Issue 5, 2015: September AE NEWS newsletter of the Australia Ensemble @UNSW

Never Stand Still Music Performance Unit

September Events The creation of a new pearl Australia Ensemble @UNSW Several years ago, Ross Edwards’ piece Barossa Pearl made its name onto Free lunch hour concert a list of possible works for an Australia Ensemble concert program. It was a quintet dedicated to Edwards’ former teacher, Peter Maxwell Davies, who was Tuesday September 8, 2015 composer in residence at the 2000 Barossa Festival where it was fi rst performed. 1.10 - 2.00pm By contacting Ross Edwards to learn more about the piece’s suitability for the Leighton Hall, Scientia Building Australia Ensemble, it quickly emerged that it was a miniature, only 48 bars in Edwards: Binyang duration, and unfortunately not quite long enough for a subscription concert Moszkovski: Suite program. Maxwell Davies: Nocturne Australia Ensemble Artistic Chair, Paul Stanhope, had other ideas. He proposed Mozart: Trio ‘Kegelstatt’ to Edwards that a new work, perhaps a suite, be written for the Australia Ensemble’s 2015 season including the delightful miniature Barossa Pearl Australia Ensemble @UNSW as one of its movements, for the same colourful combination of instruments. Edwards leapt at the idea, and got straight to work on his fi ve-movement suite, Free lunch hour workshop Animisms, for fl ute, clarinet, percussion, violin and cello. Barossa Pearl was Thursday September 10, 2015 reworked to become the fi rst movement, Bubbles, as a celebration of affordable 1.10 - 2.00pm student wine, easy on the pocket but tough on the head the following morning. Leighton Hall, Scientia Building It has been reclaimed and extended in the composer’s words as a “cheerful Guitarist Karin Schaupp in a tribute to my teacher”. public masterclass with musicians As the fi nal touches were being added to the new piece in 2014, Ross Edwards from UNSW mentioned to percussionist Claire Edwardes that he had written the percussion part with her in mind. Claire Free, all welcome Composer Ross Edwards got in touch with the Australia [photo: Bridget Elliot] Ensemble, and immediately Australia Ensemble @UNSW came on board for the project, Subscription Concert 5, 2015 having enjoyed a long history Saturday September 12, 2015 with Edwards’ music. Claire 8.00pm noted some features in the Sir John Clancy Auditorium new work with which she has Maxwell Davies: Renaissance become familiar: “I noticed Scottish Dances that he has extended the marimba with temple blocks, Westlake: Songs from the forest a clever technique Ross used Edwards: Animisms (fi rst perf.) in his More Marimba Dances, Schubert: Piano Quintet in A which he wrote for me in major D667 ‘The Trout’ 2004. There are snippets of this piece which creep in and Burgundian Consort give Animisms a real Ross In love and war Edwards colouring.” Wednesday September 23, 2015 Like the shorter Barossa 7.30pm Pearl, Edwards has Sir John Clancy Auditorium dedicated the new work to Choral works of passion, devotion composer Sir Peter Maxwell Davies, with whom he and remembrance including studied at Adelaide’s Elder Gibbons, Parry, Pärt, Janequin & Conservatorium in the mid- Jackson sixties. Studying with him must have been an experience: www.music.unsw.edu.au certainly anecdotal evidence indicates he is quite the character. He was ‘cautioned’ in 2005 for the “possession of a swan’s corpse”, since all swans in the United Kingdom are the property of the Crown. During a visit to Las Vegas, he was temporarily lost - no one seemed able to locate him at any hotel, despite trying ‘Maxwell Davies’, ‘Davies’, ‘Max’ (his informal nickname) , ‘Sir Peter’ and every other possible combination. It was fi nally discovered that the hotel had registered him as ‘Mavis’, which inspired the composer to produce the orchestral piece Mavis in Las Vegas. Maxwell Davies recently retired as Master of the Queen’s Music at the age of 80, a role he declared himself an unlikely choice for as he was a Republican, although, as with so many other ‘Republicans’ his views changed when he had personal contact with the Queen. Ross Edwards’ dedication to his former teacher is for the occasion of his 80th birthday, which was celebrated in September 2014. Animisms’ sources are highly eclectic and contrasted, and the composer describes it as “light but not trite”. Edwards intentionally refers to Southeast Asian fl avours, indigenous Australian elements with a maninya (Australian dance chant) as often used in his music, a lovesong from his 1983 chamber opera Christina’s World, and the central Madagascan Percussionist Claire Edwardes folksong movement of his 1979 sextet Laikan, a work well-known to Australia Ensemble [photo: Monty Coles] audiences. Greg Keane & Sonia Maddock Inside the mind game