BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Have we finally come to the end of that age-old divide between ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’ music cultures? If a new student-led music festival is anything to go by, the answer is a resounding ‘yes’.
Students from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music have been working together to create their own events, and they see no barriers when it comes to crossing into new disciplines. Digital music with classical piano? Great. Funk with bassoon? Bring it on!
The inaugural New Creatives festival will feature 16 events this October, and ahead of them, we sat down with staff coordinator Damien Ricketson (pictured above) to hear what it was like to see students working collaboratively — an opportunity that sounds as professional as it does academic.
Hi Damien! New Creatives brings together students from across various degrees. This doesn’t always happen — we often see that long-held cultural divide between ‘classical’ and ‘contemporary’, although things are changing. Why do you think that is?
The music scene is wonderfully vibrant and diverse. It would be remiss of the Sydney Conservatorium not to help students develop the skills to work across musical genres and traditions.
For many of us, the music we cherish and admire extends beyond the specialist discipline of our training. Wearing the label of our degree type – classical performance, contemporary music practice – can carry a perceived expectation of what music we should make, how we make it, and who we work with. Following several years of tertiary study with a specific instrument or specialisation, this festival says to students that it is OK to step out of your lane. In fact, we think that your musical potential and worldview will be enhanced by working with musicians who are different to you.
Fortunately, this generation is already less siloed than generations such as my own — and far more aware and open-minded to the skills, knowledge, and values contained within different musical traditions. In this sense, the Con is simply helping to enable cultural changes that are already in play.
So how did the idea for the inaugural New Creatives come about?
The New Creatives festival showcases live performances created by students in their final year of a Bachelor of Music degree as part of a subject called Music Specialist Creative Projects.
Students from across the Con’s classical, composition, composition for creative industries, contemporary, digital, jazz, and musicology degrees self-form into mixed groups to design, develop, and deliver a public-facing project of their own devising.
The subject was born out of a broader push at the University of Sydney to equip students with more experience in interdisciplinary collaboration following feedback from employers on desirable graduate qualities. Many at the Con and the professional community recognised a similar interdisciplinary attribute as desirable for a successful career in music and accordingly jumped at the opportunity to update our curriculum.
This idea of a student-led festival, in which musicians design their own projects, sounds representative of real-world music careers. What skills are they learning through these collaborations?
The projects are entirely dreamt up by the students – they are constrained only by their collective imagination, and of course the practical realities of what they can deliver with their combined skills and the time and resources available.
We provide a lot of scaffolding along the way, and mock up how their project might be delivered independently in a real-world situation – budgeting, funding, promotion, etc. At the end of the year, the students also pitch their projects to a real industry panel.
Through this process, we try to help prepare students for the multitude of skills the modern musician needs beyond simply performing or composing to a high standard.
How would you say this interaction across degrees helps foster a more positive culture for everyone, regardless of the type of music they make?
It can be incredibly eye-opening having to collaborate with people who think differently about music, have different processes of creating, different conventions for communicating and sharing music, different strategies for rehearsing, and different protocols for performance and presentation.
For example, one of my groups comprises a classical pianist, a jazz drummer, a Chinese pipa player and a digital music and media student. You might think musicians collaborating with other musicians is hardly interdisciplinary, but I can’t overstate how much knowledge needs to be shared in the rehearsal room to make that particular quartet work.
I think everyone comes away from an experience like this with a deeper understanding and respect for diverse musical disciplines as well as a raft of new creative processes and strategies they can employ in future work.
What are some of the wildest collaborations in this student-led festival?
There is a jazz-metal band as well as a funk band featuring a bassoonist – but these two groups are releasing recordings rather than performing in the festival. There’s also a country music for kids show, which is a bit out of the box for the Con.
The festival traverses an eclectic lineup of acts from folk-pop, cinematic strings, D&B-infused jazz, reimagined classical, experimental improvisation, a staged song cycle, a musical photo gallery, and the launch of a student-created video game.
Despite the diversity, some interesting themes emerge across projects: almost half of the acts include interesting integration of electronic and acoustic music, many performances are accompanied by multimedia videos, there are multiple kid-oriented programs, and at least three very different performances exploring the anxiety of growing up.
How do you feel these experiences are helping students understand and shape their career trajectory?
In facilitating students working together to create the music that they want to hear, I hope we can assist in developing the confidence, agency, and know-how to self-mobilise to generate and realise their own opportunities in the future.
For classical performers to collaborate with composers, contemporary and jazz musicians, for whom there is no ‘one seat’ in an orchestra, it can also help students conceptualise a different mindset to career possibilities.
What were some of the most common challenges students brought to you when they were figuring out their projects, and planning how to bring them to life?
Group work.
The most common challenge that emerges in this subject is definitely managing group dynamics. Collaboration can be difficult at the best of times, and I think creative projects can carry a heightened emotional dimension with individual vulnerabilities and egos on the line.
While I genuinely hope everyone clicks with one another in their groups – and I genuinely believe long-term collaborative relationships are developed in subjects like this – I suspect the groups that don’t always run smoothly, and have those interpersonal bumps along the way, are the groups that actually learn the most.
While the music presented in the festival might be the tangible outcome of this subject, from an educational perspective the real and relevant learning is negotiating how to manage other people.
Having worked with so many emerging musicians to realise this festival, what are your big ideas or impressions about the future of the Australian music industry that they are stepping into?
It’s a privilege to work for over 130 aspiring young musicians and 26 groups. I am struck by how much fresh and original music is generated through this subject.
Although I am a composer who often advocates for new music, I have never pushed or forced the creation of original work as a necessary feature of these projects. Nonetheless, about 90 per cent of the many hours of music coming out of this subject is entirely composed and created by the students themselves.
The collective diversity and agility represented in this cohort, which I’m sure is reflected elsewhere in the country, certainly gives me confidence in a future Australian music sector that is imaginative, versatile, and bold.
Learn more about New Creatives: A Festival of Diverse New Music from the Con taking place this 12-13 October at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music.
Featured image credit Matthew Duchesne. Damien above by April Josie.
