BY CHLOE SANGER
“There’s a balance to strike between being a specialist and a jack of all trades.”
Ade Vincent would know – his schedule is terrifying.
Surely a PhD in composition, writing and recording an album, sound designing a video game, and tutoring and lecturing at the University of Melbourne (not to mention welcoming a new baby boy into the family) would be enough to send anyone into a world of dreamy exhaustion.
But on top of this, Ade is also writing three separate orchestral commissions for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra – and he is succeeding in it all.
His first commission, Hood Yourself in Stars, has its world premiere at Metropolis 1 – the first major event in the 2018 Metropolis New Music Festival.
Last May, Ade was named the inaugural Cybec Young Composer in Residence with the MSO; a year-long position created out of the Cybec 21st Century Australian Composers’ Program.
For the past year, he’s been attending rehearsals, workshopping material with MSO musicians, and receiving mentorship from Australian composer Brenton Broadstock, in anticipation of Metropolis 1 along with two other future events.
Luckily, Ade has some time to talk to me in person. We catch up over the sounds of distant traffic, and a trombone player rehearsing in a nearby building at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music where I was a student of Ade’s myself, a couple of years ago.
After six or seven months of work on the Metropolis 1 commission, Ade has seen it undergo many transformations and had some time to reflect on the result.
“Where it ended up was a long way away from the first draft,” Ade says. That was the thing about such a long-term project: “The luxury of a bit of extra time meant that I went through an awful lot of preliminary sketches that I didn’t use, and it took me a while to get there”.
Hood Yourself in Stars is a three-movement work reflecting on the cyclical nature of time; specifically, the idea of generations passing things down to one another. It’s represented by a single motif that moves through all three movements, still somewhat recognisable through its changing context.
I ask Ade if his concept has anything to do with his recent family addition: “I became a dad while writing this piece, in November last year – so it was obviously at the forefront of my mind”.
“I was thinking about my parents and thinking about my son, and all that stuff. Starting the piece before my son was born and then finishing afterwards had an impact.”
The piece sits amongst works by Unsuk Chin and an early composition teacher of hers, György Ligeti.
Ade is a huge admirer of Chin’s works (did you read our interview about them?). And having given a pre-concert event for the Australian premiere of her work Mannequin last year, he has certainly had the opportunity to study her music closely.
“I got to put it under the microscope…it’s just hugely sophisticated and complex writing,” Ade remarks.
“Specifically how she uses each section for gestures; the extended techniques in there and the percussion writing is fantastic […] I took a lot away from that.”
Ade himself took a particular interest in developing his own percussion writing through his residency with MSO, and we can see the emphasis in his own work. Alongside Chin, Ade notes Nigel Westlake as another important influence. And spending a lot of time with MSO percussionist John Arcaro, they too workshopped these sounds that appear in Hood Yourself in Stars.
“I learn an awful lot in those one-on-one sessions, because there’s just questions that are specific to each instrument,” Ade says of his residency experience. “It’s a fantastic luxury to have these conversations with these wonderful players.”
Ade has used this residency as an opportunity to form his own style without restrictive parameters.
“I was just trying to write the music that I hear in my head,” Ade says. “I just kind of wrote intuitively.”
Hear his creation for yourself in the world premiere of Hood Yourself In Stars, Metropolis 1 presented alongside works by Unsuk Chin and Ligeti. This 2018 Metropolis New Music Festival Event takes place at 7.30pm, April 19 in the Robert Blackwood Hall.
We partnered with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra to bring you this story about Metropolis! Learn more in this interview with Unsuk Chin by composer Rachel Bruerville.
Images supplied.
