BY CELINE CHONG, LEAD WRITER (QLD)
Ashley Hribar and Richard Vaudrey are Two Deep Breaths, a creative partnership thriving in Australia’s new music scene. Bridging the classical and ambient music worlds, their debut album Sleeping Orchards features two specially crafted Stuart & Sons pianos – one with 102 keys and the other with 108 – as well as cello and electronics. It is a showcase of Ashley and Richard’s undeniable artistic chemistry; it is as exploratory as it is immersive; improvisatory in nature, yet unquestionable in its craft.
In the lead-up to their CD release concert in Melbourne, composer-performers Ashley and Richard chat to us about the making of Sleeping Orchards, and all those extra piano keys!
As a collective, you have called yourselves Two Deep Breaths. Tell us about how your partnership came about and why you have chosen this name.
RICHARD: Funnily enough, this partnership was a long time in the making – unbeknownst to myself. For a number of years, a very wonderful man – Anthony Knight of the Tallis Foundation – had kept saying to me: ‘Oh, you have to meet this Ashley fellow. He does wonderful things with the piano, he uses electronics and gets right inside it; I think you’d get along great together’.
Fast forward a few years, and finally we found ourselves put together to do a fairly last-minute recital. Anthony was completely right, and we got along amazingly. Everything was just easy – we both just seem to understand each other’s playing and instincts.
The name Two Deep Breaths seemed right on a number of levels. For starters, there’s two of us and it really embodies the state of our music: it comes from deep inside, from both our intuitions. Ironically enough, during the recording days, Ash tried to teach me some deep breathing routines he was doing, such as the Wim Hof method. I nearly passed out and felt ill, but it recharged Ash, who swears by it.
For Sleeping Orchards, you combine two pianos, cello, and electronics. Why is this combination so effective for the music that you make?
R: Well, the piano-cello thing is simply our primary instrumentation – it’s what we know best, and the electronics to me are simply an extension of the instruments. It’s so logical and innate to want more – further colours, wider sounds, more variations. Every composer in history sought extensions of the instruments they wrote for, whether in technique, or even how the orchestra was used, its numbers, its instrumentation. I’m sure Beethoven would have turned to electronics if they were there.
I absolutely love that we have the ability to enhance and manipulate the frequencies of each instrument in other ways. It’s such an enjoyable exploration of sound, and amazing to react to during improvisation.
ASHLEY: Not just because cello is my favourite stringed instrument, but there’s something magic about the combination of cello and piano.The Stuarts, with their added bass notes, together with the cello,adds a completely different dimension.
The two pianos you use on the record have 102 and 108 keys, and you play them both at once! Tell us about these pianos specifically. Normal pianos have 88 keys, so what are all the extras for?!
A: It’s no secret that I am in love with these pianos. So, to have two side-by-side was like being in heaven. For a while, I’ve been interested in playing both instruments, and it really does open up another door of polyphonic listening – something you can’t do on one piano. For example, playing repetitions of the same note on both pianos creates an interesting panning effect. You can also get deeper in the resonance of single notes by combining the fullness of both. The Stuart pianos are ideal for this because of their meticulous action and pedals (four in total), which gives rise to more colour and extreme dynamic variation. Particularly, the extra bass notes offer another sound dimension and a huge amount of resonance. Even when playing within the traditional range, you can hear the overtones of the lower notes. I love placing my fingers on the strings and manipulating the sound further and using flageolette techniques (basically, creating overtones). These are particularly resonant on a Stuart.
R: The sub frequencies on the low notes of the Stuart are also a recording artist’s dream – just so warm rich and full, especially in this era of electronically produced music where we are so used to hearing prominent frequencies at the bottom of the spectrum. Once you get a taste for this, you’re left wanting if those frequencies are missing.
What role do you think electronics play when interacting with acoustic instruments? How integral is this aspect of the album’s ‘sound’?
R: The electronics develop the musical sound; they’re less a feature of their own, and more an extension of what the acoustic instruments musically try to express. From a mixing perspective, in Sleeping Orchards the acoustic instrument qualities are always primarily at the front, the electronics serving as secondary colour that also helps inspire the improvisation as we react to the new sounds.
A: Yes, electronics can function as a platform to further inspire new directions in improvisation. The full analogue sound of the Moog DFAM is so lush that it melds beautifully with the acoustic sounds of the cello and piano.
What are you hoping for with Sleeping Orchards? What message do you want to communicate to your audience?
R: I’m simply hoping Sleeping Orchards is the first of many more records to come. I hope both classical music lovers and those new to classical music find enjoyment in simply breathing in and listening to something that is both passive and powerful depending on one’s state of mind.
A: We are hoping to perform these pieces in concert more, and to develop a live audience. The music is also perfect for the film genre, so we are interested in using these tracks for syncing. We have some more sessions coming up for later in 2019, and we feel that Sleeping Orchards is but the tip of the iceberg.
Two Deep Breaths’ debut album Sleeping Orchards was recorded at Tallis Pavillion, Beleura House, and released on July 7. You can stream the album on Spotify. It will be performed in Melbourne at Tempo Rubato on October 19.
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