CONTENT COURTESY FREEDMAN CLASSICAL FELLOWSHIP
After a nation-wide search for Australia’s best young classical musicians aged 30 and under, the three finalists – violist Katie Yap and double bassists Jonathan Heilbron and Rohan Dasika — will compete live in concert for the title of The Music Trust’s 2019 Freedman Classical Fellow, and the career-changing $20,000 cash prize, which enables them to undertake a proposed creative project.
The winner will be announced on the night by the panel of esteemed judges which includes director of the Canberra International Music Festival Roland Peelman, artistic administrator of the Australian Chamber Orchestra Anna Melville, and pianist Sonya Lifschitz.
“This year’s finalists modernize the way we think about classical music. The double bass and viola are not the first choice when we consider classical instruments, but these trail-blazing young musicians are bringing them out of the shadows and onto centre stage. While their paths are very different, our finalists draw on diversity and breadth of five centuries of music, while imagining a new future for classical music in Australia — on the vanguard, forging their own futures, on their own terms.”
– Roland Peelman, 2019 judge
For the first time in its history, the concert will take place in the superb and intimate surroundings of the Utzon Room in the Sydney Opera House. In a thrilling concert that demonstrates great diversity, innovation and agility, the three finalists strive for their chance to win the 18-year institution of The Music Trust’s Freedman Classical Fellowships.
A special guest appearance from internationally renowned guitarist Karen Shaupp, the 2002 Freedman Fellow, will entertain audiences before the announcement of the 2019 Freedman Classical Fellow. The fellowship provides career-defining opportunities for the winner, with previous fellows reading like a ‘who’s who’ of Australian art music, including Genevieve Lacy, William Barton, and Claire Edwardes.
The Freedman Fellowship Awards are among the most prestigious offered to Australian musicians. They are awarded annually to a classical music instrumentalist and a jazz musician. Distinguished musicians from around the country are invited to nominate candidates from amongst whom three finalists are selected. The Freedman Classical Fellowship is managed by The Music Trust and administered and produced by Sydney Improvised Music Association (SIMA).
THE FINALISTS:
Katie Yap
Katie Yap is a Melbourne-based freelance violist who calls many of Australia’s top modern and baroque ensembles ‘home’. She describes the last four years as one of exploration and discovery after leaving the traditional path of a classical musician. After winning an audition for Associate Principal Viola of Orchestra Victoria, Katie discovered that full-time orchestral life was not for her. Instead, she found her passion in using her voice as a musician to tell stories and express ideas, particularly through early music.
Katie was inspired to follow this path through her experience as a student in an AYO Baroque Style Workshop with Elizabeth Wallfisch and Dr. Neal Peres da Costa. Enchanted by the sound and energy inherent in early music, she became more and more passionate about it, hence her proposal below.
Proposal:
Katie’s project involves the overarching theme of ‘Home’ with three main elements: an Australian tour, a recording, and an Italian tour. Through these elements, she intends to explore the theme of ‘Home’ from three different angles:
1) Broadening the perception of the baroque viola’s musical home,
2) Speaking to a wide audience demographic through the universal but varied idea of ‘Home’,
3) Broadening her own performing home.
“As an Australian musician who has travelled across the continent, my country and environment are hugely important parts of my personal and musical identity. Australia’s isolation and unique, fragile environment make it particularly important to me. I want to share my idea of ‘Home’ firstly with my fellow Australians through a national tour, then with the wider community through recording the concert program to release as an album, and finally to European audiences through an Italian tour. Recently I have been privileged to work with Davide Monti, an Italian baroque violinist and improviser. He and his duo partner, harpist Maria Cleary have agreed to work with me to present an Italian tour with a program based on the one in the Australian tour.”
– Katie Yap
Jonathan Heilbron
After completion of his studies at the Australian National Academy of Music Performance Program in 2012, double bassist Jonathan Heilbron has continually sought to extend himself musically.
He has cultivated a diverse professional practice that includes performances as a soloist, chamber and orchestral musician, while also composing, recording and publishing internationally acclaimed original music. As a soloist, he has given premiere performances of solo bass works by established and emerging composers in Australia, Austria, Singapore, Germany, Denmark, Norway and Israel.
As an ensemble musician, he has worked with some of the leading ensembles for contemporary music, including performing and recording projects with Klangforum Wien (Vienna), Apartment House (London), The Münchener Kammerorkester (Munich) and Kammerensemble Neue Musik (Berlin).
Through this work, he has been fortunate to work with some of the world’s best performers and composers. With these groups and others, he has presented premiere performances of major new works by composers such as Georg Friedrich Haas, Catherine Lamb, Bent Sørensen, Bernhard Lang, Klaus Lang, Christian Wolff and others, in countries as far as Argentina, Austria, Singapore and England.
As a composer, his music has been performed in Australia Europe, North America and the Middle East. His 8-hour-long overnight compositions have been performed by the Phonetic Orchestra in Italy and Portugal, with plans for future performances in Sydney, Melbourne and Berlin.
Proposal:
Jonathan would like to undertake two very different large-scale projects of international scope that cut across disciplines, media and practices.
The first outcome will be the commissioning, development, composition, performance, and recording of a new concert-length piece for double bass, light and electronics by the Berlin-based American composer Catherine Lamb. This new commission will be a major new addition to the repertoire of the double bass, something he is constantly striving to expand. The work will be developed together in Berlin, and performed at New Music festivals in several cities in Europe, such as Berlin (Vibrant Matter), Tallinn, (Sound Plasma Festival), Portugal (Serralves em Festa), Oslo (Only Connect Festival), Aarhus (Spor Festival), and others.
The second major project will take the form of an intensive period of research and development, culminating in a series of 8-hour, overnight performances given to a sleeping audience by his group, The Phonetic Orchestra. He will also produce a limited edition release of an 8-hour recording, presented on four discs in a carefully designed box set with accompanying text reflecting his research.
Rohan Dasika
Double bassist Rohan Dasika was born in Vancouver and raised in Melbourne. He currently enjoys a diverse career travelling between Germany and Australia. He has performed frequently with orchestras including the Frankfurter Opern-und-Museumsorchester, Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Queensland Symphony Orchestra, while an association with leading accordionist James Crabb has led to engagements at chamber music festivals including the Australian Festival of Chamber Music, Four Winds Festival, and the Canberra International Music Festival.
Passionate about contemporary music, Rohan has also performed with the Lucerne Festival Academy, and at the Bendigo International Festival of Exploratory Music. Rohan is a graduate of the Australian National University School of Music, Australian National Academy of Music, and has taken study trips to Philadelphia and Vienna, courtesy of an Australia Council ArtStart grant.
Proposal:
Rohan intends to commission two of the most experienced musicians who work between the Carnatic and Western music traditions, namely Sandy Evans and Adrian Sherriff, to write Carnatic-inspired notated pieces of music for solo double bass. He believes the compositions will add much needed new Australian repertoire to the double bass literature.
He also proposes to then present a recital including these two newly written pieces of music in Chennai, the centre of Carnatic music. He notes “as well as the personal meaning inherent in my first visit to India, and subsequent exploration of my heritage there, creating links to a country relatively underexposed to my instrument, and this genre of music, could have numerous benefits career-wise, significantly widening my professional network”.
As part of the touring component, Rohan would also use a portion of the Fellowship funds to pay the deposit for the building of a newly-developed double bass, the SB21, by the French maker luthier Patrick Charton.
The final takes place on 3pm October 20, Utzon Room, Sydney Opera House. Book here!
All content and images courtesy Freedman Classical Fellowship.
