Mission creep

I reckon the NZSM has lost of sight of their main goal: excellence in classical music. When I say classical, I'm including gamelan and Indian/Persian etc. Jack's legacy makes that our undeniable selling point, particularly for Asian musics. Jack transcribed a lot of Southeast Asian music. - They're offering a syllabus that's even more varied than the one from my student years with way fewer people. I said that adding traditional music is good, but it's not cheap. At the time that I dropped out of the scene, there were a few people that were strongly steering the ship towards contemporary sound art and experimental music, at least in terms of overall prestige. Near as I can tell, those are the same people in charge today, while all of my mates have pissed off to Australia or Christchurch or Dunedin. - We need to have redundant people like instrument teachers. I don't see it as a National Music Centre preparing NZSO people. Bluntly, most of the NZSO is expat. - Nevertheless, we need to pay the best musicians to teach the prodigies. That's what made me an amazing guitarist. $90-150 an hour. It's equivalent to psychotherapists or psychologists, and with similar qualifications. - I dunno what's going on in the academic jazz scene.