Australian Composers Orchestral Forum provides emerging composers the opportunity to work with a professional symphony orchestra
KATY ABBOTT : C_C_C Participant
Composer Progress Diary
Katy Abbott's Composer Diary for her two works Fast Ride in Suave Machine and Mirage.
Orchestras involved in the project:
- Pembroke Symphony Orchestra (PSO) in South Australia;
- Sunshine Coast Orchestra (SCO) in Queensland;
- North Sydney Symphony Orchestra (NSSO) in New South Wales
- St Peters College (SPC) & Walford Anglican School for Girls (WASG) in South Australia
January 2006
I have now met all conductors and most ensembles involved in the project. This was a good experience.
I noticed that some of the participants seemed to significantly ‘relax’ towards the end of our meetings. Perhaps they felt they had signed up to something they were unsure about. I think perhaps, they were unsure about me. Most hadn’t heard my music before and only a few had heard about me. Meeting them face-to-face was reassuring.
I have had a few follow-up emails from Adelaide expressing excitement and pleasure about the project. I am writing for four ensembles (3 performing the one piece). This is the one thing that I have felt will be the most challenging aspect to the project.
The rough short score to the orchestral piece is in place, and I am now tackling the orchestration. I will orchestrate it for the smallest ensemble first; the solution being that I can then double parts where necessary for the larger ensembles. Each orchestra clearly has its own sound, level of experience, distinct instrumentation and familiarity with new works. Therefore it feels a bit like trying to design an article of clothing that will fit more than one body-type. Of course, many people have come up with such designs (think of the wrap dress/skirt)!
Have more than begun the string orchestral work but received an email from the director of Bay City Strings stating that she is retiring and is now not sure about the size or level of the ensemble I will be writing for. Understandable but the new contact person is not contactable and time is ticking. A date has been finalised for 19/8 for the premieres.
February 2006
More contact with ensemble directors. Pembroke College have been great in responding to emails regarding instrumentation so therefore the orchestration is well underway.
Robert Proudfoot from Sunshine Coast Orchestra wrote to let me know he has resigned, which is a shame as I felt there would be a good working relationship there.
Apparently, Bay City Strings is no longer appropriate for the project and Orchestras Australia is looking at other options.
It seems as though the instrumentation for Fast Ride is settling. There may not even need to be two versions as Pembroke Symphony Orchestra (who are premiering the work) have a smaller brass section. It was the brass that was proving to be the section that would change the most. I have included 2 trumpets as they suit the work and all orchestras said they would get professionals in to cover trumpet parts.
North Sydney Symphony Orchestra has now locked in rehearsal and performance dates and is quite enthusiastic about the piece. I described the program to Steven Hillinger who responded positively. He seemed pleased that the piece was well underway, and that he would have score and parts ready for first rehearsal in June.
The program for the piece is developing. It began as just a fun syncopated piece: Fast Ride in a Suave Machine. First and foremost I wanted to compose something that all the participating orchestras and audiences would enjoy. I’ve always liked this title and although it alludes to the John Adams work Short Ride in a Fast Machine, it really is not related. As I began work on the short score, the first two bars of the tune to Three Blind Mice began to emerge. Although the other harmonic material makes it sounds like a distant cousin of this nursery rhyme. Having a rough sketch done, I experimented with some chords to overlay. They sound, in context, quite ‘dark’ in nature. Although I really wanted to work with this sound world I didn’t quite know how to relate it to the piece and worried it would be too dark for the setting for which I am writing. Even when the conspicuous three-note descending pattern attributed to Three Blind Mice was evident, I did not proceed with linking the theme to the piece until much further down the track. The interesting aspect about this development was that anything related to the nursery rhyme is an after-thought and overlaid and inserted into the score. One could listen to the whole score and not necessarily hear the ‘mouse’ link. A little vocal exercise used in choral rehearsals as a student (good for diction!) kept returning to the forefront of my mind throughout the writing of the piece. It was used in our vocal warm-ups under the direction of Faye Dumont. I include it here just for fun. It is sung to the tune of Three Blind Mice:
Three rodents with defective visual perception
Three rodents with defective visual perception
See how they perambulate
See how they perambulate
They perambulated around an agriculturalists spouse
Who cut of their hind appendages with a kitchen utensil
Have you ever seen such a sight in your existence as
Three rodents with defective visual perception
After speaking to a friend and having a little laugh about the real meaning of the nursery rhyme, she suggested that all those nursery rhymes are quite gruesome. I have been listening to many nursery rhymes recently and many are quite violent or just depressing. Take Ring-a-ring-a-Rosie, it’s about the black plague, Rock a bye baby – the cradle and baby fall, and Three Blind Mice – the mice get chased for their tails. Gruesome. I decided to incorporate the ‘see how they run’ melody into ‘overlay’ chords. Given the harmony and the fast, syncopated rhythm underneath, it works very well.
