Sharing a love of music

MUSICANS spanning more than seven decades in age have gathered to learn and share a love of music.

The Wimmera Bands Group Music School was held at Phoenix College last week, with participants ranging in age from seven to more-than 70 years old.

It is a seven-day intensive music program held in the first week of the winter school holidays, which changes location each year.

Instrumentalists of all ages and experience levels take part in the program and throughout the week there are ensemble sessions as well as theory tuition.

The school is entirely volunteer run and Peter and Jane Battersby have been CEOs of the program for 22 years.

“It’s held in a different location every year between Ballarat, Bendigo, Mildura, wherever, so we’re like a travelling circus,” said Mr Battersby.

“We’re a unique music school because we run seven days and we cover theory and practical sessions.

“We do brass, woodwind, strings and percussion, and we take enrolments from all over.”

The program is still recovering from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic but this year’s event had about 65 students and 15 instructors.

“With our instructors, most of them have done the music school when they were children and they come back and donate their time freely,” said Mr Battersby.

“All of us take holidays and volunteer our time.”

Ms Battersby said the pair are driven to continue volunteering due to the benefits experienced by participants.

“We thought we’ll give it 10 years and after 10 years we thought that’s a fair effort for volunteers,” she said.

“On the Sunday when you turn up and see what the kids have achieved, you just think if we hadn’t volunteered this wouldn’t have happened.

“It’s not about us it’s about what we can do for someone else.”