From conducting orchestras to leading the UNSW Innovation Hub, Carly Vickers’ career has been built on collaboration.
Dr Carly Vickers’ creative career has spanned design, orchestral music performance and conducting. It’s a unique path stemming from a decision to embrace opportunities when the time is right.
Her work as Director of the UNSW Innovation Hub focuses on curating and facilitating project teams to create meaningful societal impact. The Hub started as an Arts, Design & Architecture initiative in 2021 and has now expanded University wide. Its collaborative approach to innovation has drawn on Carly’s own design practice, as well as her experience as a musician and conductor.
Carly came to UNSW as a design undergraduate, before pursuing her PhD at the University while running a design studio and then moving into a permanent role in the School of Art & Design. Before her design and academic careers, she trained at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music and pursued a long-held desire to be an orchestral musician.
A childhood filled with music
Carly’s love of music began in primary school. At eight, she asked to learn what she thought was a unique instrument.
“I asked my mum if I could play the flute. I thought I was choosing an instrument no one else wanted to play, which ironically ended up being the complete opposite,” she said.
Carly says the many hours spent practising flute and rehearsing with ensembles helped build life skills, including commitment and an understanding of how practice contributes to mastery.
“I was very self-motivated. It gave me something to pour myself into, because I wasn’t athletic like many of my friends.”
Her goal was to study at the Con. At 18, she was offered a place in the Bachelor of Music Studies (Performance) program and moved from Wollongong to Sydney. While at the Con, she supported herself by teaching music and working as an ensemble conductor with the Department of Education.
Conducting a student ensemble for a performance at the Sydney Opera House.
Transferable collaboration skills
Music wasn’t the only creative career to catch Carly’s attention in high school. Her love of visual arts led to an interest in design.
She struggled to choose between music and design when considering careers, before realising she could pursue music and then move into design when the time was right.
“I decided that I wasn’t saying no to either. I was just going to pursue them in a way that would hopefully work.”
After her music degree, Carly began a design degree at UNSW while working as a musician, conductor and music teacher.
“By the end of the Con, I still loved music. It had been my whole life, but I realised I didn’t love the isolation of the practice room. In design, I swung the other way. Everything we do at the Innovation Hub is collaborative.
Her experience as a musician and conductor continue to influence her work today.
“My entire approach to design is informed by my training in music, either being the flute player in the orchestra or conducting the wind orchestra.”
Carly’s PhD focused on interdisciplinary creative practice, bringing together her love of music and design.
“I designed a visualisation system for live orchestral performance that is generated from the conductor’s gestures to help audiences new to classical music better understand the performance.
“When we were designing the philosophy for the Innovation Hub, we realised the work mirrors conducting in some aspects, because the conductor’s role is to bring musicians together to create something new. Similarly in design, if you bring together an interesting mix of people with expertise and you scaffold that so everyone has a voice, then something innovative will happen. I’m very grateful to be working in such a collaborative role, and at UNSW.”
The Innovation Hub team – Rogaya Alkaff, Carly Vickers and Michaela Turner.
Embracing each phase of life
Outside work, Carly’s focus is her family. With three young children, she’s continuously learning to lean into the current phase of life and discover quiet joy in the new experiences it brings.
“My favourite time of the week is Saturday mornings, because my two older kids are obsessed with their sport, so I like watching them play from the sidelines with my coffee.”
Visiting Turquoise Bay during her family’s road trip on the WA coastline from Albany to Exmouth.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given?
‘Trust the process’. I love that, because it’s integral to design, but it’s also integral to life.
Tell us something that might surprise your colleagues.
I love multi-day hikes and camping.
What’s something that makes you happy?
Simple answer: coffee in the morning, before the crazy. But the honest answer: a week when no one in my family is sick.
What’s a day in your life you’d like to relive?
We did a road trip of the Western Australia coastline while I was on maternity leave. On my birthday, my family surprised me by taking me off-route to the most amazing snorkelling spot, and then we had the best fish and chips I’ve ever eaten. It was a simple but perfect day.
What’s the best thing you’ve read in the last year?
A book called Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman about thinking through what you want to do and how you want to spend the time you’re given.
Image top: The best fish and chips Carly has ever eaten, from a tiny roadside tuck shop at Point Quobba, WA.
- Log in to post comments