Susanne James, NECOM's former director, has returned from retirement to lead the music school again - and she's delighted to be back at the helm.
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Ms James headed the conservatorium for almost six years, from 2011 to 2017. She will serve as interim CEO for 18 months, until a permanent replacement is appointed for Russell Bauer.
Ms James said she and her painter husband Malcolm McClintock, who set up the Armidale Art Gallery, were overwhelmed by how happy everyone has been to see the couple back.
"We've been blown away with feeling that we've come back to a very warm, welcoming home," she said.
Retirement in Sydney, close to family, was lovely and lazy - "but," Ms James confessed, "it was starting to get a little tedious!
"I can never leave music, and I can't leave music education for very long. I can't ever walk away from it; I've got to come back."
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A life in musical education
Ms James has worked in music administration and education for a quarter of a century - and knows first-hand the value of music to regional towns like Armidale.
She grew up in Lismore, where her high school choir won the Sydney Eisteddfod in 1974.
"For a regional school to do that, and compete with some of the best choirs in Sydney and all over Australia, was absolutely ground-breaking," Ms James said. "Our town couldn't believe it; none of us could really believe it."
Her connection with Armidale began while education manager with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra - "a plum position", meeting composers, conductors, and musicians, and working with all schools in the state.
She created Playerlink!, where SSO musicians travel to regional centres to mentor and perform with school students. Its first venue: Armidale, 1994. Twenty-five years later, it is one of the orchestra's major regional programs.
Ms James became founding director of the Sydney Conservatorium's Open Academy - providing non-tertiary programs for school students and adults, as well as the entire regional program for the state - and CEO of Sydney Youth Orchestras - in charge of nine orchestras, ranging from five-year-olds to tertiary students - before taking a year's sabbatical in Tasmania.
Living in the island's south-west wilderness, she itched to get back, she said. She missed music and working in education. NECOM's advertisement for a director seemed an omen: "It was meant to be!". She applied, and began in 2011.
"That was a fabulous position," Ms James said. "For someone who works in music education and music administration ... there's something really special when you come into an organisation that has such an incredible reputation, and so many fabulous programs. It's a gift."
Armidale, Ms James said, loves having a flourishing arts and cultural scene; music, the visual arts, and theatre make its character.
"NECOM was always going to happen in a town like this," Ms James said. "To have a conservatorium was always part of its DNA."
How NECOM brings music to the region
As interim CEO, Ms James sees her role both as bringing stability, and evolving programs to benefit students, teachers, and the community.
"I'm very familiar, and I know and love all the programs that have been established over the years," she said. "All those connections and networks are there."
NECOM, Ms James said, has a broad reach - thanks to supportive and engaged school principals and teachers throughout the region. The conservatorium's staff work with children in choirs and bands from Armidale to Glen Innes, while NECOM has another campus in Inverell.
"People see that music is crucial to a vibrant, healthy, exciting community," Ms James said. "They see that, and they all contribute to it."
She is also looking for programs and projects to extend NECOM students, such as through working with UNE, the ANU School of Music, or Adelaide's Elder Conservatorium; for teachers' professional development; or for greater community outreach.
2020 will be a busy year for NECOM. Eight hundred children from around the region will perform in the biennial showcase New England Sings, with music commissioned from composers. Putting on the event will take eight months.
Opera Australia will bring its touring production of Bizet's Carmen (one of Ms James's favourite operas) to Armidale in August; NECOM choristers will sing in the children's chorus.
And Ms James is already looking ahead to the 2021 program - which may include staging an opera. (The Armidale Express suggests something light - Stockhausen, for instance.)
"For us, providing our students with those chances to sing and perform in opera, musicals, or whatever vehicles we can find are what makes NECOM so successful, but also so valuable to the community," Ms James said.
The conservatorium also provides bursaries and scholarships to help parents and students - vital, Ms James believes, for families struggling with drought.
"[Music] gives them time in which they can relax and love what they're doing," she said; "it provides this meaningful time for them to socialise and be with other kids. Parents can be with others in the community, and see their children performing."
Ms James thanked the community, local and state government for their support and contributions.
"People in those positions are aware of the importance of what we do; I and all our community are really appreciative of that," she said.
"It means we all want to have a really strong, healthy, happy, and creative society - and we're doing it."