James Henry talks music, story, and country

BY LYDIA MCCLELLAND, WITH INTRODUCTION BY LUCY RASH

This story was produced in partnership with the Peninsula Summer Music Festival as part of the inaugural CutCommon Young Critics’ Mentorship, of which Lydia is the winner.

Performer, composer, and sound designer James Henry is a model contemporary artist.

With key roles spanning from musical director of Tanderrum, the Melbourne Festival’s opening ceremony, to touring guitarist with Black Arm Band and Archie Roach, and his development of various commissions for the City of Melbourne, it’s clear James wields skills as diverse as his collaborations.

And yet, lucky for us, it’s James the singer/songwriter who’ll come to the fore during January’s Peninsula Summer Music Festival.

Inaugural CutCommon Young Critics’ Mentorship winner Lydia McClelland chats with James ahead of his appearance to understand more about how years of experience and influences come together in his solo work. 

What has been one of your performing or composing highlights from 2018? 

I’ve been involved with some exciting projects. One was working on a fellowship where [I’ve been] learning about traditional Aboriginal music, and finding ways to incorporate elements into contemporary genres and contexts.

I composed a soundscape for a projection on a massive bluestone flour mill in country Victoria, telling the story of the Djaara people and the mill in its working days of the mid-19th Century.

Also, I have just finished performing the live score for a run of The Bridge, telling the story of the West Gate Bridge collapse in 1970.

Tell us about the diversity of your influences. Is genre an important consideration for you?

I feel you listen to different genres with different parts of your brain. Being respectful of context and the listener’s expectation I feel is important in writing and performing; being able to take them somewhere familiar, like a particular genre or a subject matter, into somewhere new so they can either learn something new or have a unique experience.

How has your home country of Australia inspired you musically?

With the fellowship I have been working on, I have made a trip to my grandmother’s country to learn more about the traditional stories up that way; also, to find out what was important to the local people to write songs about, and collect dream melodies from sleeping up on country.

I also visited the park in the 200 metres between where I was born and went to school to feel the spirit of the place in what it meant to me, and composed a melody.

This melody is now telling the story of the situation of the lack of water in the rivers on my grandmother’s country.

Do you feel that storytelling is an inherent element of music?

It’s amazing how music can help people remember a lyric; sometimes even syllables, which don’t necessarily carry any meaning. It seems like a great opportunity to pass on important information and knowledge.

Instrumental music can tell a story as well, in its own way, with certain parts of themes being characters; and to see how they might develop across the journey of a piece, and especially as the tension and release of arrangement might parallel the shape of a movie or a novel.

What can we expect at your upcoming performance at PSMF?

It’ll be nice to perform with my band, the James Henry Band, which I don’t do so much these days. As part of this set, I’ll also perform some songs I’ve written during my fellowship. I’ll sing in the Yuwaalaraay language and still share some stories about that journey. 

Tell us about your involvement with Stephanie Arnold’s work Song & Story, also to be performed at PSMF.

Cello is one of my favourite instruments to write for and perform with.

Writing music for theatre to try and help carry the emotion of stories is an enjoyable but solitary process. I look forward to collaborating with someone with this process; to see Stephanie’s process; and see what process we can come up with together.

Also, to be able to sing some songs I have written in traditional style, in between stories with a cello, I am quite excited about.

What advice would you give to a young musician hoping to build a career in music? 

Look for the many ways music is required in the world. We all know the rock stars up on the stage and the TV, but there are many other places music is required. I wish I knew I could get work as a composer for theatre when I left high school, rather than just fall in to it in my 30s. I find it even more rewarding that performing live.

Each minute playing, writing, [and] listening is adding to enhance your musical understanding and skills. Expand your horizons and contribute something new to the artistic landscape.

See James Henry perform at the Peninsula Summer Music Festival on January 6, and with Stephanie Arnold in Song & Story on January 8.

Stay tuned for our coverage of PSMF as we team up for the inaugural CutCommon Young Critics’ Mentorship.

Image supplied.