….In the meantime, I took myself to task and set about some serious study and further development of my conducting technique. Towards this end I completed a Masters in Performance (Conducting) at the University of Sydney, (whilst also repetiteuring for my fellow conductors in the Masters Program) as well as participating in a Symphony Australia Professional Development Symposium with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra; -all in all, generally building on my earlier studies in conducting and orchestral technique (Scholarship with the ABC National Training Orchestra, stick and rehearsal technique with Robert Pikler and Robert Miller) as well as membership in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra.
The years however, flowed by, and the creative impulse grew ever stronger; -I slowly came to realise that life is too short to do everything, and wonderful as it was to conduct, this was not my ‘true’ path, anymore than was trying to be a strictly ‘classical’ composer, working within the cultural forms and limits of the traditional orchestral/institutional mind-set. …But hey, the discipline and knowledge acquired within the classical path was certainly worth the effort, and has since proved to be of inestimable value in the realisation and performance of my own creative projects and teaching, as well as the performance and recording projects that still occasionally come my way!
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