What is the Spring Youth Music Festival at Four Winds?
Find out on 23 November!

David Hewitt is Four Winds’ Create & Inspire Director and drives the annual Spring Youth Music Festival. Bringing together 200 kids, most of them between the ages of around 10 and 17, with their mentors and teachers, we will hear bands as well as classical music, jazz, soloists, choirs and young singer songwriters.

‘There will be three or four bands, most of them teenagers, and lots of community music groups, the Bega Valley Youth Orchestra and small chamber groups like Cellisimo, a cello-focussed community ensemble. The focal point will be our community choirs coming together with the Luminescence Chamber Singers to perform a collection of songs called Red Dirt Hymns written by composer and broadcaster Andrew Ford.

David explains, ‘The Four Winds philosophy and approach to community engagement is informed by dialogue with First Nations community, principally through First Nations Creative Director, Cheryl Overton [née Davison]. What is very apparent is how important the input of elders is for young people. Young people also have a very important role – to inspire older people, giving them the spark of life and helping to keep their life affirmed, connected and inspired. This is a very intelligent, a very sophisticated approach to sharing wisdom and knowledge.’

Starting seven years ago as a youth festival, it has become more of an intergenerational exchange where the kids have an outer circle of support from older musicians while being celebrated by their community. ‘It gives me a lot of hope to see talented kids flourish and the way the community enjoys them. There’s so much that we have to deal with in society that seems very divisive, so having something like this where everyone comes together naturally to enjoy each other is a kind of salve and balm.’

This celebration of local talent and intergenerational exchange is just one part of the broader Four Winds Create & Inspire program. Throughout the year, David’s job is to expose primary and secondary students to professional musicians performing at Four Winds, and he facilitates mentorship, workshops, tutoring and in-school programs that help young people learn to play music and aspire to a career in music.

David Hewitt. Photo: Honey Atkinson.

When Four Winds is looking at presenting artists to perform a concert at Four Winds, they ask how each might engage with our community. ‘Sometimes just sitting in a chair and listening to them is going to rock our boats. We also choose players who will spend some time with preschoolers, so that kids get up really close to gifted musicians, often a very meaningful exchange for both. Sometimes we have the pinnacle of chamber music playing right here in our community and they are willing to give half a day to work with kids from the Bega Valley Youth Orchestra. The kids love it, and the musicians do too. The kids’ playing gets better and better and they learn about the beautiful combination of discipline and hard work while having a lot of fun. That’s a very powerful force for young people, not just in terms of being an instrumentalist, but for anything in life. Kids picking up those qualities early through music might be something that they take into architecture or into administration or into just how they treat their kids when they’re a parent.’

We are so fortunate in our region to have a lot of really great, professional teachers and international and national musicians. They’re living here, and they’re teaching our kids, and David’s energy goes into supporting them and their aspirations, whether that’s just teaching a young person how to play the cello or whether it’s running a brass band or a choir. ‘I listen to what community leaders want to do, what their members want or need, and try to design programs and opportunities that support that. For example, I’ve been building up a relationship between local choirs and the amazing Canberra-based Luminescence Chamber Singers, six really high-end choristers who come into our community and work with our choirs to help inspire them.

‘When you put really powerful musicians or choristers among community groups, it really inspires and lifts the level of performance. Often people don’t realise how well they can sing or perform. It’s in them, they just don’t know. They look at someone else and think they could never do that, but once they’re in amongst it, it just comes out. You lift them to a greater level of artistry in themselves that they might not be able to achieve on their own. Once they feel that, it’s hard to go back, and it has an ongoing effect.’

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Listen to an interview with David in this month’s Triangle Podcast.

Photo (top): Spring Youth Music Festival. Photo: Davey Rogers.