BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
As a performer, Ed Ferris dons the title Clarinet Maverick.
It may sound pretty playful, but it’s a whole lot deeper than that. True to his stage name, the instrumentalist will not tolerate the rules or conventions of traditional concert performance. He is a free spirit, and he will not conform for you. It is Ed’s mission to break the “stuffy confines” of classical music by, quite simply, doing whatever he wants to.
If you are an emerging musician, you need to read this interview. You need to know that you can choose the person you want to be in your classical music career.
If you are an established musician, you will benefit from this stark reminder that it’s not all about the dinner suits and the concert hall applauds. Music is about what’s really inside. And ahead of this month’s concert, Have Clarinet, Will Travel, the Clarinet Maverick himself tells us why he has decided to break free.
Ed is a teacher, conductor, and performer who has sold out gigs with Royal Melbourne Philharmonic Orchestra, Forest Collective, and junk-yard-gypsy folk band Eyal and the Skeleton Crew. He’s worked with young musos at Border Music Camp, the Melbourne Youth Orchestras, and with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s education team in 2016 he delivered music to regional Victorian schools.
Ed, what does it mean to be a Clarinet Maverick?
It means not being afraid to do something new and different and deviating from the status quo.
‘We play it this way because that’s the way it’s always been done’ is not good enough for me, and I don’t think it’s good enough for audiences.
I’m under no delusions that I am the best clarinettist in the world; I don’t even think that I’m the best clarinettist in my suburb. But I believe that I have something worthwhile to say through my instrument.
It’s means going for that high note in front of an audience, and going for it with everything I’ve got even though I might f–k it up. I’d rather play on that knife-edge and go for it and miss than not go for it at all. I want to give audiences that excitement. I want to give them an experience that is memorable, thrilling, heartfelt and earnest.
Part of your ethos is about removing the ‘stuffy confines’ of the classical music world. What are these confines? Who makes or perpetuates them, and what impact does it have on artists like you?
The concert going experience is so codified and ritualised. The orchestra walks on stage, they are wearing dinner suits and black gowns, the audience claps, the concertmaster walks on stage, the audience claps. The orchestra tunes, the conductor walks on stage, the audience claps. Don’t clap between movements, the conductor shakes some hands, walks off stage, walks back on, walks off, walks on, the audience claps.
We as performers keep perpetuating these rituals because that’s what the audience expects; and the audience expects these rituals because that’s what we keep presenting them with.
As an aspiring performer, then, I’d go to concerts and I’d see these rituals played out and think that this is the way it must be done, because that’s the only version I could see. But then I’d go to gigs at pubs or jazz gigs and the performers would talk to the audiences. They’d banter with them and invite them into the experience. They were inviting, grateful and fun. I think the classical music world would benefit from adopting some of those ideals.
It’s an attitude thing. You go to a lot of concerts, and there’s this feeling that ‘this is good for you’. It’s like vegetables. I will play this and you will sit there and like it. But if we instead approach our audiences with gratitude and invite them into our world – tell them about the thing we love, tell them about the rehearsal process and be a human being up on stage – we get rid of that barrier of entry for audiences.
I can count on one hand the amount of classical music concerts I’ve been to where the performers have thanked the audience for coming. It could be that simple a shift. We have so many sources of easy entertainment competing for our attention, and an audience member has chosen to spend their hard-earned money and even more precious time on us. I’m incredibly humbled by that and grateful to them.
You’ve performed with extremely prestigious musical organisations. How did you feel a pressure to conform when you were playing for other people?
I have a friend who is a Shostakovich fanboy. Loves everything about Shostakovich, loves the music, the trivia about his life, how and why he wrote his music, everything. He came to see a concert where I was playing in the orchestra for Shostakovich’s violin concerto and he asked me afterwards what it felt like to play Shostakovich, because he was not a musician and I guess he felt that was a feeling he would never experience. And you know what? The honest answer I had for him was that it was scary. I was so scared of playing wrong notes, of playing out of time, out of tune, coming in early, coming in late, blending my tone with the instruments around me, that I had no idea what it felt like to play Shostakovich. I just knew how it felt to try to play the dots on the page. That’s not the same thing.
There’s so much tradition built up around these pieces and an expectation to play them the proper way. I found it overwhelming.
You’ve said that you felt depressed trying to sound like someone you’re not. Who were you trying to sound like? What was your ‘ideal’ sound that you felt pressured to aim towards?
I guess I was trying to sound like Karl Leister; this very straight, dark German tone. That was the ideal sound I was aiming for, and the only reason I was aiming towards that sound was because that was the way it was always done.
I didn’t particularly like it, but that’s the proper way to do it. Then I’d listen to klezmer players like David Krakauer, Gioria Feidman and Anat Cohen, or jazz players like Eddie Daniels, Sidney Bechet and Paquito D’Rivera, and I’d just be blown away. The clarinet can sound like that!? And so, I’d experiment. I’d practise my Brahms or Weber, or whatever, and then I’d try to copy these players that I actually liked. Put a glissando here, some vibrato there, and I’d have so much fun, but then I’d hide that away from my teachers and peers’ judgement.
