BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Earlier this week, we brought you some interviews with three of this year’s new Dots+Loops fellows, who are training up with some starring Aussie musicians as part of this initiative’s Nonstop Festival taking place on December 7.
One of their mentors is Flora Wong — the associate director of Dots+Loops, and also a founding member of one of the freshest ensembles on the block, Figbird.
Figbird (also featuring musicians Loni Fitzpatrick and Hannah Reardon-Smith) will make its debut at the festival, and we reckon there couldn’t be a more special occasion. They’ll present a commission by Australian composer Brenda Gifford, and Flora tells us more about it.
Figbird! What’s in a name?
They’re beautiful birds! I always find naming ensembles or projects quite difficult, but when Hannah and Loni and I started throwing ideas around, we seemed to gravitate towards words with a strong link to either Brisbane or to nature — and Figbird was the one that seemed to fit best!
So, you’re making your debut as a group at Dots+Loops! This is a pretty special way to debut. How’d you decide that this was the place you wanted to break into the world?
Hannah and Loni are both people I’ve admired for a long time for their adventurous and open-minded music-making! We actually first got together as a trio because I wanted to form a collective of female musicians who’d found their way into improvising from a classical background. Dots+Loops’ artist call-out seemed like a perfect opportunity to share our musical explorations — although, as a member of the ensemble and the associate director of Dots+Loops, I sat out of both the writing and assessment of our proposal due to conflict of interest!
We’d initially planned on having a few other performances prior to our set at Nonstop, but life got in the way. We’re really pleased that it’s ended up as our debut!
I would imagine it puts the pressure on, to be performing for the first time in such a highly anticipated event. How are you keeping your cool?
To be honest, I’m not sure it feels like a high-pressure environment. Dots+Loops audiences really do feel like family; we’ve all performed in or attended numerous Dots+Loops events before. So we’re just really excited to be a part of the festival!
I’m a firm believer that good preparation — for rehearsals and performances — is best way to keep calm and enjoy the process of making music. Choosing repertoire that you love and feel passionate about sharing with your audience also helps!
Tell us about the work by Brenda Gifford. This was commissioned for you by Dots+Loops. As it’s a premiere, what’s the piece all about? And did you communicate with Brenda through the process?
Brenda’s work is called Baliya, meaning ‘north wind’ in the Dhurga language of her mob. She’s a proud Yuin woman from Wreck Bay on the south coast of New South Wales.
We first came across her music through her work with our colleagues at Ensemble Offspring, based in Sydney. She was part of the Ngarra-Burria project, and also wrote the stunning music for the ABC Classic Kids program Music For The Dreaming.
There wasn’t a lot of communication during Brenda’s writing process — from what we’d heard of her work, we felt we could trust her to form the ideas behind the piece and draw them together into something special.
When we received the piece and played it together for the first time, we were charmed by its sincerity and beauty — and we can’t wait to share it with audiences!
As a new group, what have you learnt about each other when it comes to preparing for your first performance?
We learnt that all three of us are very busy people. It was quite difficult to find times we were all available in order to schedule rehearsals! That threw a spanner in the works. We’d originally planned to include Gerard Brophy’s trio Charm in this program as well, but we realised that we didn’t have sufficient rehearsal time available in order to do it justice. It’s a wonderful piece and we still hope to play it in the future!
However, I think we’re all pretty easy-going and pragmatic, so it wasn’t too difficult to rework the program to include other music that we love while letting our own creative voices come through!
At the end of the day, what can we expect when we rock up?
The premiere of a very special new work by Brenda Gifford, as well as our own reinterpretations of music by a few artists we love: Thom Yorke, Björk, and Katie Noonan and David Hirschfelder!
See Figbird at the Dots+Loops Nonstop Festival on December 7 at Newstead Brewing Co. Milton.
Images supplied.
