The Scottish-born McAuslan was one of the first local performers featured on the festival program, which had been created out of the Arts and Culture Unit in the Brunswick City Council. Within a couple of years of the inaugural festival program, McAuslan had become involved in the administration and operation of the event; by 1994 McAuslan was the festival’s director, a position he maintained until 2013 when he was forced to undergo open-heart surgery. “That was the end of me, so to speak,” McAuslan laughs.
While Brunswick has undergone significant demographic changes over the past 27 years – and Brunswick City Council itself was dissolved as part of the Kennett government’s radical overhaul of local government arrangements in the early 1990s – the Brunswick Music Festival has lived on. “I think the festival’s resilience has come from the artists,” McAuslan says. “They bring the interest with them. When we started out we had to be aware of the artists that were coming through. And now there’s a lot more younger artists – not old farts like me.”
McAuslan contrasts the evolution of Brunswick’s demographic profile with the consistency of Sydney Road’s character. “Sydney Road has never actually changed that much, and it’s never been gentrified like High Street in Northcote, or all sorts of other main streets in other suburbs,” McAuslan says. “But demographically there’s a lot more young people around, students and artists. The music scene back in those early days wasn’t as vibrant. Though you did have the Union Hotel, which was the home of Greek music in Melbourne. I suppose it was a more local scene in a lot of ways.”
Finding the right blend between showcasing Brunswick’s local musical talents and bringing outside musicians onto the bill has always provided a challenge. “We tried to do both,” McAuslan says. “There was an ever increasing stream of great international blues, roots and folk musicians coming through, and there was never really anywhere for them to perform in Melbourne at that time. So you had that on one hand, and the idea was also that we would support the local music community – there was a lot of Greek, Turkish and Polynesian shows – and as the street party became ever more popular, that became just the local acts. So the combination worked very well.”
In its infancy McAuslan says the program was influenced by what he describes as “unwritten guidelines” – that is, the inclusion of diverse musical styles that might not necessarily find a spot in Melbourne’s indie and rock’n’roll venues. “We wanted to have blues and roots, and indigenous, women’s folk, and what became known as world music – acts that didn’t have the opportunity to play around Melbourne,” McAuslan says. “So we were quite specific where we wanted to go.”
Leanne Connell, the Chairperson of Performing Arts Moreland, the body that sets the “strategic direction” for the festival, says these days the development and finalisation of the program is guided by particular objectives. “The festival has to reflect the cultural diversity of the different communities that live in Moreland, as well as fostering the local music scene and acknowledging the important contribution of the musicians and songwriters in the municipality. And we also want to create opportunities for live music performance through the festival, and also exposing the community to high quality acts, both national and international, as well as our local performers.”
Moreland Mayor Samantha Ratnam says the festival has to find the right balance between providing a celebration for the local musical community, and attracting visitors to the Brunswick area. “It started very much for the local community, celebrating the diversity, and we’ve had a change over the years in terms of emphasising the local communities and music. The population’s changing so much, so I think we’re getting better at getting those settings right in terms of the cultural groups who’re represented, and the types of music people want to see.”
Connell admits one of the biggest challenges is not being able to include more artists on the program, such is the quality of the applications received by the festival administration. “It’s a real challenge given that we can only put on a certain number of acts in a limited period,” Connell says. “The choice and range of performers that are available is huge, and really exciting. Our biggest problem is not finding people who represent the diversity, but we just can’t put on as many acts as we’d like to.”
Ratnam agrees the festival’s multicultural character is especially important, given the resurgence of xenophobia in contemporary political debate. “We often hear these days of people wanting to portray multiculturalism as a negative, or wanting to use bad examples to prosecute their argument, but events like this show just how rich a community can be with different cultures coming into it, and showcasing and sharing their culture. And I think people’s lives are really enriched by it,” Ratnam says.
The role of music in cultural expression is well understood: every culture and community has its distinctive musical style and the blending and cross-fertilisation of cultures has created new musical styles (think rock’n’roll with its cultural antecedents in blues, celtic folk and country).
“I think music plays an absolutely massive role in promoting cultural awareness,” Connell says. “The festival actually started out after a very successful program called the Music of Migration, which was very much about celebrating the diversity of the area. Music really does bring people together.”
Since 1994 a key plank of the Brunswick Music Festival has been the Sydney Road Street Party, an expansion of the event that McAuslan concedes wasn’t embraced by all of the street’s retail traders. “A lot of people couldn’t see the benefits initially but the people who did see it from a business perspective did very well,” McAuslan says. “They certainly did get to embrace it, and it became a highlight of their year. But it always was an interesting proposition dealing with the local businesses,” he laughs.
Ratnam says the local retailers now support the street party, both in terms of its role in celebrating local culture, and its commercial benefits. “I think it’s definitely changing, partly because the types of businesses operating in Brunswick, and Moreland more broadly, are changing, and with that comes a change in outlook and attitude towards these types of festivals,” Ratnam says. “What we’re getting now is the retailers participating actively in the street party. Whereas in the past they might have been involved indirectly because they had a shop near the festival, they’re now putting up a stall in the street festival. So I think we’ve got a new breed of business that can see the incredible benefits of the event.”
This year Brunswick Music Festival offers yet another eclectic program, with local artists including indigenous performers Emma Donovan and the Putbacks and Yirrmal, local songwriters Jess Ribeiro, Kylie Auldist, Liz Stringer and Suzannah Espie, the Victorian Trade Union Choir and a host of international performers including Japanese ‘Godzilla funk’ band Mount Mocha Kilimanjaro, Blind Boy Paxton from the United States, the Italian Greek Orchestra Magna Grecia and Ajak Kwai from South Sudan.
John McAuslan says the Brunswick Music Festival has survived by “being around, being aware, and finding the new stuff that’s happening, and making sure that you’re able to present that”. While he’s content to leave the running of the festival to others, McAuslan will still be making his annual trek to the festival and imbibing the sounds, sights and smells of the event. “It’s actually my 70th birthday the night before the street party. I’ve got some friends come out from Scotland, so I’m not sure when I’ll get down there, because it’ll be a bit of a bash.”
By Patrick Emery
