A Sensational Sunday With Elena
The Sydney Conservatorium of Music’s 101 Compositions for 100 Years flagship project continues to build momentum towards its centenary in 2015. Elena Kats-Chernin is The Marquee Australian Composer for 2011. A special Sensational Sunday concert on 6 March 2011 is devoted to Elena’s haunting and distinctive works including three Sydney and one world premieres. Julie Simonds chats with Elena.
JS: Most people have heard Eliza Aria sung by Jane Sheldon and Re-inventions played on recorder by Genevieve Lacey. It must be exciting to see so many of your works take a different form and instrumentation?
EK-C: Yes, it is always exciting. I don't always get a chance to hear all the different versions. For example, a musician in Holland made a version for brass band of this piece about a year ago and, while I saw and approved the score, I never heard its performance. I think that by now there are almost ten versions of Eliza Aria in existence, mostly all arrangements done by me. I find that having another version of the piece gives it another chance in life. There are so many ensembles out there and often they are quite unique.
One such version was for Kurrawong Ensemble, which is bass clarinet/viola/cello/piano.
JS: This is the Sydney premiere of Moth-Eaten Rag for clarinet and piano. Where did this come from?
EK-C: One day in January 2010 clarinettist Nicole Canham, a friend of mine and I discussed a possible recording project to collaborate on and we thought that it would be fun to base it on textiles of all sorts. We also went through some sketches and just played with the idea of crepe de chin, wool, nylon etc. At one time I played a snippet of a motive that I once used in a soundtrack for a silent film in 1996, called Phantom Chariot. While I played a couple of bars, Nicole said that it sounded like moth-eaten textile, because of the way the staccato notes sound a bit like ‘holes in the texture’. So I decided to expand on this material and make it into a piece, now called Moth Eaten Rag. We premiered it in May 2010 in a concert of my pieces at the Canberra International Music Festival. Of course, I had to write another version of it, as I often do. And so there is a version for Carillon out there, written for Lyn Fuller, it is one movement out of a suite called Ragged Bells, written in February 2010.
JS: You have been busily composing an opera, working with the QSO as composer in residence and now! A bassoon concerto! Where do you find the time?
EK-C: I ask myself the exact same question, quite often! Well, actually it is not so hard, if you skip going out anywhere and seeing people, which is, of course, impossible and not healthy. So how do I find time? I am sure this is repetition of what all busy people say: it is all possible with good organisation and intense focussing. The best way for me to work is to have one project that I am composing from scratch, then parallel to that another which is in the process of instrumentation, perhaps one or two more which I am in the process of editing, putting in last details. So switching between projects every couple of hours inside a full working day is the ideal way, as it does not feel tedious. When I worked on the opera The Rage of Life, it was quite relentless, as it was a 90 minute work for eight singers and 18 instruments, altogether about 700 pages and that did not quite allow for any other project to be happening parallel to that and I missed that juggling-also that kind of ‘19-hour day at the piano’ routine is not actually something I like to do that often, not for so many months. I am very happy to move onwards from that opera as it filled out the whole year and I felt in some way that I actually did not compose enough instrumental works. So I am catching up now. The residency with Queensland Symphony Orchestra means that I have to provide more orchestra pieces than I have written and so I have just arranged two works for orchestra Village Idiot and Alexander Rag. I did this parallel to writing a vocal piece. I can do arranging and instrumentation while I am on the road or in hotels or on the plane, but composing from scratch needs a different kind of concentration, it can not be fragmented, it has to be constant and I need to be in my own environment, with my piano, my manuscript paper and pens right there in my vicinity at all times. So with the bassoon concerto, I was at home and composed the structure of it before I left for Stuttgart where the opera was performed. But once there I could start instrumentation of it in all the places that I travelled to (Berlin, Stuttgart, and Brisbane) and finished it when back home in Sydney.
JS: You have been commissioned by the Sydney Conservatorium's Dean – Professor Kim Walker to compose a bassoon concerto for strings, percussion and piano which will be premiered at the concert. Where did the ideas come for this piece and what influences are you using?
EK-C: I was so pleased when Kim Walker, who is a wonderful bassoonist, asked me to compose the bassoon concerto for her. Bassoon is one of my favourite instruments. It feels often underused. There are many modern music ensembles that don't even have bassoon. I find that it has incredibly rich colourful sound and a great range. In the top register it sounds haunting, lyrical and woody and the very bottom is mysterious, while in the middle it is rich and strong.
