DEAN KOCH | ADELAIDE BRANCH
26 July 2020
PETER BUTLER
26 July 2020SOLID FOUNDATIONS
Smells, sounds and music are powerful memory triggers.
If I was to hear Schubert’s beautiful “Silver and Gold” right now I’d be immediately transported back to 1955, a church hall in Malvern - the senior choir singing. I think Michael Cartwright takes a solo, led by Alan Barker (who went on to conduct the New York Metropolitan Opera). It’s a hot summer’s night with cicadas so loud the singing barely cuts through. This is one of my earliest probationer memories.
I could be wrong about everything except the cicadas.
Brian’s time with the choir was marked with events that were significant both for the choir and for Australia - the 1956 Melbourne Olympics, the arrival of television and the annual Moomba Festival. Brian, with the choir, was involved with all of these events.
Together they also performed in every state of Australia, with Brian a frequent soloist. Travelling by plane, bus, train and car, they clocked up the miles, repertoire and adventure in equal measure.
“I remember three of us catching lizards and snakes in the creek at the back of Glenorchy College one sunny day,” Brian muses.
These early musical experiences laid the foundation for Brian’s lifelong career in music. He has worked as a primary teacher specialising in music; toured Australia and the world and performed for troops in Vietnam; and has written and recorded numerous broadcast and song books.
“When I hear choir performances these days I’m absolutely staggered at the high musical standard expected of and achieved by the children,” he says.
“Our training has had a lifetime effect on all of us and it will be interesting to see what today’s tyros go on to do with their lives.”
