Surprise encore for retiring music man

LONG standing Instrumental Music Teacher Paul Brindley has been farewelled with a surprise performance by thirty-five students he had taught across the years, many coming from all over Australia to join the carefully crafted covert operation.

Paul arrived at Urangan High in 1996 and across a twenty-five-year period, delivered the Brass, Woodwind and Percussion program for the school.

His contribution to musical education in the region is legendary, and this surprise farewell performance is akin to a movie script.

Liza Young, Head of Department for the Creative Futures Faculty at USHS, has described the student alumni band tribute as the highlight of her long professional teaching career.

“When I first arrived at the school in 1998, Paul was an enigma. You didn’t really interact with Paul too much. He was just down in the music block doing his thing,” Liza said.

“Paul has a big personality, but an absolute heart of gold. The kids, they simply loved him.”

“For Paul, it was always just about the music and about the kids. That was what motivated him, that was his purpose and calling, and with the kids, he was quite simply remarkable.”

For the team at Urangan State High School, Paul’s contribution to the arts across the Fraser Coast and his pending retirement required so much more than a cake and a coffee cup.

“I was chatting with a parent, who had heard along the grapevine that Paul was retiring and it was her suggestion that it would be great to get some former students to pop along to his farewell and maybe play along. That was the genesis of the idea.”

“Next thing I received a message from one of Paul’s former students Lochie, who had heard about the idea from his mum. Lochie now lives in Tasmania and is studying the trumpet at the Conservatorium of Music down there. He was taken by the idea and wanted to know how he could help.”

“Lochie put a call out to some of the students that he played with, and then those students reached out to others and the idea exploded.

We started a private messenger group and the concept of forming an alumni band of kids, some of whom hadn’t picked up their instruments for twenty-years, flourished.”

More than thirty-five former students from Cairns, Sunshine Coast, Brisbane, Tasmania and beyond set about reacquainting themselves with the love of music that Paul had instilled in them, practising the two pieces to be played on the night.

Many of the past students were drawn to involvement, having been taught by Paul’s late sister Erica.

Erica, also an instrumental music teacher, was killed in a tragic accident at Carnarvon Gorge on 23 October 2002 during a Urangan State High School Concert Band’s outback music tour. News that shook the community.

For those students, this project held a particularly special meaning.

“Keeping the secret concert out of conversations in the staff room was one of the great battles,” Liza said.

“Everyone was very excited. The former students had made their way to Hervey Bay and held a practice rehearsal at Kawungan State School with the great assistance of Jenny Gordon.”

“When the night of the performance rolled around, we snuck all of the performers into the staff room to hide them from Paul, and I asked him just to stay out of the staffroom from about six onward as we had a small gift in there for him. He had no idea.”

“We were in the auditorium for end of year and as we concluded, Paul was invited onto stage to receive his retirement gift. The curtains opened, and here was a full band of his former students, now all grown up, some with families of their own, ready to perform for him”

“It was a breathtaking moment.”

For Paul, it is a gesture he will never forget and one that he simply didn’t see coming.

“When I finished school, it was my intention to play professionally, to make a living out of that. But it can be hard to make plans, not really knowing what your next job is going to be, so

I turned all of my knowledge and my love of music to teaching,” Paul said.

“I already had a Bachelor of Music, so I studied for another year and gained my Education Diploma and the rest is history.”

“I started teaching in Charleville for four years, then I applied to move to Hervey Bay. The best they could get for me was Maryborough and then literally two-weeks prior to my transfer, the guy at Urangan retired. That’s how it started for me here in Hervey Bay.”

For someone to stay in the same job, in the same place, for a quarter of a century, is almost unheard of now. For Paul, the answer is simple.

“Very few people get to do what they love, and if you do find that, you have to hang on to it. This is where my family was, the school was virtually brand new, with lots of support and enthusiasm.”

“I had great support from former Principal Linda Buxton and I was allowed to do what I love doing and that’s to teach kids the magic of music.”

We posed the question to Paul about his relationship with his students. Whether he had a concept of the legacy he had left with so many of them, that they would go to these lengths to celebrate his guidance.

“Teaching is a balance and sometimes you just have a personality that lends you to something.”

“At an early stage, I was always prepared to be silly. For a child, an adult being silly or always laughing and enjoying themselves was my priority. If they are laughing, they are learning.”

“So immediately there is this brake down of barriers. You’re not seen as an adult, you’re just a kid in an adult’s body. That is a connection. They loved it and so did I.”

“The students and I were a team. It didn’t matter where they came from or what they brought to the room. My students gave me a plaque that said: Therapist Mr Brindley. It was about a connection.”

“But the students always knew, beneath all of that, we were there to get some work done.”

Paul was simply amazed at the lengths the alumni band went to, to celebrate his retirement and when the curtain opened, he was simply stunned.

“I had no idea at all. I started seeing faces I hadn’t seen for so long. They looked the same, but different, it was an incredible gesture.”

We left Paul with the simple question of how he would like to be remembered as an educator and a person, now that his teaching days are over and his indelible mark on the fabric of Urangan State High School has come to a close.

“Look, I don’t know.”

“Probably just don’t take yourself too seriously and at the same time, the priority for me has always been the satisfaction of the students. Giving them the tools to make the best music we can.”

“It is too easy to be bogged down being an adult. Have a laugh.”

If it isn’t too cliché, perhaps it is right and true to end the story with, well played Mr Brindley, well played.