BY CAROL SAFFER
Melbourne Symphony Orchestra principal bassoon Jack Schiller recently watched as MasterChef contestant Pete Morgan was sent home because of the idea that “you eat with your eyes first”. Pete failed because his plated meal was a mess.
“When you see a great chamber musical performance, it is the same,” Jack says. You hear with your eyes. The audience can see the musician’s fingers, feet, and arms working; watching closely as they carry out their craft.
Jack is performing at the Australian Festival of Chamber Music in Townsville, Queensland. The festival offers Jack and other musicians a new audience of locals and visitors alike, who are eager to listen to chamber music in exclusive tropical settings such as the Currajong House Garden Party.
Considered by many to be Australia’s premier performance event for chamber music, Jack says AFCM “opens up the people who see you, the people you get to play for, [and] the people you play with. That allows a freshness that has a big difference from urban events”.
“The physicality of what the audience can see” at close quarters, observing the interaction of the musicians playing together, is what we can often miss when sitting in a concert hall watching a symphony orchestra perform.
“Being that close to the music making is quite invigorating.”
Equally, the musicians are able to see for themselves the audience’s reaction to their music. As a symphony orchestra musician, Jack says that’s why he grasps the opportunity to play chamber music. In a symphony performance, “you are more beholden to the conductor”.
“In chamber music, you have to take the initiative and really bring all the music out by yourself.”
As the only bassoonist at AFCM, Jack will play six concerts, performing pieces such as Beethoven’s Septet Op. 20, Light Music for woodwind quintet by Matthew Hindson, and Poulenc’s Sextet for piano and wind quintet FP100.
Although Jack will perform in a holiday environment (the AFCM mission statement includes creating ‘compelling reasons for audiences to visit from across Australia and around the world’), he intends to continue with his usual practice regime, perhaps with a quick side-trip out to the Great Barrier Reef.
As a bassoonist, Jack does not often get the opportunity to play chamber music in festivals. However, he previously experienced firsthand proximity to a chamber music audience when he took part in Musica Viva’s 2014 Huntington Estate Music Festival in the Mudgee winery Barrel Room. Jack says the seven-day New South Wales festival brought people to the area to hear concert after concert; giving musicians, who would not ordinarily play together, the opportunity to present in a beautiful and unique space.
Jack describes playing recently with the Zelman Symphony Orchestra in the small space at Daylesford Town Hall as the same atmosphere you’d find at a chamber music festival. It was the intimacy with the audience, physically and conversationally, that he felt really made it special. “It is great to talk to the audience straight after a performance.”
Having performed chamber music locally at the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Salon and University of Melbourne, Jack considers chamber music festivals outside the urban areas work because “audiences are extremely appreciative and thirsty for more culture.” The audience in Townsville is likely to be just as keen. He anticipates AFCM “will be an exciting nine days”.
See Jack Schiller perform in several Townsville concerts at the Australian Festial of Chamber Music from 29 July to 3 August.
Image supplied
