BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Clancy McLeod is a solo guitarist who is forging his own path. Luckily for the world around him, that path includes a bunch of newly commissioned music, and the curation of performance experiences that allow us to reconnect with nature. Performing works as old as Bach, and as new as a premiere, Clancy is steadily building a tradition of handpicked programs and thoughtful messages he wishes to share with his listeners.
We chat for the first time with this award-winning guitarist and Melbourne Conservatorium of Music graduate. He tells us why it’s important to commission new works for his instrument, and curate concerts that highlight environmental issues close to his heart.
Clancy, you’re a regular at playing the music of living composers — and commissioning it as a way to expand the repertoire for your instrument. What do you find most interesting about working with a piece of music from the ground up?
Receiving the notes to a new piece that’s never been recorded is both exciting and humbling. You realise you have this opportunity to awaken the piece and make it sound as good as it possibly can, so there’s always this fear that I will not do it justice and find the magic in the piece. I imagine it’s similar to being a parent! It’s also very exciting to bring new notes to life. It’s like going exploring. You never know; you might stumble on a masterpiece.
So what do you look for in a new commission? That is, how do you know it’s the right fit for you when you haven’t even heard it yet?!
I want to play music that sounds great and that, with a spirited performance, can transport and move people. Finding a composer whose music you love is step one. Then, you just see what you stumble upon.
Composers are amazing artists — so, as long as it’s physically playable, I have nothing to say to them other than: ‘Is this OK? How can I make this sound better?’
It seems that the music you commission and perform isn’t just about the way it sounds though, or the joy of playing. There’s an underlying environmental message in a lot of your work — let’s talk about this.
We are part of a society that is hurtling towards a cliff edge with no brakes. We need to find those brakes and start doing things differently.
As a musician, I feel very strongly that my role is to help people reconnect with their love for the natural world around them; to actually start to feel the heartache that was there inside us all when we saw half the country and over a billion animals burn in 2019-20.
I think as a society, we are quite detached from the natural world and our emotions. Without becoming aware of those feelings, we will not be strong enough to change.
In early 2020, I went through a real crisis of meaning. I had to find a way to make what I do a part of the solution. After months of introspection, I came to the realisation that the only valuable direction for me as a guitarist was to give concerts that truly move people and allow them to emotionally connect. It meant letting go of the ego, and letting go of this pursuit classical musicians seem to have of being the best, winning prizes, and winning chairs. Actually, none of that matters on a dead planet. What’s important is we find our humanity, our love for each other and the world with all its infinite beauty.
So with all this in mind, I asked my good friend and incredibly talented composer Hamish Ander to write a piece inspired by these feelings. He’s written me and a flautist Alyse Faith a truly amazing suite called The Edge of The Earth. It depicts Antarctica, that vast icy desert that we forget exists. We are looking forward to getting the piece recorded this year.
In A Dream in the Forest, you’re performing a range of music “exploring a deep love and loss for the forest and country”. How did you curate the works on this program?
After the 2019-20 bushfires, I wanted to curate a program that reflected the emotions I was feeling. All the pieces are very deeply felt, and explore love or grief.
Un Sueño en la Floresta (‘A Dream in the Forest’) by Barrios really captures the extraordinary beauty and perfection of the natural world. Other pieces, like Bach’s Chaconne and Rodrigo’s Invocacion y Danza, are pieces that were written by composers who were grieving. Bach’s wife had just died when he wrote Chaconne, and Rodrigo dedicated the Invocacion y Danza to Manuel de Falla.
Other pieces, like Koyunbaba and La Catedral, are strongly connected to place. I believe we need to start loving our places on this earth more. Koyunbaba is deeply evocative of the Turkish countryside, and Barrios actually wrote La Catedral when he was away and was missing his home.
These pieces were composed across various locations and eras. How do you feel some of this much older music — so far removed from life in 21st Century Australia — can still resonate with our sense of loss for today’s natural world?
What matters to me is how these pieces make me feel, and what emotions I can connect with when I’m playing them. I find that the program I’ve chosen works incredibly well together because it is so diverse, yet also so strongly linked on an emotional level.
Chaconne is a timeless piece; I’m sure it will be played long after I’m gone!
Before we go, can I just say — you’re sweeping through some crazy-impressive awards in music, and you’re going to perform at the Peninsula Summer Music Festival as part of your Melbourne Recital Centre competition achievement. How would you sum up this moment in your career, with everything going for you, and everything to go for?
Winning prizes in the Adelaide International Guitar Competition, and the Melbourne Recital Centre’s Great Romantics Competition in 2021, have been helpful in that it’s given me more of a profile to pursue performance opportunities. I really just want the opportunity to play regularly in front of audiences that want to hear what I have to say. It’s as simple and difficult as that.
It is unfortunate that in the classical music world, competitions seem to be the gateway to this. I think competitions don’t actually favour artists or the most expressive communicative performers. If I can move someone to tears in a concert, that is infinitely more valuable than being perfect enough to win a prize.
Learn more about Clancy McLeod and his upcoming concerts on his website.
The guitarist will perform his program A Dream in the Forest in a special winter concert as part of the Peninsula Summer Music Festival, 19 June.
Images supplied. Credit Cailin Rose Photography. B&W portrait © Simon Dow Photographer.
