Australian Composers Orchestral Forum provides emerging composers the opportunity to work with a professional symphony orchestra
ACOF 2003 Participant - David Chisholm
David Chisholm's The Illusion of the End was a composition written for ACOF 2003.
...The composer, or so it appears, is a maverick. Not in the system, but clearly, as a cross-cultural phenomenologist, the composer effects the system in profound ways...
Composition Diary - August 2003
To set the scene, having had less than a successful relationship with my chosen mentor, I was hardly primed for the tutor teleconference. What a delight then to have such a detailed and constructive chat with Schultz and Broadstock (I leave off Christian names in the tradition of the composer canon, rather than a protest against Christianity).
I raced in from the studio and then raced back after the conference to the studio, where I was supervising the mastering of a just completed commission (Cazerine Barry's sprung 1/3 of Inside 03 for Melbourne Festival). It was only on the examination of my notes the following week that I realised I remembered about two things that the tutors had told me. So I meekly asked if they wouldn't mind me asking them again through e-mail. They of course, generously granted my request.
Once back into the writing though a lot of what they had said made sense, though I am a bit hung up on the no-no of using bassoon and trombone together. Neither Schultz or Broadstock were fans of the effect, and I don¹t want to go all Walter Pistony on anyone, but I am determined to find a relationship that would make them work together. Andrew and Brenton spoke of the difficulty in combination in almost mystical terms which made me immediately believe them to be right, but then, like the determined wilful apprentice determined to find a solution. I have not as yet but I ain't finished, yet the more I look into other scores particularly the Debussy sources material, the less evidence I have to support my quest, and the more I ally to the tutors words. Is all learning like this a resistance until all opposition is pointless or am I just stubborn? This is rhetoric. Please do not email me an answer.
I then had the panic - having so clearly stated upfront how smug and fast I was at writing music of not being able to fit the completion of the parts by the due date. Time management is the essence of what composers do, but the necessities of life and the arrival of unexpected opportunities (A seminar Lecturer at VCA 6000 words a week for 10 weeks) sickness that's 2 colds and a bout of gastro, and the death of a grandfather all crammed in since June 1 well!. Let's just say 2003 has had its challenges. Oh I forgot, I type this from my makeshift desk as the washing machine decided to flood my work station six days ago, and tomorrow is the day to by the new underlay and THEN rebuild my home studio. Noting was damaged, the piano if anything sounds a little better a not to self on the potential for a new subaquatic prepared piano piece.
Too proud to ask, an e-mail arrives with a revised deadline for parts and hallelujah, the panic attacks disappeared. So it is full steam ahead but all (just) manageable, I set myself up for this so completely by the arrogance of my first entry. Again with the whole learning the hard way thing. (If I have gone into Buffy-speak it is an act of mourning since the final episode aired this week.)
My major visit outside of the routine of home and VCA this week was to IPA a Mutual Obligation provided for Centrelink which leads me to the second point I promised in the close to my last diary entry. I was delighted with the service that a friendly guy named Brett provided me at their Windsor branch. I had put the meeting off once legitimately and had slept (in sickness) through the second meeting. So he had every reason to suspect me to be a very different kind of client. I assuaged him with my casual work at VCA and my voluntary work as Chair of Melbourne Fringe, and I guess my overall vocational uncertainty. It was all sorted in 30 minutes. On leaving I reflected how I have had to negotiate with many people throughout the years and have always received their recognition and support. Not bad when you consider that on the Centrelink vocational database composers are non-existent.
I am reminded here of Baudrillard's inhuman, and feel lucky to belong to such a long-standing influential and ultimately subversive workforce. The composer, or so it appears, is a maverick. Not in the system, but clearly, as a cross-cultural phenomenologist, the composer effects the system in profound ways. The composer is a sort of Rebel with a cause, like Orpheus, a mythical androgynous poster pin-up.
Rebels however, are never Generals. Rebels exist in the uncertainty of their own sustainability. As such they are forced to remain locked in hand to hand discursive combat, with the system that denies them a vocational identity, that denies them access to explore their vision, and ultimately with other composers. What this process, in writing for orchestra has given me is access access to an orchestra, and as it turns out to some damned good tutoring along the way. What is weighing on my mind already, it surely it must be the unspoken aspect of all the others is that of the six of us currently engaged in the programme, only four will continue in to next year. A sort of musical Big Brother. This is not a criticism of the structure, quite the reverse. ACOF rightly reflects the reality of support for composition and more broadly Arts in Australia, and - unintentionally I'm sure - all guerilla relationships. Ultimately, the pool is too small for everyone to drink from. But as I write this orchestral piece in the knowledge that has the assurance of being developed and performed by a real live orchestra, the water tastes very nice indeed.
