“I joined the committee because I wanted to keep Toronto a musically interesting place,” says TAC music committee member, Brian Current.

One of North America's leading young composers, Brian Current’s music, lauded and performed internationally as well as broadcast in over 35 countries, has also earned him the honours of a Guggenheim Fellow and Barlow Prize. From December 2003 to December 2006 he served on the TAC’s grant adjudicating Music Committee. We recently asked him about this experience.

What kind of work went into preparing for the Music Committee meetings?

It became a biannual routine in our household. A mountainous stack of paper arrived at our door and sat on the dining room table for several weeks. You felt its presence as you passed by. It gradually shrank, however, as over time I went through the pile, reading over the project descriptions, the repertoire, the budgets.

It was interesting reading because you got a sense of the many diverse musical traditions and personalities working in Toronto. A pianist would request funds to put on a six-hour concert. A world music festival would like to present workshops and performances of a tradition you've never heard of before. And so on. You also saw what held organizations together and the ingredients that combine artistic direction, programming decisions, financial security with the ability to connect with an audience. Nearly every group was working on a shoestring budget and
holding their organization together by hard work.

What were the actual meetings like?

We drank a lot of coffee. We also listened to the audio material of every single group, one after another. The listening was telling, as sometimes organizations would look great on paper but didn't sound very strong. Or vice versa. Then there was discussion–lots of discussion–which was often heated and almost always illuminating. Finally, there came a vote, where we went around the table and everyone gave the proposal a score. The scores were sometimes unanimous but most often not.

What did you learn?

I learned that I really like certain kinds of world music. And jazz. And I don’t like a lot of
conservative Canadian choral works. I hope that more directors will go to the Canadian Music Centre website and discover what composers are doing currently. Also, while I’m the biggest fan there is of contemporary concert music, or “new music”, I support the movement afoot to make Toronto an international centre of World Music. It makes sense because of who we are, and it would be a great example internationally. However, it is very important that by the term World Music, we are talking about the rich traditions that are mysterious to us in the West, like Chinese Opera, Balinese Gamelan or Tuvan Throat Singing. I find that the term World Music is often applied to certain kinds of American-style popular music that is simply sung in a different
language. While that might be culturally interesting for a particular community, I’m more attracted to groups (of any tradition) that fill the city with imaginative use of things like pitch, texture, form, colour and above all, the idea of mystery.

At first did you find it daunting to adjudicate your peers?

In the arts we are used to being evaluated by our peers. It's not always easy–many of the
applicants are colleagues–but I think that most of us respect the peer evaluation process as the best system we have. I'm not really worried about colleagues seeing me as the “bad guy” if the committee is not able to help them, since the score is given through a vote and it is very difficult for one individual to carry the day. Also, there is very careful consideration to conflicts of interest so if there is any affiliation at all with a particular organization, you have to leave the room.

Were you able to accomplish what you imagined you would?

I joined the committee because I wanted to keep Toronto a musically interesting place. It was time to do something practical about it rather than complain to my friends about "the state of music these days,” which had become, unfortunately for them, something of a habit. In that sense, the committee is really great. You feel as though you really are doing something, rather than talking about doing something.