BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Composition is often described as a solitary activity. And although it’s a process that can indeed be undertaken in isolation, things get a little different when that isolation is enforced by the government at the height of a global pandemic.
In this interview series, we partner up with Australian composers — emerging and established — who are continuing to write music from their home studios while in lockdown.
Rather than taking for granted the independent nature of composition, we’d like to celebrate composers’ abilities to keep creating when they are working in an industry that is facing collapse in this unfamiliar and high-stress environment.
Here, we chat with Jaret Choolun. The Australian composer and choral conductor lives in Germany, having moved there in 2011 to lead the Northern Spirit chamber choir. His music has been performed by Voces8, the Shanghai Youth Choir, and Berlin’s LGBT choral community. Jaret is now involved in The Australian Voices’ project Far and Near, alongside more than 20 composers commissioned by artistic director Gordon Hamilton to write music during this time.
First up, talk us through your workstation at the moment. What’s your home studio or set-up look like, and how are you navigating your worklife around the physical COVID-19 restrictions?
I write from home normally, so the lockdown isn’t any different for me and my e-piano, computer, and a large monitor. I also enjoy spreading out and writing by hand on butcher’s paper, and during the pandemic it’s been nice to have a partner who — now that he’s home full time — doesn’t mind my spreading out and creating temporary chaos around the apartment.
There has been a lot of pressure in our community to do things while in lockdown — to take this opportunity to spend more time on creative projects. How do you feel about this? And do you feel there is a bigger expectation placed on composers to create, when considering the way people look at your profession as a solitary and highly expressive activity to begin with?
I actually enjoy having more time to focus on my music at the moment — no rehearsals, meetings, or even friends to meet. It’s actually perfect for the profession, and I don’t feel any pressure from outside to create more than normal, though I am indeed writing more consistently now.
So tell us a little about your workflow.
I go through different focuses in my writing sessions. Sometimes, I will work for long stretches of time on an idea, experimenting and teasing out a motif and letting it develop without judging very much. Then the next day, I will come and review what I had written, looking at the overall architecture and judging it from a technical perspective.
My flow has generally stayed that way during the pandemic. I also take a fair bit of time to let ideas come while I am doing other activities, such as cleaning the house or taking a walk, and there is now plenty of time for that. So my apartment is a bit cleaner. We’ll see if it has an influence on my music!
One of the projects you’re undertaking during this lockdown period is Far and Near. How did you get involved in this project?
I sang with The Australian Voices from 2006-2011, and they have sung my music before. I had been checking in with Gordon Hamilton now and again about future opportunities with the choir, so I’m happy to be included in the project.
What does it mean to you to still be able to work during COVID-19?
It’s nice to have a specific purpose during this time. Many people seem to be in various unfortunate predicaments, whether it’s being forced to work from home, to have their work contracts cancelled, or indeed having little to do beyond feeling anxious at the state of the world and the prospect of getting infected. I’m fortunate that composing is a fairly independent activity, and I think [Far and Near] is an admirable initiative from The Australian Voices.
The project’s artistic director Gordon Hamilton has said the theme of this project “speaks to the current trauma enveloping the world”. What’s your composition about, and how does it respond to this theme?
The piece is in one way a cry of frustration. I have explored the nature of virtual communication and its shortcomings: unreliable internet, accidentally talking over the top of one another, delays in responding, texts being misunderstood, and not being able to feel the presence of a person next to you; to touch them. And that is within the frame of the pandemic unfolding around us — so feeling insecure for those you love, worrying deep down that perhaps this substitute for communication will go on for a long time, keeping you connected but denying closeness, always peering at them through a screen, and at times wondering if they are worrying about you like you worry about them.
I can see how this can be understood as trauma over an extended period of time; the realities of the disease itself of course being a different matter.
Tell me more about these themes and how COVID-19 has affected you on a compositional level.
I explore the frustration of stilted expression in this piece [I’m writing for the Far and Near project]. Though apps and media are normally tools to enhance our lives, they now start to occur as rather poor substitutes for the real, live, unplugged communication we have had to forego. Technology of course fails, and I’ve represented this with voices breaking off suddenly, bits of phrases missing, the intrusive blips of incessant notifications, and a drone reminiscent of an electrical hum throughout the piece.
It must be a unique situation: you’re composing a work that will one day be performed — but who knows when? So, how do you keep the drive and motivation to keep working on live music, even though it may be quite some time before that live music can be played?
As a composer, I find there are two tendencies around hearing your work sung: it can either take very long between penning the notes and having them heard, or it can take no time at all.
When I write for my own choirs, I can hear the music on the same day; and when I write for a choir on the other side of the world, it can be a year until I hear it. Writing music is a long game — the important thing is not when it is performed, but simply that it is performed. This is motivation enough to write.
What else are you up to at the moment?
I have additionally been writing a piece in memory of one of my choir singers, who last month died of COVID-19 related illness. It’s a sobering activity, and an important one. When my choir Northern Spirit can meet again, we plan to put on a concert in his memory, where the piece will be premiered.
Apart from writing, I have been trying to plan for the other choirs I lead, sending them multitracks of myself singing with the hope that they get some joy from singing along with me at home. I’ve also been taking the time to learn about a popular singing method that until now I was not aware of, to apply to a gospel choir I lead in Berlin.
Apart from work, I have actually branched out a bit to do some hobby blogging, because I love to write. My partner and I seem to visit the DIY store a few times a week as we have the time to attend to enhancing the apartment where we now spend all our time. I have also been getting out of the house and discovering my own neighbourhood a bit more — again, because there is more time.
At the end of the day, how do you predict the pandemic will impact the Australian music industry — and what are your hopes for its future?
I won’t go into my thoughts about universal basic income here, but I really hope the government is willing to prop up the arts in a meaningful, long-term way coming out of the pandemic. People are suffering, and they should be able to turn to art as a therapy for what they are experiencing. Support musicians while they provide that therapy, and imagine how much more music will be able to be made.
Find out more about The Australian Voices’ 22-composer initiative Far and Near on the website.
You can also catch up on our Composing under lockdown series with our recent interview featuring Audrey Ormella.
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If you like, you can shout us a coffee as we volunteer our time for Australian arts journalism during the COVID-19 crisis. No amount too much or little, and any amount appreciated.
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