The house lights go down, an amplify the problem, making it expectant hush falls over the even harder for performers to audience and there you are side- play with emotional abandon stage, peering out from behind the free from the anxiety of being black curtain, wishing it could envelop judged. you so you didn’t have to go on Fortunately, stagefright doesn’t stage… Your hands are freezing, your happen TO us: we do it to heart is pounding, you’re quivering all ourselves and recognizing the over, and a deluge of anxious mind enemy inside is a huge fi rst chatter tortures you: “What if I fail? step towards helping ourselves. What if I have a memory lapse? What It’s also important initially to if I get stuck in that fast passage? differentiate between fear and What if the audience doesn’t like my anxiety, both of which can performance?” contribute to stagefright: And the inevitable question : “Why do Fear is a reaction to a real I do this to myself!?” danger. For example, it’s Almost every performer has reasonable to be worried experienced some variation of this about a performance if one scene at some point, and many, even is musically ill-prepared. seasoned professionals, silently and Preparation is key and musical habitually suffer in this way before education typically provides and during every single performance. strong skills in this area. Guest guitarist Karin Schaupp is also a Experience helps some, but in many Anxiety, however, is an irrational researcher in performance anxiety cases the problem actually worsens reaction to an imagined danger, [photo: Matt Black] as a performer’s career progresses one we create in our minds. Both fear and anxiety often trigger the and the stakes become higher. Anxiety is at the root of much of what fi ght-or-fl ight response, an ancient Sportspeople spend years learning we refer to as stagefright and this physical survival response designed many forms of mental training (and is where our education is lacking. to help us to fi ght or fl ee physical have done for decades now), yet This anxiety requires a multi-faceted danger. Our nervous system ‘means musicians are largely left to fend for approach, but there is no question well’ when it triggers this response themselves with minimal education that it can be effectively overcome. in our bodies, giving us a burst of about handling the substantial Performers can help themselves in adrenalin, taking blood away from pressures of a performance situation. a deep and lasting way with a series the extremities to the big muscles, Somehow it’s still taboo to admit of self-help techniques borrowed to a hastening our breathing and heart- that you suffer from stagefright, large extent from sport psychology, rate to give us extra brute strength even though it is no indication of namely: relaxation, imagery, for survival. All of this enables us to a performer’s talent, dedication or systematic desensitisation and perform great physical feats, but we ability. In truth, stagefright is much cognitive restructuring techniques lose fi ne motor control and we are not more widespread than we care to combined with a healthy dose of in a balanced state of emotional ease admit and the exams and competitions philosophical soul-searching and Zen. and openness, all of which makes so many musicians grow up with often musical performance very diffi cult. chatter can also be reduced through a word for this: they call it “fl ow”, a Using relaxation techniques, some simple cognitive techniques state where even the most diffi cult it’s surprisingly easy to learn to called cognitive restructuring. and complex tasks become effortless consciously control this otherwise Thus by employing rather basic self- and the athlete feels completely at automatic nervous system response help techniques we can learn to regain one with him/herself and the universe. and thus reduce the physical control over much of what feels for so I daresay this magical state is the symptoms of performance anxiety. many of us uncontrollable. ultimate goal for all musical performers As for our subconscious expectations, And once we’re free of the cold shaky also, the pinnacle of years of hard work we can learn to infl uence these hands, the mind chatter, the negative and of facing our imagined limitations. through combining relaxation and expectations, the deep inner doubts It is a place beyond ourselves, beyond imagery techniques in a specifi c and the pounding heart, we can ask our ego, where stagefright becomes technique called systematic ourselves some important questions: deeply irrelevant and we can discover desensitisation, in which we gradually “What is musical performance all our true calling as vehicles for the undo our subconscious anxieties about? What am I actually doing on beauty of music, that