BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
UPDATE 17 JULY 2019: Melody’s work for the TSO, as discussed below, resulted in her being named a finalist in the APRA AMCOS Art Music Awards’ Orchestral Work of the Year!
Have you ever wondered what life is really like with the orchestra? Welcome to EXPOSED!
In 2018, we continue to team up with musicians, managers, and arts administrators from the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra to take you behind the scenes, and show you what it means to pursue a career in a challenging and fulfilling industry.
Melody Eötvös is an Australian composer who has created a new work for the orchestra. This TSO commission incorporates Shakespearean themes to reflect its 70th-anniversary season, and will be performed alongside Fauré’s Requiem.
Melody is a graduate of the Queensland Conservatorium of Music, Griffith University, the Royal Academy of Music in London, and the Indiana University Jacobs School of Music in the United States.
She’s also quite familiar with the TSO, having attended its Australian Composers’ School in 2008 and 2009. Now a decade on, she tells us what it’s really like to work as a composer in the orchestral world.
Tell us how you became involved with the TSO.
I first became involved with the TSO back in 2008 as an emerging composer for the TSO Composers School. I still remember how excited I was to be chosen for the school, and how much I learnt from the experience.
You’ve written for a few orchestras in the past – what about orchestral music interests you?
Orchestral composition is so attractive, because you basically have this singular massive instrument that you can manipulate and mould to a far greater degree than any other traditional combination of instruments. Because I have been writing orchestral music for a while now, I also find it my most effective means of compositional expression.
What are the biggest challenges in writing for orchestra?
Time! I always wish I had more of it when writing for orchestra; both in terms of composition writing time, as well as the duration of the work itself. Even with this 28-minute commission, I got dangerously close to the outer limit of what I was allowed, timewise. I think this is due to the overwhelming temptation to keep working with and expanding the material over the course of a movement and throughout the work as a whole. I usually discard a large amount of draft material that just didn’t make it into the piece due to time or structural constraints. A fortunate side-effect of this, though, is that this process ends up distilling the piece to a good degree.
How much do you work with the orchestra – its conductor, musicians, administrative staff – during the creation of your piece?
With this particular commission, I spent a few days with the whole orchestra – conductor and admin staff as well – in March earlier this year for a workshop on the first nine minutes of the piece. This was a very rare opportunity, though, and not a normal part of the process I usually undergo when writing an orchestral work.
In August, I will be present at all of the rehearsals, as well as meet with conductor Marko Letonja a few times to discuss the piece and go over any potential issues or complications that might arise.
Does orchestral composition provide you with opportunities you wouldn’t gain from other commission experiences?
An interesting question, and one I haven’t really thought about very much. I’d have to say yes, though. All of my biggest commissions and awards were a result of or connected with an orchestral work of some kind. There are many reasons why that is the case, though, and the audience size will always have a lot to do with it as well.
But beyond monetary considerations, you can also connect really well with a smaller ensemble and work with them for many years, and have just as rewarding an experience – and potentially more performances! So it really depends on several different aspects of what’s involved with being (and surviving as!) a composer.
What’s been your most memorable experience in orchestral commission?
I’d have to say the first time I worked with Marko Letonja – it still stands out in my mind for many reasons!
In 2009, I was in Melbourne for the 3MBS Betty Amsden Composition Prize, with Orchestra Victoria. I had worked with this orchestra before in 2008 for a composers school directed by Richard Mills), so I wasn’t nervous about them performing my piece. However, I had a preconceived idea of what Marko was going to be like, and I know how important it is to be able to understand and communicate with the conductor who is caring for your music.
Needless to say, from the first moment I met him, he was incredibly relateable and an absolute pleasure to be around. And beyond rehearsals, he was a fun, energetic character to celebrate with! So, pretty much the complete opposite of what I had built up in my imagination.
Ten years on, he is still the wonderful, spirited, and inimitable conductor I first met.
As a young artist, how hard is it really to start building your orchestral composition career?
It’s really as difficult or as easy as you make it. You need to do your homework (research what opportunities are available and apply for them in a sensible order), your study (orchestration, orchestration, orchestration!), and you need to try to make your own way forward with how you write the music; for instance, the ‘uniqueness’ that we’re always being told we need to find within ourselves. Though, this will happen over time anyway.
And cherish your connections – the networking you’ll also develop as you move forward. Even if there’s a long time in between those connections and people remembering you, that memory will prove very valuable down the track; like my work with both Marko and the TSO converging over the past few years into two commissions with them.
What advice would you give to other young composers?
Develop a thick skin early on. You’ll get many rejections and around 90 per cent of the opportunities you apply for will fail (maybe even 95 per cent). It is the same for everyone. Move on, get past the disappointment, and apply for another five opportunities in place of each rejection.
If the competition horse is not for you, then that’s also fine. Just make sure you find like-minded composers and musicians that you can work with and you’ll help each other forward.
What can we expect from your upcoming TSO commission?
This is my biggest commission to date, so the piece for me is a bit of a monument. It’s in five movements and each is centred around a particular female character from a Shakespeare play.
There is a moment in each movement where Pamela Rabe narrates the monologue as a little space that opens up out of the more traditional orchestral texture. Well, traditional to me, at least. There are some sonic connections to early music, a lot of parallel fifths and modality, as well as some heavier, more dramatic timbral work.
And finally…what does it feel like to hear an orchestra premiere your work?
The dream! Always, even after 10 years of writing for them.
Witness the world premiere of Melody’s new composition with the TSO at Faure Requiem, 7.30pm August 4 in the Federation Concert Hall.
