BY ZOE DOUGLAS-KINGHORN
From mountain dells to urban stormwater tunnels, limestone caves, and street corners, you never know where Emily Sheppard will make her music.
“My favourite place to play is actually a concrete jungle under Hobart city!” Emily says of her musical hideaway in the Hobart Rivulet.
“Acoustically, it’s the most amazing place I know of. There’s some sense of fear in there, which pricks up your senses.” In particular, Emily says she likes the juxtaposition of tone with the concrete surroundings of the tunnel.
“Some of my most spiritual or churchlike experiences have been there with a bunch of friends, singing for hours; just luxuriating in the sound and space.”
A classical violinist, Sheppard began playing at the age of five. Now a quarter-of-a-century old, the Australian National Academy of Music graduate has played with the Australian Chamber Orchestra, the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, Orchestra Victoria, and myriad ensembles around Australia.
She is also a composer. Her work is evocative and diasporic, inspired by her extensive knowledge of world music, and often centred around themes of natural wilderness. Fitting, as Emily studies environmental science at the University of Tasmania. Her chamber group the Eureka Ensemble has led countless improvisation workshops in regional schools around the country.
We chat to Emily about disappearing kelp forests, environmental activism, and composing in caves; all the while wondering how she has the time. 
If you could choose one piece of music to play to aliens on another planet (who have aural receptors and the capacity to enjoy music), what would it be?
That’s a very hard question! I would maybe play Bach’s Chaconne – with the added voice part. There’s a version with a collection of hymns that Bach had chosen to go with the Chaconne. Someone did a lot of research and found their melodic excerpts; looking at the words, they somehow pieced them together. All the hymns were centred around death and redemption – Bach wrote the Chaconne after he had spent three months abroad, when he returned home to discover his wife had died. No one had told him.
You’ve been part of Tarkine in Motion, an art project designed to convey the beauty of a rainforest to people in the city. Do you think music can compel people to action on environmental issues?
It’s another form of communication. Art in particular opens people to a certain emotional state. It’s much more visceral than, say, staring at a screen and reading an article – it’s a very different state of being. Listening can potentially inspire people to be part of the change.
It’s really hard to pinpoint because inspiration is so diverse. A lot of my music does have an environmental theme, but that’s because it inspires me; it’s just the way that works for me to make music.
Does your music speak to a sense of loss, as a reflection of disappearing wilderness?
I think composition is often a reflection of the mindset of the composer. Recently, I have been interested in philosophies which give perspective on human life and our place in the universe. I wrote a piece based on Carl Sagan’s book Pale Blue Dot, which is about the first photograph of Earth from space. From that scale, everything seems insignificant but also incredibly important.
Lynn Margulis also talks about symbiosis (how species live alongside and benefit from each other) and how this is a large driver of evolution, counter to the dominant ideas of neo-Darwinism. So it’s a different way of looking at the world; a broadness of perspectives.
When you are first introduced to environmental concepts, loss is probably at the forefront of your mind, because that’s the most emotional point of entry.
What are your biggest sources of inspiration when writing music?
Place is definitely a huge source of inspiration. It’s the combination of my direct experience with my knowledge of what has happened in that place.
For example, my piece about takayna was written after the fires of 2016. They spread right up to the coastline, burning ancient pencil pines which can’t regenerate after a fire. I was thinking about the implications of climate change, and over on the beach there were two plovers guarding their eggs. I saw one of the baby plovers a few seconds after it hatched, and I felt this stark contrast of life and death.
I recently took up a residency inside some caves in Mole Creek and Hastings. I was looking at trying to depict the cave environment, including the geology. I composed the better half of a concert over four weeks, collaborating with two other artists for two weeks. We were living close to the caves, accessing them as much as possible and looking at the environment from different perspectives. The history, the Indigenous connection – so little is known, and some of my pieces speak to this. This concert was called Unsounded. We had to draw on sources from other caves nearby, such as Kutikina Cave. It’s the southernmost point where people have been recorded living, and we wrote a piece about the loss of the memory of those people.
What kind of process do you follow in composition? Do you sit down at a desk and write?
If I’m on my own, I’ll go and improvise in the space for however long – maybe three hours – and I’ll record it. I might try different ideas and do some pure free improvisation, then go back and listen, pick out the bit I like and write it down, if it’s complex. If not, I’ll just remember it and iteratively develop the piece. I often add to the themes, writing bits and pieces down. It’s an evolving process and it never ends.
There’s an element of improvisation in my pieces – it allows me to come up with a new section in performance, to respond to the vibe of the room.
Do you think it’s important to take creative risks in music?
Just follow what’s important to you. Because of my background, I need to be constantly pushing boundaries, or I get restless. But if you haven’t had 15 years of serious classical training, that might not be a priority for you. That’s equally valid.
You recently collaborated with a dance/music project about the disappearance of kelp forests in Tasmania. Can you tell us more about it?
[My studies in environmental science informed me that] on the East Coast of Tasmania, waters are warming four times faster than the global norm. On the East Coast, we’ve seen a 99 per cent decrease in giant kelp. The whole species isn’t going to go extinct, because it exists in other places, but there are all these changes happening in the ocean due to climate change. There are many complex factors transforming the ecosystem.A group of us – three dancers and two musicians – formed a collective called Nelipot. We were all really interested in the oceans and this specific topic; we did a whole year of development around kelp. We spent a lot of time thinking: ‘How do we make kelp interesting? How do we think about this from a kelp’s perspective?’.
Gradually, we developed a 40-minute show with original music. The choreography often merged with our musical performance – it was very holistic!
How did you first become involved with environmental activism?
Before I came to Tasmania, I had never heard of environmentalism. In the first week of moving to Tassie, I went to a fundraiser at the university co-op, where I met a lot of people who resonated with me. I quickly became very passionate about the environment by learning about it and meeting other people, and joined heaps of groups: the Wilderness Society, Australian Youth Climate Coalition, University Environment Collective. I played at a lot of rallies.
How do you juggle your music career, study, and volunteering?
I think they’re quite complementary because I get sick of staring at computer screens! Each makes me appreciate the other thing. After a day of study, I crave playing or composing, and volunteering at Source co-op is rewarding. Doing mindless work can be satisfying, making things more ordered.
Do you have any tips for classical musos who want to improvise?
Everyone has different reasons why they’re scared of [improvisation] or haven’t tried it. I think the first time I improvised was at a workshop with Speak Percussion, a group in Melbourne that do a lot of experimental performances. They ran a composers’ workshop and I was 16, in year 11 at school. It was an amazing week that completely changed the direction of my musical career. It opened me up to a whole world of music I didn’t know about. One day, we laid out a whole bunch of found objects: bowls, spoons, cups, plastic, paper. Everyone (15 or 20 people) just improvised for an hour. We weren’t focused on making a good piece – we were focused on playing. There was no pressure at all. No audience.
I think that was the beginning of opening myself up. I realised you can approach music from a really stripped-back place. It made me look at the violin and my body and my voice and the way we can create sounds in an abstract way. There’s a sense of play and freedom in that.
Hear Emily perform in a concert of Tasmanian composers on 30 June, 7.30 pm at the Farrall Centre, Friends School, Hobart. Emily’s former ensemble Nelipot presents Adrift at the Bay of Fires Winter Arts Festival, on 10 of June, 4.30 pm at Portland Hall, St Helens.
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