The city of Adelaide is seeking a global endorsement of its music culture with a bid to be named a UNESCO City of Music. The endorsement, which is handed out by UNESCO as part of their Creative Cities Network, would make Adelaide the first Australian city to receive the endorsement.
As ABC News reports, the South Australian capital sought advice about its campaign from Seville in Spain, the first city named as part of the UNESCO program, which now sits alongside Bologna, Glasgow, Hamamatsu, Hannover, Mannheim, Seville, and others.
Adelaide Festival Centre chief executive Douglas Gautier told 891 ABC Adelaide accreditation would be an exciting opportunity for the city, which has seen an economic downturn in recent years.
“It’d put our cultural assets on a global platform; it helps make creativity and the works in arts and entertainment a greater element of local economic and social development,” he said.
“It builds a capacity within the various elements of the music-making industry, both professional and non-professional.”
“We get to share across the cultural clusters, the music clusters right around the world with some really great cities like Seville and Bologna and Glasgow… and it’s a growing network.”
According to Mr Gautier, the bid would be considered by UNESCO in Paris and he hopes to hear an outcome by late October. He said Adelaide had strong credentials across many facets of music, with a “really good background in music-making, education, [and] community involvement”.
“If you consider whether it’s pop music, whether it’s classical music, whether it’s world music, whether it’s brass bands, whether it’s our music education — our commitment whether it be on the educational side or whether it be festivals — all of this qualifies us pretty strongly in this regard.”
“I think it was for this reason, in my capacity as chair of the Asian arts centres association, that I was tapped on the shoulder and somebody said to me, ‘Adelaide would [make] a very good application for this’.”
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The city’s bid to be named Australia’s City of Music is certainly sure to raise a few eyebrows, particularly in Melbourne, which was recently named one of the world’s leading music cities in a study published by the IFPI and Music Canada.
The study cited Melbourne, along with the likes of London, Montreal, New York, Berlin, and of course, Austin, as one of the world’s foremost hubs for music, particularly when it comes to live performance, and a shining example for the rest of the globe.
However, we also know that Adelaideans are very passionate and patriotic when it comes to their town. After Smashing Pumpkins frontman Billy Corgan had some choice words for Adelaide and its cultural scene, South Australians came out in droves to decry the rocker.
Corgan’s comments came in the wake of Soundwave promoter AJ Maddah’s announcement that 2014 would be the last time the festival hits the SA capital due to what he described as “pathetic” attendance figures resulting from a sluggish economy.
So if Adelaide is going to be named an official City of Music, it certainly won’t be without a fight. That said, we’ve written extensively about why Adelaide is one of Australia’s most underrated music cities, having birthed numerous iconic acts and WOMADelaide festival.