So did you end up walking away from a particular career path? How did you deal with this period in your life?
There was this attitude that permeated the con when I went there that unless you were aiming for a career as an orchestral musician then you were a failure. So, I pursued this dream and I got side jobs. I played in bands, I ushered, I taught, and I discovered all these things that I was really good at and that I had fun doing. But I kept on pursuing this dream of being an orchestral musician. It wasn’t even my dream anymore, it was just what I should be doing. And the whole time, it was making me feel like a failure. Even though I was having all this other success in other parts of my life, there was this shadow hanging over me that I was never good enough.
I played this concert, just a scratch orchestra; I made a mistake, I came in early and the conductor gave me a dirty look, and I just shrunk in on myself. I didn’t want to look at anyone, I didn’t want to look at the people playing next to me, didn’t want to talk to anyone at interval. I was so angry with myself. How could I make such a stupid mistake? I felt like I’d let everyone down and that everyone would know that I was really a fraud. Anyway, one mistake became two became three – it just snowballed, and by the end of the gig I just didn’t trust myself. I had complete tunnel vision. All I could see was my music on the page. I was so angry, embarrassed, and annoyed with myself.
I cried in the car on the way home. Just questioning what I was even doing with my life – why I was trying to do this with my life when it made me feel like this, and I just wasn’t good enough. What was wrong with me that I’d made all these stupid mistakes?
And I thought and thought. I only felt like that when I was playing with an orchestra. Maybe it’s the weight of tradition, the self-perceived judgement of my peers, I don’t know. But I knew that I only ever got this level of performance anxiety when I was playing in an orchestra. I never felt like that when I was playing in klezmer bands, when I was playing chamber music, when I was conducting an ensemble, or playing solo in front of people.
That night in the car was my ‘f–k this’ moment. I think we all have one – maybe at a part-time job, maybe in a relationship – we all have one. This was mine. F–k this – there’s so much that is good about my clarinet playing. Why am I aiming for the thing that is causing me pain? It didn’t make sense to pursue this thing that made me miserable anymore.
Do you feel there’s a danger or pressure for young musicians to walk away from their natural interests, talents, or styles, in order to fit into a particular ‘box’? How can they branch out and be brave enough to be themselves?
I think it’s getting better. But when I went through the con, there was definitely a pervading culture that being a full-time orchestral musician was the only acceptable career path. I think that culture is changing, and tertiary students are being shown different models of what success looks like.
For me, it wasn’t a matter of bravery, it was a matter of survival. That sounds incredibly melodramatic, but I’d hit a point where trying not to be myself was causing me psychological anguish, and I could feel that if I kept trying to go down that route it would get worse. I had to make a change.
So, if it’s a matter of continuing on a trajectory that is causing you harm and distress, or leading a fulfilling existence as a person and as an artist, how could you not make that change?
So with all of this said….who is Ed Ferris?
Ed Ferris is unabashedly just me. Just me with a clarinet. I’m playful, mischievous, curious, full of wonder and a little bit of swagger. It sounds like I’m describing a cat. I’m not the best clarinettist in the world, I’m just trying as hard as I can just like everyone else. I’ll probably squeak or make a mistake on stage. It’ll be rough and raw, but I’ll be damned if it’ll be boring.
Why do these works that you’re presenting in the upcoming concert mean so much to you?
Every instrument has a core repertoire. The usual suspects that you mention to another player of your instrument and they nod sagely and know exactly what you’re talking about. The problem is: those pieces in the clarinet’s core repertoire don’t excite me. They’re nice and, sure, there may be some clarinettist reading this who really gets their kicks playing one of the Brahms sonatas. It’s just not me. I want to play the stuff that makes me go ‘the clarinet can sound like that?!’.
The pieces I’ve chosen span a huge range of styles and cultures, and each call for a different tone quality, a different character and approach. It’s like being an actor, in a way: changing the way I play from piece to piece. Here, I am trying to sound like a flamenco guitarist one moment, and a kookaburra the next.
I believe that if there’s something in a piece that excites me, then the performance I give of that piece is going to excite an audience. Every one of these pieces makes me excited about music and about the clarinet.
Any final message you’d like to share with emerging artists in Australia?
It’s not enough to just be really good at your instrument. That’s the minimum requirement. There are hundreds, maybe thousands of people who are just as good if not better than you in your given field. But there is only one you. Take all those little idiosyncrasies, quirks, and special interests outside of your art and incorporate them into your craft. In the end, those minute differences, that make you unique and different, are your biggest selling point as a performer.
See Clarinet Maverick Ed Ferris present his show Have Clarinet, Will Travel at fourtyfivedownstairs, 7pm May 28. Joining him onstage will be Stephanie Arnold (cello) and Morna Hu (piano). Expect works by Piazzolla, Kats-Chernin, Pӓrt and more.
Images supplied.
