BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
You might’ve read a story last month featuring Nikki Edgar – the young musician who enlightened us about composition and improvised noise. But this month, we’re going to take you behind the story as we meet the writer – Kiya van der Linden-Kian.
An emerging artist, Kiya is fast embracing the world of arts journalism to explore topics that resonate with fellow musicians forging their careers in Australia. This Melbourne cellist and educator has just launched his own platform to showcase the voices of our industry – and we think it’s amazing.
Scored is Kiya’s fresh new podcast, which confronts the “cavernous fear” experienced by those leaving the academic world to build a career. Across five interviews, Kiya asks real-world artists about topics from composition to collaboration; music business to inspiration.
The first episode has officially landed, and you can listen to it below. But first, we wanted to learn more about the motivation behind starting this podcast, so we settled in for a chat with the creator himself.
Kiya, what first made you interested in the world of arts media, be it written or recorded?
I actually started off as a fan of the podcast genre and would, and still do, listen to [enormous] amounts of them. It seemed like an interesting concept to me to create a space for young artists to talk about their own projects while introducing a larger discussion on craft, process, and industry. These are conversations I’ve always had with my peers, and one day it just occurred to me that it might be the kind of thing everyone might be interested in!
In terms of written music journalism, my first dream career was as a writer. So I feel as if writing about music is a happy balance between the two!
Congratulations on the launch of the very first episode of your podcast! Tell us a little more about the way you’re showcasing these conversations with young musicians.
Thank you very much! As someone who has come to the end of their degree in a creative arts course, I found that there seemed to be a gap in resources between post-tertiary study and having your dream job. I wanted to create a platform for young artists to be able to simultaneously share their work and learn about other people’s projects. I was particularly interested in cross-disciplinary works, and how people from different disciplines approach creative process.
For me, it is in the young arts community that all the stuff I’m interested in is happening! There are always new ideas and people coming up with new ways to approach projects and work with each other.
You’ve chosen some interesting topics over the course of your series. Without giving any spoilers about what’s coming up, what have you found are some of the issues that really resonate with young musicians today?
Well, without giving too much away, I wanted to choose a variety of topics that would provide different angles of approaching creative process. The first interview, for example, talks about electronic music and how the artist I spoke to, Robert Downie, creates and finds inspiration for his works. Another episode in the series is on composition, with Imogen Cygler, and it also address the process and inspiration behind creating works.
For both of these interviews, I tried to ask questions that would help the audience understand the different perspectives on composition that these two artists have.
Another interview that I think will resonate with listeners is on music business and starting your own arts company, but you’ll have to stay tuned to hear more on that…
What were some of the interesting things that you discovered about industry attitudes through these interviews, which you might never have thought about before?
To be honest, there were a lot of things!
One of the interviews was with a performance artist, and we started talking about devising performance which is a collaborative, improvisatory process of coming up with a performance work. What was interesting to me was the comparison between a devised performance versus a full scripted one, and the attitudes of the industry towards them. This was something I’d never heard of, and as such had no questions prepared. However, I decided it was such an interesting topic that I threw out most of my questions and instead spend the time discussing the ins and outs of devised performance.
How did you choose the musicians to represent the topics you were keen to explore?
Some of the interviewees I had in mind from the beginning, and had always wanted to have these discussions with them, so that was easy! The others were a combination of asking friends in different fields who would be a good person to talk to and me doing some research. All in all, I’m very grateful to all the interviewees and think that they represent a wide gamete of industries and concepts, which I hope people will enjoy hearing about!
What do you hope will be the impact of your podcast on the Australian arts industry?
The podcast is intended as a platform for young artists to showcase their works and to help influence more collaboration across disciplines. There is already a growing number of cross-disciplinary works being created, but I would love to see more projects that embrace different ways of approaching art and artistic process.
The focus of this podcast surrounds artists finishing study before taking the next big step in their career. What’s the key message you want to share with young listeners as they start this journey themselves?
As someone in those shoes myself, I can appreciate the cavernous fear that is what to do after finishing study. I do think, though, that it provides a great opportunity to explore new ideas and take a moment to figure out what you want to do. The industry is getting bigger and bigger and that gives you a greater opportunity to find your own niche! Be open to working with other people, and try looking at your industry from a different perspective to help you figure out what you want to do. And, for me personally, that all sounds pretty exciting!
LISTEN: The first episode of Kiya’s new podcast Scored is now live!
This episode is called Electronics, Synths and New Horizons for Composition, in which Kiya interviews Robert Downie. Follow Scored on Facebook. New episodes will be released once a fortnight. To develop his podcast, Kiya was awarded an IgniteLAB Creativity Fund Grant with the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music.
Images supplied.