I now think the ‘dark’ nature of the piece is totally appropriate. It is almost satire. Not unlike Roald Dahl’s Revolting Rhymes. I hope the youth orchestras will enjoy the modern rhythms; the community orchestras will enjoy the fun and naughty humour of the context ;and audiences will be aware of the link but feel as though they are hearing a new piece.
March 2006
The pieces are coming along well now which is good, as I always panic way too early.
Fast Ride is at the fun stage of the compositional process for me now. It is completely sketched out, and I can spend time mulling over getting it slick.
It looks like there will be two versions (at least) again as St Peter’s in Adelaide will perform the work with Walford Girls’ Grammar School and it will be 100+ players. I will complete the first version for the smaller orchestras and then bulk it up for St Peter’s.
More dates set for the national and state premieres.
I began to expand on some of the ideas I had for the string orchestra. Although the performers aren't set yet, I am sticking to the standard string orchestra score and the level similar to BCS.
The initial idea comes from attending the BCS rehearsal last October. When warming up, the conductor asked the orchestra to play in unison on ‘D’ beginning ppp with a crescendo to ff. They did this very well and the sound was a lovely unison as well as creating an interesting mood. I have begun the work based on the unison ‘D’ then expanding the idea of the crescendo but moving gradually to chord clusters. Even if BCS don’t end up performing the piece, at least there is some connection there. Given BCS’s ability to create a tight sound (for young players), I thought I would capitalise on this and focus on this idea.
Whilst working with these sounds, I was reminded somehow of the journey towards a mirage. The beautiful illusion of something we want — something we think we have seen, wished we have seen but is not the reality of the moment. A mirage can be literal or metaphorical. Either way, it is something experienced. For want of a better cliché (!), — a journey. I thought a junior string orchestra would understand and may appreciate the concept. This is how I committed to the idea of mirage. The opening (described above) is the emerging illusion and becomes more complex harmonically over the following bars to incorporate the quickening excitement that gives the traveller hope to continue forward.
The BCS ensemble, although not the group to end up premiering the piece, were influential in this way to the conception of the piece. The Margaret Southerland Strings did a great job of working with the musical elements of the piece to create various moods within the work. In this way, the piece was tricky. The musical ‘shimmer’ of the illusion required the orchestra to work together by listening intently. MGS achieved this effect.
July 2006
I am in the process of visiting the orchestras during rehearsal, which so far, has been useful for both myself and the orchestra members. I have visited NSSO and SCO.
I think it was interesting to meet the orchestra as I was able to give them an account of why and how I wrote the piece. I could literally see their faces relax while I was talking. Perhaps they were nervous about playing a piece to the composer when it was obviously not yet fully rehearsed?
NSSO were without percussion and brass and will be until closer to the performance. In some ways this was a shame as the brass parts particularly add the flavour of the ‘dark and gruesome’ side to the programmatic element of the work. Once this was explained, I could see they felt they had a better understanding of the piece.
Both orchestras had spent time already rehearsing the syncopated rhythms and so this was a good time for me to come in. In both rehearsals I was able to make small orchestral changes (octaves, etc.) and because the SCO were ready to begin turning notes into music, we had a lot of fun experimenting with a few textures and I even added three bars to the ending, which I feel now built the suspense further. This appeared to be a ‘connecting’ experience for myself to/with the orchestra. It was musically satisfying and also fun to work with them in this way. When I first heard the ending, I immediately realised the ending was too short. Without re-writing it and re-doing parts etc, we had to come up with a solution then and there. I asked them to try out three different endings, picked one and we made the changes. There was a feeling of camaraderie (at least from my part!) that added to the satisfaction of attending the rehearsal.
During the break in both rehearsals, the conductors said something to the effect, that they (the orchestras) had initially struggled with the rhythms, but had worked quite hard on them. Following the session with me there, they could sense a change in the way the orchestra was working as well as an enthusiasm that was not there previously. I was really pleased to hear Nick Brown from SCO say that I had ‘won them over’. The SCO (whom I don’t think have had much experience working with composers and are certainly the smallest orchestra in the project) were really buzzing by the end of the session. The ending sounded terrific, and when they had played it through for the last time, there was a communal ‘wow’. I was buzzing so much that I couldn’t sleep that night. One reason was because the piece continually builds suspense, and this was the first time I had really heard it. Secondly, I was relieved that they were enjoying it (as this was one of my aims for the piece) and that they could master the complex rhythms.
