BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
On 25 November, Kyla Matsuura-Miller shared a story.
From the Melbourne Digital Concert Hall stage, the violinist spoke to her listeners about a traditional folk song from the Burakumin region of Japan. In Takeda No Komoriuta, a woman is forced to work for a rich family, carrying her baby on her back and dreaming of her homeland. Kyla then performed this “wistful, haunting” lullaby, marking her official entry into the 2021 Freedman Classical Fellowship.
On 26 November, Kyla was announced the winner.
Supported by The Music Trust and Sydney Improvised Music Association, the new Freedman Classical Fellow received a $21,000 prize to work on her powerful new project. In this interview, she tells CutCommon why she is choosing to commission new compositions by Black, Indigenous and People of Colour (BIPOC) Australian artists as part of her prize.
To learn more about the Freedman Classical Fellowship, including 2021 finalists and the judging panel, save this link for after.
Kyla, congratulations on being named the Freedman Classical Fellow for 2021! How would you describe your reaction when you first found out you won?
Oof, a mixture of joy, relief, and total exhilaration, to be honest!
I also had a little happy cry to myself. The road towards the Freedman Finals started in March, and has felt like a culmination to a rather confusing, disjointedly COVID-y year. So I think a few tears were warranted, considering.
Take us back to your performance video in which you played Takeda No Komoriuta. In what way does this music and story resonate with you, to the extent that you chose it for your fellowship performance piece?
Upon discovering Takeda No Komoriuta, I was struck by its wistful, haunting melody. To discuss social caste is still a touch on the taboo side in Japan, but I wonder if in not talking about these uncomfortable things, we perpetuate these desperately sad stories of folks stuck within their social confines.
I found it to be deeply moving to try to tell this anonymous girl’s story of homesickness and social exclusion.
Your judging panel said in a joint statement that it was this insight into your repertoire that spoke to them.
It was imperative to me that my recital would balance aspects of showmanship, storytelling, and also be a reflection of the themes in my proposal.
I decided that in putting forward a project about BIPOC Australians, it would only make sense to tell a story about me also! So I chose repertoire to reflect my Australian heritage, my love for the violin, and then finally my Japanese heritage.
After winning the fellowship, you described this achievement as a “huge privilege and responsibility”. What does this idea mean to you?
To win this prize means that myself and these three composers have been handed a pretty big platform in Australia to say something, and by gum have we got something to say!
It is a privilege to be able to share this art, and to reflect on the beauty, alienation, revelations, and experiences that so many BIPOC Australians share and understand.
The project is an opportunity to not just create something from a place of mutual compassion and shared experiences, but to then seek to convey the complex and multifaceted experiences of otherness to the audience.
Let’s talk about this project and the new works you wanted to commission, including who you chose to team up with.
My project, currently named Three Conversations, is an interdisciplinary musical exploration that invites listeners to immerse themselves in the collective cultural memory of being raised non-white in Australia.
Three new works for solo violin with optional electronics will be commissioned and premiered in 2022. The pieces will draw upon the experiences of each composer, and the themes and memories captured within each piece will be explored and contextualised within a series of interviews between the composer and performer that will precede each composition. The pieces could be based on anything — a memory, a wisp of one, a smell, a colour, or a feeling.
Each of the three composers, beginning with Stéphanie Kabanyana Kanyandekwe, will be selected from a carefully curated shortlist of exceptional interdisciplinary artists who are not only informed by but are committed to being actively engaged in the discourse around being raised non-white in Australia. These new compositions seek to create the necessary space for that dialogue.
I am also very excited to collaborate with Play On, and filmmaker Tobias Willis. The three compositions will be accompanied by a three-episode documentary-style series compiled of interviews and stories shared between each composer and myself, footage of the compositions being workshopped, to culminate in a live performance which will be co-presented by Play On. Post-performance, all of this footage including the live performance will be packaged for distribution via YouTube under the Play On banner to be accessible for all audiences.
Within this space, you’ve mentioned your win will see you amplifying “new, unheard stories in classical music”. What do you feel to be the power of building this legacy in Australian music?
This question makes me think back to when I was a young tacker/warthog/gromit learning violin in Brisbane. It never, not even once, occurred to me that there was something a bit amiss or one-sided in the choices of repertoire and who deserves a platform — Brahms, Beethoven, Mozart. Don’t get me wrong, I love these blokes too. It was only later on in life that I started to question the why: Why these composers? Why these stories? Why were there no composers who looked like me, no folks on the telly who had a similar story to me?
You can’t be what you can’t see. So maybe there’s a small part of me that is doing this for all the other young Kylas out there so they can feel represented, too.
I truly hope that audience members walk away from this concert experience having lived in somebody else’s shoes for that night, and can take and cherish those experiences — whether they be happy, sad, uncomfortable, or simply as they are.
Before we go, as winner of the Freedman Classical Fellowship, what words of encouragement would you send to other young musicians who are working hard to build their careers in the industry here in Australia?
There are so many different things I could say here, but I’ll just leave one piece of advice: do not sacrifice rest, relaxation, and connection with your family and friends for your art.
Yes, music is important, and developing your skill on your instrument is important. But it can’t come at the expense of your physical, mental, and spiritual health.
There is no physical or mental longevity in this industry if you’re constantly injured or on the verge of burnout. And sometimes, it really does help to just walk away from it and come back. Don’t worry, it’ll be there for you after. You have time.
We teamed up with SIMA to bring you Kyla’s story! Learn more about the fellowship and keep up to date on the Music Trust website.
Images supplied. Credit Suzie Blake.
