Why Kim Cunio must still lead the School of Music

Head of the School of Music Prof Kim Cunio… “I want him to stay in that position as long as he wants to. That should be in the best interest of the school and of music generally in our community,” says David Pereira. Photo: Helen Musa

There’s a major review of the ANU’s School of Music coming soon this year, writes acclaimed cellist DAVID PEREIRA. He’s holding his breath to discover what sensible changes it will recommend, but ‘what mustn’t change is the present excellence of its culture’.

IN 1991, I became the continuing full-time senior lecturer in cello at the Canberra School of Music. It’s 2023 and I’m still that senior lecturer (now a 0.4 fractional appointment on a one-year contract). 

In September I will celebrate my 70th birthday. I’ve much-lived experience of directorships and headships – John Painter to Kim Cunio. Each of several has left their mark.

In this piece I claim my right, in the public interest, to express an opinion on the incumbent head – Kim Cunio. Praise where praise is due. Make known a significant truth. 

Also, I want him to stay in that position as long as he wants to. That should be in the best interest of the School of Music and of music generally in our community.

Leadership, like the performance of music, exists in theory and in practice, in ideology and actuality. 

Entering the School of Music these days, I feel the kindness, compassion, empathy, safety, inclusivity and sincerity of service provision of a staff now not only deeply tutored in these core values, but also acting them out, moment to moment. 

I feel the effects of these on the students who spend months and years in this environment of carefulness – enlightened, artistic, holistic. Here the study of music, whether theoretical or performative, is conducted within a vital and hard-won sacred framework. 

Sacred? Yes, definitely. For what else is it when we focus on the sacred in others and on the sacred in the doing of something? Music isn’t sacred only when it plays in church, or when it is called to underpin a belief in God. 

It is sacred when we ask it to matter as anything may matter. It is sacred when it is happening between entities whose individual mattering equally is asserted. 

Meanwhile, leadership of this school within the College of Arts and Social Sciences, within the ANU, is conducted on a vibrant web of interconnectivity. 

A head’s decision-making is closely observed, from inside and from outside the university. Helpers and hinderers abound. Leaders’ powers and freedoms are limited. Their choices often are made between alternatives neither ideal nor attractive. Such is institutional life. Personal and career survival, let alone flourishing, demands resilience, high energy, patience, good timing, wisdom, diplomacy, commitment, vision, a thick-enough-skin, a practical philosophy and emotional intelligence.

Having been an integral part of (and sometimes loud commentator on) 32 years of our School of Music, I usefully am placed to speak an opinion of its likely future trajectory. 

In doing so, I note the extraordinary recovery from loss and grief that it has enjoyed in the last decade. For this my gratitude and admiration goes to many others as well as Kim Cunio, including recently an encouraging and protective ANU vice-chancellor and dean of CASS. 

The school, semi-miraculously, has survived covid, too. It grows in stature as an excellent music school that is responsive to societal changes and that is significantly redefining some key aspects of tertiary musical training and research. 

There is a major review of the school coming soon this year. That is exciting. I hold my breath to discover what sensible changes it will recommend, which of those will be taken up, and which others will come collaterally. 

What mustn’t change is the present excellence of culture, both educational and interpersonal. May the preciousness of this school’s recovery be given the value it deserves.

First published at Canberra City News online, August 23, 2023