Reviewed by Ian Lipke
It was Gillian Wills who first made the comment that “Musicians are artists that paint in sound.” She went on to make the point that despite the wide acceptance of this judgment, music is played across the country in acoustically inept buildings and rooms. Ms Wills would know what she is talking about. When asked, she advises that, as a student, she studied classical piano performance and classical guitar at The Royal Academy of Music (London). All her life she has worked in the arts industry as a teacher, lecturer, professor, manager, broadcaster, presenter, pre-concert speaker and journalist.
Gillian Wills is the newly published author of the novel Big Music which tells the story of a small to middle sized Council-controlled music centre. It is difficult to ascertain just how big this centre is. It is sufficiently large to compete with the local university and is described as ‘big’ by the author yet only the same small group have any significant input to policy- or argument-making.
Much of my career has been completed in secondary school or university departments. I am well aware of the ‘bitchiness’ that often prevails there. Gillian Wills has attempted to produce just such an environment. While at times working in such a ‘testy’ environment is the ultimate challenge, it is at the same time rewarding, exciting, challenging, and complex. Anybody who places himself in a position of administrative seniority soon finds that ‘friends’ are ‘friends-subject-to-work-pressures’, friends provided work-comforts are not to be infringed upon. Gillian Wills’s Matthew does exist, bless his black heart. Another character, Connor, demonstrates that he can make life difficult for an administrator yet be the first to step in and save the day when needed.
Connor, Matthew and other leaders whose idiosyncrasies are described in Big Music can be found without much effort in university departments. A certain mystique follows employees of tertiary institutions. It is as though, having gained the position of lecturer and above, a certain recognition above the ordinary is expected. Gillian Wills claims to have met many colourful characters over the years which include performers, conductors and composers. She does not deliberately exclude university lecturers and professors (they are outside her brief, as are politicians, notorious among whom is the Liberal member in South Australia who went from school to parliament and held down a safe seat until retirement).
While all Wills’ characters fit a type, one has been ignored. This character is the most central of all. She is the administrator, the woman who makes and enforces the policies that affect the musicians below her. Wills presents her as a weak-kneed administrator whose staff cause her immense worry. Administrators are rarely appointed if they are as weak as this person. The idea that her bosses wanted her to fail to improve the image of another institution is unheard of, and the picture of an irascible staff suddenly falling in behind her leadership, is unsustainable.
The book makes exceptionally fine reading.
Big Music
(2025)
by Gillian Wills
Hawkeye Publishing
ISBN: 9781923105287
$32.95; 310pp