This piece gave me a chance to reflect on my time as a student at the Con, admittedly a very long time ago. I used to come here for my studies each day and those daily trips gave me time to watch Sydney while using different modes of transport and walking. My memory went back to each day starting with a bright morning, hopping on the bus to Bondi Junction – this is reflected in the first movement, then I took a train from Bondi Junction to Martin Place, sometimes the shades of sadness come into those movements, as already then as a student, I knew that the carefree student times were one day going to end and the responsible mature times would start. I don't think anyone knows this but I had two months of lessons on bassoon with Keith Robinson who was a student at the Con at the time, he lent me his bassoon and I would have continued my lessons, but he needed the instrument back and so I stopped and I felt really sorry that I stopped as I always loved this instrument immensely, but I could not afford to buy one. This third movement is in his memory; it starts off in a chant-like manner, developing into a waltz.
Movement Four is a reflection on Martin Sharp's art, (Regarded as this country's most prominent Pop artist, Martin Sharp has made significant contributions to Australian culture since the early 6Os, with his posters and record covers ).as admiring his work was part of my growing up student times, I saw his Nimrod posters everywhere and now have one on my wall, I also have a couple of other pieces of his and have always loved meeting him, his work has been displaced at the Con and so I saw the connection. I decided to base the last movement on Martin Sharp's name. Hence I use mainly the chords: E flat (from German Es=S), H (German for B natural), A, then in addition I used his name ‘sharp’ literally, which gave me an A sharp (or B flat) and B sharp (C).
JS: This is quite a program, for a Sunday afternoon. There are two more Sydney premieres Victor’s Heart and Fast Blue Village 2.
EK-C: A few years ago I was commissioned by Dr Malvin Leonard Eutick to write a piece for the award ceremony Still Life painting competition held by Coffs Harbour Gallery, named EMSLA. That piece was in memory of Mr Eutick's mother Lillian. The next year he commissioned me to write a piece in memory of his father Victor, who had an extraordinary life, he was a young Australian soldier, then after experiencing some traumatic events, he came home to his loving wife and two children, he had a weak heart and one day he went swimming with a friend who got in trouble in the water and Victor saved this friend by managing to get him out, however immediately afterwards he collapsed with a heart attack and died. He was still quite young.
I chose to write a piece for two pianists at one piano, after Dr Eutick mentioned that the soldiers were on duty in pairs and somehow the image of two people at one instrument became important to me. In the piece there is a lot of contrast between strong and tender, perhaps sad material, then also some water imagery towards the end.
A few years ago I wrote a piece called Village Idiot for 14 instruments for Present Music in USA, about 17 minutes long. I was really pleased with the result and with the encouragement of a few musician friends decided to make a few shorter versions of it. While I wanted to keep something of the original title, I wanted to make sure that there is a new title overall, to keep this piece differentiated from the original. In some ways I took the essence of the original or in other words, ‘distilled’ it into a five minutes piece. Fast Blue Village (FBV) 1 is for piano solo, Fast Blue Village (FBV) 2 is for string quartet (and sometimes I play improvised piano part with this string quartet version), Fast Blue Village (FBV) 3 is for viola and piano and Fast Blue Village (FBV) 4 is for saxophone quartet. There is also Fast Blue Village (FBV) 5 for four clarinets in the works, but it is not edited yet. The piece is in 10/8 metre, it is motoric and quite minimal.
JS: Is there anything you haven’t done when it comes to composition? What would you like to write next?
EK-C: I wrote so many pieces of all genres, I am quite happy with what I have written and what is still ahead. I have enough composing to do for the next 2–3 years. So far I have not written a symphony that would be a great challenge one day, hopefully. One day I would like to write an opera with orchestra and chorus, for a big stage. But I am also aware that this sort of project would block every other project of mine for years. So I am not sure if I would like something like this just yet. I think that the right kind of projects happen at the right time. At the moment there is a 70 minutes ballet, then there is a project in Berlin, then a piece for a piano trio, a vocal piece, there are a few projects in discussion that is the exciting part of being a free lance composer. Often the projects are not definite until just a few months before their premiere and so one has to allocate time for them just in case.
JS: What are you looking forward to for 2011?
EK-C: I am looking forward to this concert. And to lots more composing. It is always exciting, because at this moment now I have absolutely no idea what I am going to write. All I know is for whom I am writing and which instrumentation and the deadlines but the intriguing part is the complete mystery of what sort of music comes out of my head in the next year. Every day, week, month and year bring composing surprises to me, that is the lucky beautiful thing that I am so privileged to experience.
Elena Kats-Chernin’s Sensational Sunday Concert
Sunday 6 March 3pm
Verbrugghen Hall, Sydney Conservatorium of Music
Tickets: $25–$30, Friends of The Con $20, students $10
Concert enquires: 9351 1222
Bookings: via City Recital Hall Box Office 8256 2222 or 1300 797 118 (booking fees may apply)
www.thecon.com.au