Filmmaker Rhiannon Bannenberg credits WollCon with helping develop some of the skills she used as a director. Photo: Supplied.
When filmmaker and musician Rhiannon Bannenberg walks into the early childhood music room at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music, it feels like home.
Rhiannon’s mother enrolled her in the same ChiME (Childhood Music Education) program at WollCon in the early 90s at age three that she is now teaching.
She then moved from the ChiME program to study music theory, sit her AMEB exams, learnt composition with long-time WollCon educator John Spence and did private piano lessons with her former ChiME teacher Angela Gaffigan.
Three decades on, with a career as a film director, multiple album releases and two young children, she’s now one of the ChiME program teachers, planting the same musical seeds that have shaped her life.
“It feels like home,” she said.
“Music was always my thing, but I’m not a virtuosic player. I’m an emotional player.
“I think that going through the ChiME program, the emphasis was, and still is today, on giving children the opportunity to learn how to engage and express themselves through music.
“Obviously, we learn the concepts of music and, as the years go on, we build our skills as musicians, but learning to tell a story and express yourself through music is something you don’t have to go on to be a virtuosic player to get a lot of meaning and satisfaction.
“That’s really what I learned as a very young child at the conservatory,”
Rhiannon has taught the early childhood music program on and off since doing her bachelor’s degree, but was taken away from it while working on films such as Rip Tide with Disney star Debby Ryan and hit Netflix series Dive Club.
“When I was doing all my music through the conservatorium as a teenager, I never ever imagined I would be going into film directing,” she said.
“It was not a path I knew about.
“Yet, all my music training and background has had a huge influence on my directing and how I direct.
“So when thinking about, well, why would you even do these classes, you just don’t know how it might influence or open up an opportunity for children.
“I’m a perfect example of that.”
She said the ChiME program was designed for children aged one to eight and was unique because it fostered a love of music and “the seed that grows into whatever path they might take”.
ChiME program teacher Rhiannon Bannenberg has come full circle, having been a student in the program at age three. Photo: Supplied.
“I really connect with the creative expression and that side of the program, because that’s really where my own musical career has gone, into film,” she said.
She said she saw the connection between those exploratory early classes and the way she worked on a film set today; films that often featured scores composed and recorded by WollCon musicians.
“As a director, there’s a lot of problem solving, there’s a lot of technical challenges to the job,” she said.
“But there’s another side where you have to make creative decisions often under pressure and with limited resources.
“Having that solid foundation of being in tune with your creative decisions means you can quickly make a decision and be confident in that decision and trust that, even though you don’t know exactly how it’s going to end.
“Being open to experimentation, telling a story – that’s all the qualities we develop in the program with these three- and four-year-olds.”
Rhiannon said the program drew on children’s natural creative instincts, incorporating dance, singing, instrument playing and storytelling, and created an intergenerational experience by involving parents and grandparents.
The teachers’ backgrounds also meant the children accessed different styles of music and teaching.
“I play a lot of film music in my classes, whereas I know one of the other teachers is an amazing folk artist, so she does a lot of folk songs,” she said.
“Teachers really bring their musical personality into the classes and their own professional music experiences and I think that’s a unique thing with this program.”
Beyond the classroom, she is in development on an Illawarra-based film project, working on it when time allows.
“Music is woven into the story, so my idea is to write the music for the film and then release that as an album alongside the film,” she said.
Learn more about the ChiME program at the Wollongong Conservatorium of Music.
