BY MYLES OAKEY, 2016 CUTCOMMON YOUNG WRITER OF THE YEAR
It happens every time: a short walk, a bus ride, a drive, or when I’m cooking. I pick up my phone, go to my music library, and hit search. All I want to do is listen to some music. But instead, it turns into an identity crisis.
Who am I today?
What do I want to listen to?
Or, what should I listen to; what do I have to listen to?
I’m a ‘classical musician’, shouldn’t I live and breathe this music?
If I don’t, does that mean maybe I don’t really love it?
By this time, I’ve already arrived at my destination or I’m serving up my favourite vegetarian Thai green curry; and the opportunity to enjoy any quality music, is gone.
The fact is, we listen widely and wildly to any genre we choose. We love it. And it changes who we are, as listeners, as performers, and as composers.
Kieran Welch recognises that fact. And shares an ethos with post-genre musicians and composers who question the value that music has in society and how it can reflect or provided new perspectives on contemporary experience.
Like Kieran, many of us engage in diverse musical experiences; music assumes many different roles in our lives. So, when it comes to listening or performance do we have to choose between our instrument’s traditional repertoire and contemporary music that we enjoy? And can post-genre music offer an eclectic freedom that speaks to our lives and our ears as contemporary people?
Kieran doesn’t leave these questions in the back of his mind. The Brisbane-based violist, curator, DJ, and writer lives a musical life that reflects who he is as a musician and listener. Kieran loves traditional classical repertoire; but when it comes to his relationship with it, his honesty is refreshing:
“You get tired,” Kieran says. “You practice this music five hours a day, and work so hard to perfect it. When you finish you don’t want to listen to classical music a lot of the time, and I think for me that has been great.
“I’m still passionate about music, and I’ll still come home and listen to Boards of Canada, Radiohead, or Aphex Twin because it’s not like I’m having to engage with it on a work level, it’s just something I really enjoy.”
Kieran is as passionate as he is articulate when it comes to being an advocate for the performance of contemporary classical music, especially in new and engaging settings outside the concert hall. As the curator of concert series Dots+Loops, now heading into its seventh show, Kieran is creating opportunities for people outside the classical music scene, as well those within it, to engage with new music in an entirely new sonic and spatial experience – you’re even allowed to be social, chat, and have a drink.
I ask Kieran about his aims for Dots+Loops:
“The social aspect is a big one – we program the concerts more like rock programming, rather than like the concert hall: 20 to 25 minutes on, then a 25 minute break.
“As well as having a chat with friends and going to the bar, the break gives people a chance to talk about the music, what they like, what they didn’t like; it engages the audience in the decision-making about this new music.
“When you get people coming up saying, ‘I’ve never been to this kind of thing before, and I connected with it so much’, that’s one of the best things I can hear.”
Kieran is successfully building a sense of community around Dots+Loops in Brisbane, bringing together composers, performers, and new listeners. When I ask how, Kieran talks about ‘accessibility’, but is quick to add the caveat that that this does not mean a ‘dumbing down’. For Kieran, accessibility comes down to both the way it is presented, with projects like Dots+Loops, and also the layers of interest that exist within a composition – a talent Kieran admires in the writing of Chris Perren, composer for the group Nonsemble.
As the violist for Nonsemble, Kieran draws on his diverse performance and listening background to interpret the shifting sonic worlds that Chris Perren creates. If you listen to 2015’s Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke, and the newly released 2016 Spaceship Earth, you’ll know what I mean. Go Seigen vs. Fujisawa Kuranosuke is a 30-minute long scale work for septet – piano quintet, guitar, and drums – that bases its composition from a championship game of Japanese Go; while Spaceship Earth features the same unique instrumentation with the addition of vocals, creating what Kieran says sounds like “killer pop songs” on a surface level, “but with levels of intricacies that reward multiple listens” – and he’s all about that.
As an honours and postgraduate student at the University of Queensland, Kieran has been following his passion for post-genre music by exploring the ethos of contemporary writers.
