GFTU BGCM 2019 Minutes

stars and the household names, an overcrowded and underpaid profession. I

want young people to experience the fantastic feeling of performing, learning to

work closely with other people and retaining a love of music for the rest of their

lives.

Music is not just something you can hum along to and enjoy the tunes and

even be emotionally moved by them. Music and the other art forms often

provide a commentary on life and the society that we live in. Many of you will

have seen the film La La Land. Don’t worry, I am not going to sing anything

from it! There is a section in the movie when Mia, the female lead, is

auditioning and she sings a song about her dead aunt who was a bit of a

revolutionary. One part of the lyric really sticks out from me: “So bring on the

rebels, the ripples from pebbles, the painters, the poets and plays … here’s to

the fools who dream, crazy as it may seem”. The dreamers have a lot to say to

us and they tell us about the world and often explain why we feel like we do

about what is going on around us - in music Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie who

had “This machine kills fascists” emblazoned across his guitar, Joan Baez; In

literature Dickens, Shelly, Orwell, Solzhenitsyn (who was sent to a gulag

because of his criticism of the State); in art Picasso. You cannot fail to be

moved by his painting Guernica, which gave us a premonition of what was to

come – and many, many more artists and writers. The GFTU’s Liberating Arts

Festival celebrated the role of the arts in politics and I hope that the federation

will keep developing and expanding its work in this area.

Moving on, the MU is affiliated to the Labour Party and over the years I have

had the pleasure, or mostly otherwise, of briefing Ministers and civil servants on

the big music industry issues of the day that will affect our members. These

have ranged from the intricacies of intellectual property to the crisis in music

education and the precarious nature of live performance. My experiences of

politicians are mixed. I have worked with some excellent Culture Ministers and

some pretty poor ones. You will not be surprised to hear that most Tory

Ministers refused to even meet me. However, the constant has been the

Government officials and advisers. While I respect that most Ministers have

been parachuted into roles that they do not necessarily have any experience

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