youth Orchestra 2024 National Music Camp (NMC) made me relook at why ‘mentors’ are so important in our lives and how it is subtly different to being a ‘teacher’.
Since 1948 it has been widely acknowledged that the lifeblood of NMC is the dedicated professional musicians who give back by teaching the next generation of creatives. But they do more than instruct, they mentor – this type of learning transforms and it transcends the notes on the page or the sounds of our art.
There is something so inherently democratic about mentoring. The dialogue between mentor and mentee offers an infinite array of learning possibilities. Even if the teacher ‘knows’ what the ultimate learning destination is, mentoring doesn’t assume that this is where one is going to end up. Putting this into the classical music context is fascinating. We are used to the master teacher imparting wisdom and dictating the wrong/right way of performing.
This is not mentoring, this is instruction – and at certain times in a student’s development this is perfectly appropriate. What I witnessed at NMC were interactions between mentors and mentees that empowered our musicians to discover, to savour epiphanies, to be courageous, to experiment and to recognise this courage in other people – and they do this even when it is something as mundane as ‘intonation’. The entire approach to music is democratic and the learning transcends the musical realm to more broadly the approach to life.
Some sage life words from NMC – “Finding mentors who will be honest with you to help guide your path. It’s a small industry and its important to remember that everyone is a person, there’s always context for the way they might be behaving. Being flexible is important and imagining different paths…”
As I sit here listening to Belinda McFarlane rehearse with a group of highly skilled, highly driven and disciplined AYO musicians it is not the rhythms and sonorities of Copland’s ‘Appalachian Spring’ that is exciting me – it is the transformative effect of incredibly skilled mentoring. “Arming them with skills to take into their future… to realise their own aspiration and make their own creative pathways” – Belinda Mcfarlane.
Bravo and many thanks to all of our AYO Mentors! Thank you for your grace, generosity and wisdom to know the best way to unwrap the chrysalis of exceptional humans!