which cannot be around performing. We can use stage? Why am I driven to do this and properly expressed in words. imagery to create perfect, stress-free what do I want to give the audience? performances, which will have just as Am I ready to really let go and to Karin Schaupp completed her much impact on our nervous system lose my ego and become completely Masters thesis at The University of as our real experiences. Sportspeople immersed in the music? Can I fi nd Queensland creating a manual for around the world employ these an inner sanctuary where the music helping performers to overcome techniques on a daily basis and ‘plays itself’?” musical performance anxiety. She has the nervous system becomes We’ve all seen musical magic on been invited to lecture on this subject re-programmed to respond to a stage, where time appears to stand at festivals and tertiary institutions performance situation with relaxation, still. The music almost takes on a around the world and is currently rather than triggering the fi ght-or-fl ight life of its own and there is a deep working on a book for students and response. communion between the performer/s professional performers. The performer’s typical torturous mind and the audience. Sportspeople have Vale Roger Smalley (1943-2015)

It was with great sadness that we received the recent stylish Variations on a Theme of Chopin for solo piano news that composer, pianist and teacher, Roger Smalley, especially for Ian. The piece is a re-imagining of a Chopin passed away after a long battle with poor health. Mazurka into a remarkable set of variations, setting out British-born Smalley was, in the early 1970s, part of the a vast tapestry of musical sound. Smalley’s earlier, edgy vibrant modernist set of composers in London, having fi rst modernist style had been rounded out by a regard for studied in Manchester and later with the likes of Karlheinz the Romantic piano repertoire that he performed, while Stockhausen in Europe. After an invitation from Sir Frank retaining all the creative energy, imagination and rigour of Callaway to teach at the University of Western Australia in his modernist training. 1974, Roger made Australia his base. Moving from one of Refl ecting further on the connection between Chopin and the centres of the cultural world to one of the world’s most Roger’s music, Ian Munro writes: isolated cities was an extraordinary act of courage. From “Roger has written a number of major chamber works his base in Perth, teaching both composition and piano, of great power and beauty, which have Chopin’s music Roger was a profound infl uence on many of his students as thematic material in one way or another. I count the and on the music scene in Australia in general. Piano Quintet of 2003 and the Piano Trio of 1991 among Roger was an extremely fi ne pianist and conductor in the fi nest.” addition to his compositional activities. He performed with As a sneak preview of our 2016 the Australian Piano Quartet in the 1990s and the Arensky season, I’m proud to Piano Trio in the 1970s and 1980s. His fi rst Piano Concerto announce that the – in which the composer performed the solo part – was Australia Ensemble awarded the highly regarded ‘Recommended Work’ prize will perform Roger’s in the 1987 UNESCO International Rostrum of composers. Piano Quintet which The Australia Ensemble is proud to have been associated he composed in 2003. with Roger and his works, having commissioned Poles Roger Smalley’s memory Apart (1992) which the ensemble has performed numerous will live long through times (most recently in 2008) in Australia as well as for the music he has left a tour of Japan. The Ensemble also had commissioned us. We look forward him for a new work which, due to deteriorating health, to continuing this he was unfortunately not able to complete. In our 2014 remarkable legacy program, we also included Roger’s smart and spritely Trio long into the for clarinet, viola and piano. future. The Ensemble’s pianist, Ian Munro, has worked extensively Paul Stanhope, with Roger Smalley over the years. Roger wrote his Artistic Chair Greater than the sum of its parts On a good night, choral music is a buzz unlike anything else. When that fi nal ‘Amen’ rings out into the church or the concert hall, rich with overtones, it makes the heart leap and the soul fl y. Especially with a small group of singers performing unaccompanied repertoire, it can be a thrilling meeting of minds with near-limitless expressive possibilities. Whatever the mood – solemn, irreverent or joyous – the existence of the text enables each musician to imbue their performance with their own personal experiences, making for music which is so much greater than the sum of its parts. The Burgundian Consort at UNSW has offered this world of