BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
When Perth composer Lydia Gardiner opens Instagram and scrolls to a new post from Trash Fire Poetry, she’s struck with a wave of delight.
Sure, the poetry might be a little absurd (think Christopher Walken waiting tables), and largely satirical (who needs the “twenty buckets of dirt inside our homes” that come with house plants, anyway?). But that’s exactly why Lydia loves them — and why she reckons they’re a great source of inspiration for her new music.
The Choral Collective has commissioned Lydia to set some of these poems to music, and the result is Saturday Night Poetry — a vocal work that resonates with us all as we make our way through life right now.
This music will be performed by Vanguard Consort — a collection of young singers who, in the words of Lydia, bring the poetry’s “quirkiness and realness” to Australian listeners of today.
Saturday Night Poetry is not Lydia’s only collaboration with the Choral Collective this year. The organisation also presents Voyces, a vocal ensemble showcasing Lydia’s piece The Whale and I in WA Museum Boola Bardip (under a whale skeleton, no less).
Lydia chats with CutCommon about this year’s collaborations with Vanguard Consort and Voyces.
Lydia, what is it you absolutely love about composing for voice?
Of all art forms, the voice is the one that most people use to communicate their feelings from the cradle to the grave. Hence, the nuances of the voice are easily relatable to the audience. So to me, the voice is the best way of expressing real, concrete emotion through your music.
The voice is also hugely versatile, a fact that is sometimes overlooked in favour of purely instrumental music, but the amount of colour variation you can get from a group of trained singers is quite amazing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but you really seem to love the combination of music and words. In fact, the Choral Collective has commissioned you to craft a piece of music based on text from an Instagram poet. What’s the story?
You would be correct in assuming this! I jump at any opportunities to write for voice, so I am incredibly excited about the new commission for Vanguard, who I also sing with.
When we were brainstorming music for our debut concert back at the beginning of 2021, we found we were coming up with lots of music that really showed off the poetry it was based on so beautifully. The one-per-part vocal ensemble really lends itself to storytelling because of the clarity of lines, so when the opportunity came up for a commission, I knew that the poems by @trashfirepoetry would be perfect.
One of our singers had brought up his poetry at another planning meeting, and we all fell in love with their quirkiness and realness. So after getting in contact with the poet, we started working on this project that will be fully realised at our June 18 concert, which is named after these brand new works: Saturday Night Poetry.
Trash Fire Poetry offers playful commentary on contemporary life, with themes from Wordl to house plants and getting vaxxed. What resonates most? Or are you more drawn to the rhythm of the poetry?
The poet — who I will refer to as Trashfire — really captures what it is like to be 20-something years old in Australia right now, and writes in a way that resonates with all generations. The kind of satire that is used in these poems is just so wonderful, and whenever a new poem appears on my timeline it just delights me so much.
The poem champ, which I have set to music, describes what can only be described as a bogan man playing footy by himself, and the poem ends with ‘maybe he’ll nail it today// maybe’, which to me is weirdly so beautiful and wonderful. Trashfire manages to capture what it is like to be a fly on the wall in another person’s story, as well as the main character in your own kind of weird, kind of happy, kind of sad, story.
So is your music based on the suite of poems by the same name, or the broader concepts behind Trashfire’s poetry? And either way, how are you translating them into sound?
So, the five poems were chosen from Trashfire’s Instagram, and they are just an eclectic arrangement of his works that lent themselves to musical expression in one way or another.
One of the questions I find other young composers asking me a lot is, ‘How do you know if a poem will be appropriate to be set?’. And I always say, ‘Pretty much anything can be set to music if you go about it the right way’ – these pieces certainly prove that.
I very consciously did not over-compose the musical material, which means there aren’t lots of lush, choral sounds in the works. Rather, I focused on simple gestures and the beauty of individual voices that allows the poetry to be heard easily while adding to the vibe already created by the words. One of my favourite movements has no singing at all!
Vanguard is really great at the performative side of concert making, and so I knew they would all be up for the challenge of a bit of theatre.
You’re doing a lot of work with Voyces this year. Songs Without features your music The Whale and I, and Voyces describes the event as being a program of “works all missing an intrinsic part of choral music”. This leads me to the question, what’s missing or removed from The Whale and I?
That is an interesting question indeed! The middle section of the piece is without a traditional score when it moves into what is known as indeterminate music. This is when some parameters are given, but much of the performance is improvised at the time, including the lines that Shaun Lee Chen plays.
The choir accompanies with whispers and the sounds of the ocean, and in that sense you also completely lose pitch in the choir.
In Boola Bardip, with Otto the whale’s skeleton hanging above you, the audience really feels the loss of the living whale, which the poem by Caitlyn Stone so artfully brings to life.
The Whale and I will be performed at baroque pitch. Being a singer yourself, why do you inflict this challenge on the group?!
I was asked to write this piece at Baroque pitch — which means notes are tuned at 415hz instead of 440hz — by the commissioner, Tura New Music. This is because the piece was first performed as part of a Perth Festival concert that featured the Bach Chaconnes, played by Shaun himself, which was of course done at Baroque pitch.
As far as the choir goes, those without perfect pitch probably find it no different from a usual score! The tuning difference equals roughly a semitone to our ears, and with Shaun helping solidify the pitch on his violin, it really isn’t too much of a problem, luckily.
I also think Baroque pitch, and Baroque violin specifically, has such a unique timbre that immediately pulls you into a new world – or in this case, under water.
At the end of the day, what is it that you love about working with the Voyces team, which draws you into so many of these collaborations?
I have been working with Voyces from the day I turned 18, and I just love how focused they are on bringing new music to Australian audiences.
I have grown so much as a musician since joining the ensemble, and every single season we strive present music that has never been heard in the state, and often in the country. To be chosen as, I believe, the third commissioned composer by The Choral Collective is absolutely an honour, as I really respect the artistic vision of the musical director Dr Robert Braham.
Voyces produces such a vibrant, youthful sound full of energy and emotion; and Vanguard brings a dramatic, performative aspect unlike any other ensemble I know. Combine these with excellent musical abilities, and you have a recipe to create something really wonderful.
Parting words before the world gets to hear your music?
Right now is the time to be going out and supporting arts organisations all around the country.
If I could implore an audience to do anything, it would be really saturate yourself in everything that is on offer. It’s a broken record to say that we’ve been struggling over the past few years, but I truly believe that without arts, we wouldn’t have made it through the pandemic. We need music, dance, drama and visual arts to bring our communities together and to look after our souls, or mental health, or wellbeing, or however you like to think about it — and we need that now more than ever.
Hear Lydia’s music performed by Voyces in Songs Without, WA Museum Boola Bardip, Hackett Hall, 28 May; and by Vanguard Consort in Saturday Night Poetry, Old Customs House, 18 June. Both ensembles are presented by the Choral Collective.
Images supplied. Credit Kenith Png Photography.