“There are people with this ethos all around the world who grew up in the classical tradition, but might also, like me, like electronic music or rock, and combine those aspects in their music without hierarchy.”
In 2015 Kieran was awarded the Nancy Jones Travelling Scholarship to support his postgraduate Masters research.
“I travelled to the United Sates and interviewed a bunch of people with that ethos, especially New Amsterdam Records which are a big contemporary music record label based in New York run by Judd Greenstein, Sarah Kirkland Snider, and William Brittelle; and also composers Bryce Dessner, Missy Mazzoli, and David T. Little.
“They’re doing in New York what I’m hoping to do here with the Dots+Loops series. I studied what was effective, and how I can technically play it better as well.”
That won’t be his last trip to the States. This year, Kieran has been invited as a successful applicant to New York’s Bang on a Can Festival where he will be mentored and work alongside leading new music composers John Luther Adams and David Lang, and violinist Todd Reynolds. A smile stretches from ear to ear as he talks about it – the festival has been a network for post-genre composers he’s interviewed, and he’ll be surrounded by like-minded musicians. It’s not all for his own benefit, though: Kieran is excited about coming into contact with a lot of new music that he can bring back and perform in Australia.
Before that, we’ll being hearing Kieran perform new works on his solo EP to be released later this year, featuring viola and electronics in works composed by Michael Gordon, Chris Perren and Benjamin Heim.
It sounds like Kieran’s musical life is all in new contemporary classical music. But he tells us it’s all about balance, in the practice room and in programming. This is something he’s learnt studying under teacher and mentor Patricia Pollett. These days, Kieran is able to avoid that identity crisis I told you about. He recognises how his classical training and repertoire directly influences the interpretive process in his contemporary playing. Not just that, though. His critical perspective on the classical music scene and culture allows him to confront the challenging reality that change is happening: “Classical music isn’t dying – it’s just changing. It’s definitely changing”.
For Kieran, new music is about speaking to our lives as contemporary people:
“For me, contemporary music is a way to display or make a comment about life today in a way that can reflect or put a new perspective on experiences that people have, or help people access parts of emotions, feelings, and tell a story.
“And I think it’s incredible that we still play all this music that was written 200 years ago – Mozart, Beethoven, or Brahms – and that it’s really connecting with people. That’s a real testament to the skill of these composers.”
But sometimes Kieran asks himself how, when such composers lived in a world so different to our own.
“They lived in a time when they were employed by court, there was no electricity, no internet – their lives were so different.
“I feel like music written today should be a lot better placed to connect with people living today, so for me that the most important thing.”
Since I spoke with Kieran, I’ve felt inspired. And I’ve discovered a wealth of new music that speaks to me. Lately, when I reach for my phone, go to my music library, and hit search, I’m excited to listen. It’s a reminder to embrace sounds that capture and inspire you, not tire you.
Dots+Loops on July 2 will feature Max Richter’s Vivaldi Recomposed, the premiere of a new major work from Nonsemble, and a DJ by Kieran Welch. Hear Nonsemble’s New Release Spaceship Earth, and read about Kieran’s other achievements and projects with Argo and Armas Quartet at www.kieranwelch.com.
This feature is part of CutCommon Young Writers’ Month. About the author:
2016 CutCommon Young Writer of the Year Myles Oakey is in his fourth year of a Bachelor of Music/Bachelor of Education at the University of New South Wales. He loves playing classical guitar – though he’s also studied jazz and contemporary music. Myles is a member of the UNSW Balinese gamelan ensemble Suwitra Jaya. He took two educational trips to Bali, during which he performed at the Bali Arts Festival in 2015. Myles received the Dean’s List Award in 2014-15. This year, he won the Honours Bursary Award for Music and it’s allowed him to undertake additional research in the field of ethnography in music. His dream is to pursue a career in music research by “writing ethnographies that capture the diversity of musical activity and experience in music-making”.
Featured image credit Connor D’Netto and Benjamin Heim.
