My name is Con Kalamaras. I am a first generation Greek Australian. I grew up in Coburg in Melbourne, and my practice is I perform music and also produce events in Melbourne.

I'm passionate about people's cultural backgrounds, regardless of where they come from and the importance that music and art has in maintaining people's cultural identity and also how that connects them to their past but also in their future. As well. And and having a sense of knowing where you've come from to know where you go, where you're going My connection to with me and my culture is that both parents were born and raised in Greece.

We lived in Greece for a little bit when we were younger, and that left a lasting impression on me as a person because we went to school there. We got to meet our relatives and also experience, you know, life in Greece and coming back to Australia. That's that's always been a big part of who I am and and and that's kind of like that.

That's my inspiration to to for what I do as a practitioner, as a music practitioner, is to maintain that and and to share that passion to people who are interested in sharing that. And I think that's knowing where people come from, regardless of their background, really paints a picture of understanding who people are and the importance of no anyone's backstory And I think it's when you know more about people's backgrounds, it gives you a greater understanding of you know, where people come from.
And I think that's that's that's really important to regardless of what nationality a person is, it's really important to understand people's backgrounds and their journey essentially as humans. And that's what informs me and inspires me to understand that the human spirit and how this feeds into it makes up. It makes us it makes our identity. Who we are.

That's why I love talking to older all the people, because they have such interesting stories to tell the role that arts play in connecting people in culture. Art as music as well is an international language. And I think that that's regardless if people understand the lyrics or the music, the emotion behind any song or any music is is cross-continental.

It doesn't matter where people come from. I'll give you an example every week. Me and a friend of mine, we organize alphabetical jam where we invite people from all backgrounds to come and jam with us every Wednesday at a specific venue. And the aim of it is to encourage people to learn about music regardless if they can speak the language and just just have a go in front of an audience.
And by doing this, we provide them with resources like a Dropbox link of sheet music and iPads raise and encourage them to come together. And outside of that, we've seen the flow on effects of people understanding of history and engaging with us regardless if they can speak the language. So that's how important music is and the role that it plays regardless of international borders is universal language diversity.

To me represents the actual fabric of this of of we're lucky to live in in Australia because we have this amazing mixture of First Nations and their amazing history and also the post-war migrants that have come to Australia and, and the diversity that comes with all the cultures coming together, living together in one huge melting pot, which is very exciting.