The speakers include Canada’s Amy Terrill, Vice President of Public Affairs at the Music Canada association, Professor Robert Kronenburg, (Roscoe Chair of Architecture) from the University of Liverpool, Melbourne musician and producer James Black, City of Melbourne Arts and Culture chair Councillor Rohan Leppert along with other key players from Melbourne’s music industry, academics, economics, journalists, planners and music makers. Full details at melbourne.vic.gov.au.
Councillor Leppert said the aptly titled symposium ‘We Can Get Together,’ is the first of its kind in Australia.
“The City of Melbourne is dedicated to ensuring Melbourne remains one of the world’s great music cities,” he said.
“We are a city that lives and breathes music, but our city is also growing at a rapid pace. Our role as a capital city council is to work with the music industry to ensure that as the city grows, so too does our live music sector.”
The symposium will offer a platform for industry leaders to discuss the issues and challenges affecting music cities around the world, such as the availability and viability of venues and spaces, the role of festivals and events, education and employment, research and demographic analysis and resolving tensions between amenity and development and music performance.”
Terrill is an international expert on music cities. Aside from spearheading Toronto’s status as a music city by promoting live performance, music tourism, her report The Mastering of a Music City, Key Elements, Effective StrategiesAnd Why It’s Worth Pursuing, was launched in June this year. The report looked at 20 cities including Melbourne as well as Berlin, London, Nashville, Seattle, Bogotá, Toronto and Austin.
Terrill was also a speaker at the inaugural Music Cities Convention earlier this year in Brighton, England, on the social, cultural and economic benefits of such cities and the importance of working together with residents, political decision makers and the live music industry. Also speaking at the convention was Music Victoria CEO Patrick Donovan outlined to a global audience the great achievements of Melbourne as a music city.
Prof. Kronenburg’s interest in innovative forms of architectural design, film and popular music has seen him publish books as Live Architecture: Venues, Stages And Arenas for Popular Music and Flexible: Architecture that Responds to Change. His current project is The History of Popular Music Architecture.
James Black, best known for his time with Mondo Rock and Gang Gajang, is also the music director of SBS TV show, Rockwiz and, as an Economics and Philosophy graduate from Melbourne University, currently delivers a course he wrote on the music business for the Monash University Music Degree Program.
The Melbourne Music Symposium 2015 is an outcome of the City of Melbourne Music Strategy 2014- 17, in partnership Monash University and RMIT University and supported by Face The Music and PBS 106.7FM.
Written in consultation with the music industry, the Strategy focuses on six major themes: Visibility; Promotion and Positioning; Spaces and Collaboration; Funding and Support; Policy Reform and Advocacy; and Research and Information.
“It was important that our approach to music in the city reflected what the music industry and the community wanted,” Cr Leppert said, “so we worked with the music industry to develop the City of Melbourne Music Strategy 2014-17.

“Melbourne’s music scene is no accident – it involves a lot of hard work from a lot of people to make it what it is today. We want to make sure that what we are doing in Melbourne is on par with the world’s great music cities.”
