Published by The Border Watch by Charlotte Varcoe
A MAMMOTH cash injection into the popular Generations in Jazz three-day event has been welcomed by a Mount Gambier/Berrin musical icon and event co-founder.
Dale Cleves welcomed a $720,000 state government funding announcement from Premier Peter Malinauskas over the weekend.
The funding will construct four permanent structures on the paddock owned by the organisers and while not in use will be repurposed for storage of caravans, motorhomes and boats.
The Generations in Jazz event attracted massive attention from Adelaide and other states with more than 4200 students battling it out against each other and a further 1000 members of the public cheering them on.
Mr Malinauskas attended the Saturday night gala concert alongside Minister for Arts Andrea Michaels and Minister for Regional Development Clare Scriven.
Leader of the Opposition David Speirs also attended alongside Member of the Legislative Council Ben Hood and Member for Barker Tony Pasin.
Member for Mount Gambier Troy Bell was also in attendance when Mr Malinauskas announced the funding which is expected to secure the future of the jazz festival.
Mr Cleves said the Generations in Jazz board was very excited about the funding stating it was a "tremendous help" to the organisation moving forward.
"We will be able to save about $100,000 which will then be spent on promoting our growing the event interstate," Mr Cleves said.
"Right now the event is primarily confined to Melbourne and Adelaide resorts and students in South Australia and Victoria.
"There was nothing out of New South Wales this year and just a little bit out of Queensland so the task ahead of us is to be able to grow the event which is what the Premier is all about with his support for Gather Round and all the wonderful things he has done for South Australia." He said the Premier was also excited for the potential to grow the jazz festival outside of Victoria and South Australia which would enable the board to fund or subsidise travel for students in New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia.
"By doing this, it will make Generations in Jazz a truly national event and the economic benefits of that will be tremendous because we will be bringing people into the region and that is a great benefit for the community," Mr Cleves said.
"We also have all our volunteers which are now coming from organisations who receive funding for it for their specific groups so it is making it truly a community event.
"It is exciting that South Australians own this event because if we decided for whatever reason to not host it anymore it would be nificance in comparison to the value of all the work and hours put into hosting the event.
"It is all about the music and music is powerful, it makes us want to move and creates a moment where we realise there is soul," Mr picked up by another state very quickly because it is so important." He said the event has become critical to music education programs in schools all across the state with students relying on it as part of their curriculum.
"There is a definite need for this and we are happy we are in this position," Mr Cleves said.
"This event launches careers and that is the beautiful thing about this, there are some great stories from the past 30 years and there have been people who have been introduced to music through this event and made a career out of it.
"It is going to make a wonderful difference to us and particularly with the weather, having solid structures will be great." He said although the structures would not be "over the top" they would be adequate and great for what was needed for the event as well as acoustically.
"This means it will be good for the music and the option of raising money through it via the community for storage which is great to raise extra funds," Mr Cleves said.
"We will only need the structures for two days of the year so it will be a good way to generate income for the event but the focus is very much on investing the money to make it a bigger event." While the plans continued to be in place and were expected to be before council soon, Mr Cleves said the structures would be sheds with colourbond iron and would "look attractive".
During his visit Mr Malinauskas said whatever the value of the money, it "paled" in significance Malinauskas said.
"Hearing the energy in the room, we know the soul is true and what that means is that the future of our country is in a very good position." With this year being the first year Mr Malinauskas had attended Generations in Jazz, he said Mr Bell and Mr Cleves remained strong advocates for the event.
"They said in their proposition to the government that if we fund the infrastructure they can use it to generate a revenue stream which would allow them to reinvest in the event," he said.
"The buyback on this makes a lot of sense and this event does have the capacity to grow and really take on a whole other level of being the singular event for music students around the country to be able to perform.
"The idea of it being the grand final of music events for young musicians throughout the nation is a really inspirational concept that we want back."