The Editor of Catholica, Brian Coyne, attended a forum for Catholic musicians and composers yesterday in Sydney. The forum was attended by parish musicians and composers as well as publishers and representatives of one of the major copyright agencies in Australia. The forum had two principal objectives: the first was to continue the work begun about two years ago of forming a national association for those involved in the production of Church music. The second was to address a number of particular issues that have been facing those involved in the different aspects — composing, publishing, copyright issues, and performance and reporting issues at the local parish level. Today's report includes a short video interview with Paul Mason, one of the convenors of the new Australian Pastoral Musicians' Network.

The problems faced by parish musicians, composers, publishers and copyright agencies...

A Catholic Musicians' Forum was held in Sydney yesterday attended by just over twenty composers and musicians representing some of the leading Church musicians and composers in the country as well as publishers and representatives of one of the leading copyright agencies to begin thrashing out solutions to a number of problems that have been facing the various sectors responsible for producing good music in schools and parishes. There was a goodly representation of people from diocesan level, and one representative from the level of the Bishops' Conference, and also representatives from a couple of the Catholic Education Offices.

The meeting was convened by the group of people who, over the last two years have been working towards the establishment of an Australian Pastoral Musicians' Network. Included below is a short video interview with Paul Mason who is one of the people helping convene the APMN. Also included is a pdf file of the flyer explaining more about the objectives of the Network and address details which interested people can use to register their interest in being part of the Network.

Each of the various interest groups that help produce the music that is used in parishes and schools have been facing a growing set of challenges — some caused by new technologies, some caused by the complexities of copyright law and reporting, some caused by the new changes being implemented at the international level in the Church with new translations and Mass settings. The meeting yesterday was seeking to generate discussion about some of these issues and find ways that might lead to solutions. It was seen by the participants more in the nature of a beginning rather than a meeting that was going to come up with the solutions. The participants were seeking to identify at least some of the issues that needed to be addressed and particularly those in the realms of copyright and how the usage of music is reported. In an earlier report [LINK] in the Catholica Forum Brian Coyne explained how some of the problems in the copyright area are impacting on the parishes themselves, the publishers, the composers and the copyright collection agencies.

Some of the participants at the forum

Click on the image above or HERE for a printable, pdf copy of the flyer.
The return address if you are interested in joining the Network is:
Australian Pastoral Musicians Network
PO Box 4029
VICTORIA PARK, WA, 6979
The pdf file also contains email addresses but I won't reproduce those here to save the recipients from spam. You will need to type the addresses into your email program.

An inaugural meeting is planned for March 2010 to confirm the APMN Constitution, elect office-bearers and to plan the program for the next 12-18 months. Those involved in the planning process are hopeful of staging the first national conference in 2011.

What are your thoughts on this? You can contribute to the discussion in our forum.

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