BY LAURA BIEMMI, TRENDS EDITOR
Friendship and music-making have a lot in common: connecting with others, a sense of community, and the expression of shared ideas.
In this way, it makes perfect sense to have friendship serve as inspiration for musical works.
Sydney composer, educator, and musical theatre director Adrian Kingwell has done just that. For his latest EP FRIENDS, Adrian has composed what he describes as “music written for my musician friends about my non-musician friends”.
Drawing on everything from rock climbing to Disney singalongs, Adrian leans into the idea of our chosen families and how they influence us.
We here at CutCommon were lucky enough to chat with Adrian about his latest work, for which he’s donating all sale proceeds to the R U OK? suicide prevention charity.
Hi Adrian, thanks for chatting to us here at CutCommon! Congratulations on the release of your new EP FRIENDS. How does it feel to have that music out there for all to enjoy?
Thanks so much for the opportunity to chat! It feels good to get the work out there, and have the emotional and mental load of creating a work lifted. Also, it’s just nice to show people what I’ve been working on.
Where did the idea of this collection of pieces, and the individual works themselves, come from?
I’m currently living in Sydney, but I’m originally from Western Australia. When I moved away six years ago, I was removed from a lot of people who were dear to me. In light of the distance that I had with almost all of my friends and family early on, I thought a nice way for me to reconcile this was to write pieces about my friends and where they were. However, other really important and meaningful opportunities came up, and this idea was put on the backburner.
One of these opportunities was working as composer-in-residence at MLC School, Burwood. It was here that I met [some FRIENDS instrumentalists] Luke Byrne, Samantha Mailer, Adranne Teh, and Stefania Kurniawan.
On a night out, I asked Sam, ‘What’s your favourite piece of music?’, and she said a piece by Poulenc. I – a couple beers deep – said, ‘That’s not what you’re listening to when you’re in the car! What are you listening to then?’. She responded with A Whole New World from Aladdin. It was in that moment that I had the inspiration for a piece. It would be a piece about Sam, both as the musician who loves Poulenc, and as the friend who loves to listen to A Whole New World.
I also thought of Luke who, on top of being an incredible classical musician and composer, is equally at home in the world of musical theatre. That was how [FRIENDS track one] i can show you came to be, and how I started recapturing the idea of writing music about my friends.
In your album description, you’ve explained this EP as “music written for my musician friends about my non-musician friends”. For some musicians, myself included, these different friendship circles can sometimes feel worlds apart! What was the motivation for bringing these friendships together?
My 2018 musical findr highlighted the divisions that can occur between people via an online space (read our interview). FRIENDS, simply, is the counterargument to that. The pieces are about real-life relationships, and were crafted over conversations that were had in person.
Also, I’ve been finding it easier for people to divide into camps and exist in their own tribes, not only politically, but even musically. Celebrating discussion, listening, and connectivity through music seemed like an aspirational and optimistic vibe to put out into the world.
I also think that music is in a unique position to do that due to its universality. Almost every culture on the planet has a musical tradition. And, in contemporary life, music of all sorts is being consumed at a rate never before in history.
Everyone has a relationship with music. I guess the differences will be the responses to it, and that will be informed by the context of the individual.
In a similar vein, you’ve described the language of your music as “academically challenging yet aurally accessible”. Why is it important to remain faithful to both sides of this dichotomy? And what challenges does a composer like yourself face when writing music with these goals?
The pluralistic nature of FRIENDS requires it to be a lot of things to a lot of different people. For the players, I wanted it to be a fun challenge to play. That gave me a mandate to try new things and provoke them. But I also wanted my niece and nephew to groove along to little ees. The different contexts of those two audiences, by necessity, creates different responses.
That being said, I think to some extent, the more an individual puts into a piece, the more the complexity unveils itself. […] I don’t necessarily think that the accessibility and the academic nature of my work are dichotomous – rather, it’s more a sliding scale based largely on an individual’s engagement with the work.
The challenge in writing with these two aspects in mind is two-fold. If a piece is too simple, it could disengage the musicians. If the piece is too academic and lacks a sense of traditional musicality, it could alienate the non-musicians. So finding the balance between the two is a definite consideration.
The other issue is balancing the capabilities of the players, and the inspirations you are responding to against your own idiomatic sensibilities as a composer. Even though the piece may be trying to be a lot of things to a lot of people, at the end of the day, you’re the one who wrote it.
Each of the four pieces you’ve composed are as delightful as they are different from one another. Which piece on the EP is your personal favourite, and why?
I hate to choose favourites, but probably i can show you. It sparked and shaped the rest of the works, and in some way the others may not have existed as they do currently without it.
All proceeds from the sales of FRIENDS through Bandcamp will be donated to R U OK? to aid suicide prevention through support networks and social connectivity. What was the reasoning behind this (wonderful) decision?
Everyone who was involved in the release of FRIENDS – the musicians, photographer Tom Cramond, designer Thomas Sweetman, and even The Temperance Society – donated their time. The thought of profiting from that goodwill did not sit well with me. But it also comes down to paying respect to my friends.
Probably the most important thing they’ve given me was support. I don’t think I would have lasted two years in Sydney without it. They gave me not only the opportunity to talk and process my anxieties, but they listened with care.
I think about people who don’t have that, often; people who don’t have someone to ask ‘How are you going?’ and listen without judgement. R U OK? provides and promote this very simple yet important thing. That’s why I wanted to donate sales through Bandcamp to them.
Can audiences expect a live performance of FRIENDS anytime soon?
A couple of the members involved in FRIENDS have had some significant additions to their families that may make a live performance difficult. However, there’s something quite lovely about growing families getting in the way of performing a piece about chosen families. There’s a lovely poeticism and book-ending about it.
You can watch a trailer for FRIENDS below, and visit Bandcamp to buy the EP (all proceeds donated to R U OK?).
Shout the writer a coffee?
If you like, you can shout Laura a coffee for volunteering her time for Australian arts journalism. No amount too much or little 🙂
Pay what you like securely through PayPal. 80 per cent of your contribution will go to the writer who composed this piece, and 20 per cent to our volunteer editor for getting this show on the road.
Images supplied.