possibilities to students, staff and community members alike since 1985, when it was created as an elite arm of Sam Hile, tenor (right), and the the Collegium Musicum Choir by Dr Patricia Brown. The Burgundian Consort in performance (above) chamber choir, which typically contains twelve to eighteen singers, meets once a week to rehearse challenging Ballad of the Green Broom as one of the many highlights unaccompanied repertoire and presents an evening recital of his time in the Consort. “I really enjoy the challenging in September each year where all their hard work comes works – it’s exhilarating to feel that we’re teetering on the to fruition. Just a few of the highlights of the last fi ve years brink of falling into a disastrous mess [this rarely happens – have been Aaron Copland’s In the Beginning, Benjamin Ed.], especially when the audience is aware of that as well Britten’s fi endish Sacred and Profane and Martin Wesley- and you can feel everyone holding their breath.” (laughs) Smith’s quirky choral opus Who Killed Cock Robin? Singing in a small, unaccompanied group also comes With such an enormous range of choral delicacies in its pre-packaged with its own unique challenges. “The repertoire, the annual Burgundian Consort recital is always small ensemble regime,” Sam says, apologising for the a memorable highlight of the UNSW choral year. physics terminology, “is interesting in that it’s between Entry to the group is based on audition, particularly on the extremes of a quartet where you don’t need to worry each applicant’s ability to sight-read music (no easy task!) so much about blending your tone because it’s just you and perform in a small group. While there are typically singing the tenor part, and a large choir where you don’t a signifi cant number of undergraduate music students need to worry so much about blending your tone because amongst the Consort’s ranks, some of the longest- you are statistically insignifi cant. It’s been interesting over standing members are drawn from outside the music the years, as I think I’ve had to shift what I would naturally department. Tenor Sam Hile, for example, is completing do on my own in different directions to fi t with the group as his PhD in physics and is currently singing his eighth year different singers have come and gone.” in the Burgundian Consort. What keeps him coming back? Finally, I ask Sam what listeners can expect from this “Burgundians has been a fantastic way to keep some year’s recital, In Love and War, taking place on Wednesday music in my life,” Sam says. “It’s been great to take a few September 23 at 7.30pm in the Sir John Clancy Auditorium. hours out of my week and switch gears, balance out the “It has a rather patriotic feel to it all. In Love and War - it left brain/right brain, and even just hang out with a different makes sense for war, but even the pieces you’d associate group of people. Musicians and physicists are equally with love, they hold that love up as something to be proud crazy, though.” (laughs) of. If you come to the concert, hopefully you’ll leave feeling uplifted and invigorated.” Rehearsing for two hours each week can be a tiring but ultimately rewarding process, with plenty of time for Now under the leadership of choral director Sonia Maddock, laughs along the way. Sam loves the “just-have-a-crack- the Burgundian Consort continues to bring the wonderful at-it” attitude. “The miracle of Gundies is that the fi rst run- world of unaccompanied choral music to musicians and through of a piece usually is a pretty good approximation audiences alike. Don’t miss the annual recital in September, of what it’s supposed to be, and if it’s not, we all have a in which you’ll hear not only Australia Ensemble pianist Ian good laugh at how bad it was!” Munro, but also the remarkable power of eighteen very different musicians singing in harmony. Sam singles out Benjamin Britten’s lithe (and very diffi cult!) Luke Iredale An apology and an update Many ladies in our audience were inconvenienced at the August concert 2016 Australia Ensemble concerts: by some problems with the bathroom facilities in the Sir John Clancy Concert 1: Saturday March 19, 2016 Auditorium. The problem is an ongoing one requiring substantial work, Concert 2: Saturday April 16, 2016 and the MPU has been assured that a temporary solution will be in Concert 3: Saturday May 14, 2016 place to accommodate our audience for the remaining performances Concert 4: Saturday August 13, 2016 of 2015 until a permanent resolution is achieved. Thank you for your Concert 5: Saturday September 10, 2016 patience, and again we apologise for any inconvenience. Concert 6: Saturday October 15, 2016 Music Performance Unit p: +61 2 9385 4874 UNSW Sydney NSW 2052 f: +61 2 9313 7326 AUSTRALIA e: [email protected]