The next rehearsal that I will attend is with the school orchestras. I am not so concerned about the rhythms in this scenario since the students are more likely to be familiar and comfortable with such syncopation due to their exposure (particularly the wind/brass) in playing in the school wind/brass/jazz ensembles.
From all this writing about rhythms, it seems as though they are a big deal. Actually they are not at all. They are the sort of rhythm that a choir would pick up in an instant because they need to be learnt (in my opinion) by singing and then played. If one can sing it and feel it, it is easy to play. I could see that once the orchestras tried these rhythms ‘at speed’, they fell into place. They have risen to the challenge.
August 2006
Visiting Adelaide on Monday, I was only able to visit one orchestra, the St Peter’s and Walford Girls’ Grammar School combined orchestra. Unfortunately, the Pembroke Symphony Orchestra rehearses on a Friday and so I will not see them rehearse until they visit Melbourne.
The combined orchestra is another story again. The community orchestras are small and are ‘making do’ finding the right instrumentalists and hoping people make it to rehearsal while the school orchestras have elaborate compulsory rehearsal schedules in place.
The St. Peter’s/Walford combined orchestra was so large I had to hear them in two separate rooms – brass and woodwind and then strings. The brass and wood wind sections seem quite on top of the rhythms and are working towards mood, etc. The strings were still grappling with the dots on the page, but are well on their way. Many of the brass players were also in the jazz/big band so the syncopated rhythms were quite straight forward for them.
Post Performances
Overall, I feel very pleased with my pieces and the professional way the orchestras approached tackling and performing a new work. I was able to be at all state premieres except the Sunshine Coast Orchestra which was scheduled for the same day as NSSO which I had already committed to attend.
It was really valuable hearing the piece multiple times over a short period especially by different orchestras. Each performed the work with their own flavour and experience. Every orchestra in my opinion, had a successful performance. This is something I was not necessarily expecting. In such a situation where one piece has been written for multiple orchestras of varying level, size and instrumentation, I could not expect all orchestras to necessarily have the rehearsal time, the ‘genre’ experience (with some quite syncopated rhythms) and resources. However, in all cases, the conductors were very communicative and I believe the success of the premieres, is in part, due to the sometimes extensive email and phone conversations I had with the conductors. Attending the rehearsals was also key. I did not attend the Pembroke Symphony rehearsal and although they did a very slick and professional sounding performance, the tempo was much faster than I would have preferred and this is something very easily discussed in a rehearsal situation. Of course, the conductor is welcome to interpret the piece in whatever way she/he chooses (and this is indeed part of the fun of the composition process) but in this case, a slower tempo (at least for the premiere) would have been preferable. As it was, the world premiere was very well received at the Orchestral Australia Awards and the faster tempo was known to none but me.
Following the very slick Pembroke performance, I went to Adelaide to hear the massed orchestra. Again, quite a different sound. I thought it worked well for massed orchestra and the conductor was especially careful to ensure the ‘heaviness’ of the size of the orchestra did not impede on the drive of the piece. North Sydney Symphony was again a different story with a smaller and community sized orchestra with a different but enjoyable interpretation. Fast Ride in a Suave Machine opened the concert which, worked very well and I had many positive comments from members of the audience including other orchestral players who had come along to hear the work.
A couple of people commented at the awards night that Mirage, the string orchestra work composed for the Margaret Sutherland Strings at Melbourne Youth Music was their favourite piece. I was particularly thrilled with the way in which the younger players managed to create the ‘feeling’ of the mirage. This may have been due to the enthusiasm of the conductor and the fact that I attended a few rehearsals but still, they grasped the concept and were able to translate this into their playing and played more than just the notes. I look forward to hearing this piece again.
I appreciate the efforts of Orchestras Australia, and in particular Rachelle Elliott, in this project. Rachelle has been easy to work with, available and innovative in her ideas about what the word ‘connecting’ means in the context of this project. The project was a great deal of fun for me. Composing the works, travelling to meet and work with the musicians and being part of a nation-wide event was a tremendous honour. I am very pleased to have been thought of for such a project. Many thanks to the Music Board of the Australia Council for providing Orchestras Australia and myself with such an opportunity, and I am happy to be of assistance with providing further thoughts if required.
