BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
How do you bring a music performance to life?
There’s a small team of emerging artists working hard in Melbourne’s inner northwest to do just that – and we want to know all their secrets.
Concerts at St George’s exists to celebrate new talent in classical music – and enrich a community with life and sound. To learn about the journey into making a music venue, we bring you this new interview series so you can find out more about the industry skills involved.
This week, we chat with composer Carol Dixon, who is responsible for audience development in the Friends of Music Series. She talks about the challenges in appealing to audiences of all ages and tastes, in light of the FOMS Concert 4 at St George’s, featuring the series’ youngest performer yet, William Zhong on violin.
Hi Carol, thanks for the chat! Tell us about how you came to be part of the FOMS team.
Hi Steph – thank you for the interview. I made connections with fellow musicians while working on my compositions since graduating from the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music. I was approached by our coordinator Natasha Lin, after first meeting her and having some discussion around a concert I organised – the Composer’s Concert of April, 2016 – in which Natasha was one of the performers.
Why was audience development an area of interest to you?
It is not only that I enjoy working alongside and collaborating with people, a role which has been the prime focus of my long nursing career, but I have an interest to discover what it is that draws people to music venues. I seek to find a way to meet the needs of people who yearn for the joy of meaningful musical experiences. This is something I journeyed through before undergoing my own music degree, which commenced in 2010.
What are the main duties and activities in this position?
I work closely with one of the church members at the front door before each concert, to give out quick surveys to the audience to gain feedback on how they heard about FOMS. Later, I analyse this information to form overall impressions of the effects of our current marketing approaches for each concert. I am on the lookout for future directions – how we can build interest and commitment from our existing audience to gain feedback as to what it is that would enhance the musical experience they are seeking through FOMS concerts.
As a composer, how does your experience in writing new music for audiences impact on your creative ideas for FOMS?
A strong part of my desire to write new music is a desire for the audience to find meaning within it that is special to them. I wish to share a sense of fulfilment I have found in my music, with others. Furthermore, this is what I hope the audience will find in all or at least most of the concerts in our FOMS series, and in those of the future.
What are the biggest challenges in connecting with audiences of classical and new music?
I think it is a challenge for people to listen, sometimes at length, to music they do not know. In choosing a program, this needs to be considered to a large extent. Program notes help inform people what the music is about, and a more personal knowledge about performers. Talking with the audience about oneself as a performer or composer, and about the music, may play a role in helping make better connections, especially if the person is comfortable doing so.
Through FOMS so far, have you found audiences are easy to predict? Or surprises about who turns up to which concert?
There is some information around this to date, but we are just beginning our project to discover the tastes of concert audiences. Actually, I enjoy going into the St George’s kitchen to chat with the ladies doing afternoon tea, and it was here somebody confided that it she would like it if the pieces were ones she knew – perhaps songs from her past. We have a range of people in our audiences to date – some are older and some; mostly friends of the FOMS committee or performers are young. Each person’s tastes are different depending on age, background, and previous musical exposure.
In your opinion, why is it important to have living Australian composers included in the program?
I think the challenge for any composer of new music is to allow oneself the freedom to fully express what it is you want to do, regardless of how it might be perceived by others. But also to recognise that not everybody will like your music. I am empowered by the notion that people are mostly encouraging; they want to hear works created by somebody they know or have met. I have always found it special to bear witness to a performance of a work by somebody I know – or have heard of.
Having an Australian, or better, a local composer’s voice can work both ways – for the composer to be heard, and for the audience to appreciate hearing it. