Surf Coast muso nominated for ARIA

APOLLO Bay musician Matty Orchard will be walking the red carpet at next month’s ARIA Awards after being shortlisted in the Telstra Music Teacher of the Year category.

The Apollo Bay P-12 College teacher is one of four teachers from across the country nominated for the award and is recognition of his decades with the school, where he has developed the “House Of Rock” music program that teaches students from Prep through to Year 12.

“When I was young and hungry, I was trying to be in a band trying to achieve world domination and get to the ARIAs, so this is the other way of getting there,” he joked.

“It’s a bit surreal… it’s something really exciting for the school and me.”

The working muso has spent decades gigging around the coast and Geelong, but during school hours he has spent the past 22 years training the next generation of music lovers in what was once a run-down portable.

“It’s basically a classroom set up with five rehearsal spaces, two band rooms and a fully-fledged recording studio,” he said.

Gillies and Orchard in the House of Rock.

“Senior kids do VET music performance or sound production, which gives them a Certificate III in performance or sound production and can be used in their VCE.

“Lately in prep we’ve been singing [AC/DC’s] “TNT”, repurposed with the words of T-Rex; they love it.

“I try to make music enjoyable for every year level and try to connect to things I know they’re going to love, and it turns out that rock and roll music is alive and well and that songs released 45 years before they were born are still relevant; it gives me hope for the future of rock.”

When Music Teacher Award nominees are shortlisted, they are assigned an ARIA ambassador. In Mr Orchard’s case, Silverchair drummer Ben Gillies travelled to the school to present him with the nomination.

“He said ‘There’s someone else who’d like to wish you congratulations’, and they got a big TV out and on comes Jack Black [the comedian, musician and actor], and all the kids gasped with excitement, because I use the School of Rock video in the Grade 5-6 curriculum as a learning tool.

“A lot of them have already seen the movie, it’s such a classic and never gets old. It was a highlight getting Ben Gillies but it was awesome having Jack Black as well.”