Part C

ARTS INSPIRATION: PROFILE

Name: Rob Farhat

Occupation: Talent Development + Programmer at Serious

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Rob kindly agreed to be interviewed and the following is a summary:

Previous Experience:

Having grown up with a conservative Classical music education even heading towards a career as a pianist studying at the Royal Irish Academy of Music, it was when Rob started getting interested in other kinds of music beginning with Radiohead in his teens that he broadened his horizons and began to be exposed to a much wider scope of styles. Studying politics, philosophy and majoring in economics at Trinity College Dublin, music became much less of a focus until he got involved with the orchestra, arranging Daft Punk’s Discovery Album and promotion.

Straight out of College working for a tech conference, Rob managed to save up enough to then branch out and carve his own path with music in Ireland. Deciding it was too late to venture forward as the type of musician he’d like to have been, he moved forward looking to provide support for up and coming musicians playing on his skill set.

Does your background as a musician help you in your current line of work as a programmer?

“Yes, I see all these other musicians who are brilliant and have no other support. So, why don’t I use the skills and what I’ve learnt to support them…It helps me understand what musicians are going through. It also helps earn the respect of musicians, as I know what I’m talking about, especially classical even jazz related music with the theoretical and technical understanding. But I don’t think you have to have been some high level musician to be a successful music programmer/producer. It might help but it’s not a necessity.”

The Ireland experience: Current Music Scene

“The culture of funding is very weighted towards the establishment. Currently it doesn’t foster a culture of talent development or learning and participation. Music isn’t often seen as serious but is often seen as a hobby. Ireland is very clientalistic, and wouldn’t be aware whats happening at the grassroots level. Music is great and musicians are great but the support for it isn’t there. However, although there is less ego in Ireland, you can’t criticise anyone, even constructively. You’re either a cheerleader or a hater!”

If we were to turn this part around and ask you for your own arts inspiration, would anyone come to mind?

“A company promotor called Bodytonic which were on mainly dance music who started in the middle of the recession, then pubs, then a few nightclubs and the only real night worth going to in Dublin. Now having moved away from the clubbing business, they do pubs who do nice food. Trev O-Shea who runs this is one of the few people who would speak his mind, being so charismatic and funny he got away with it. Another mentor in Dublin was a lady called Laura Garbataviciute who ran an arts collective in Dublin called BlockT who I really looked up to. She was one of the few people who gave me some direct guidance. Over here in the UK, John Cumming (Previous Director of Serious) definitely features for his knowledge and work.”

“Also, the director of the Tech company who was a real go-getting person who has gone from a 200 person conference in a lecture theatre to a 20000 person conference in Lisbon. I learned a lot from him how to grow things and market things, and take the good things and learn from and avoid what wasn’t as positive. I think it’s really healthy to have experience outside of music even if you want a career inside of music. The music world is a bubble and the people we want to come to our events aren’t all musicians. So in order to understand people who aren’t musicians it helps to understand people outside of music. “

What do you want to achieve with your time at Serious?

“I’d like to get to a point were we really connect with the younger audience, which is a gradually process we have started already. This is through a process of programming, marketing and messaging. We have direct influence over one of those things. To elaborate about the younger audience, it is a complicated issue. It’s something new for London to push things forward and that’s why we are here I suppose. “

Personal Reflection

Learning about Rob’s musical education added numerous levels to his own trajectory and his desire for supporting artists shows through his passion for the talent development schemes. I really valued hearing about his own experience outside the music industry and agree that in my future work, not focusing solely within one field allows for a much wider knowledge and insight into not only other industries but the workings of different types of people as well.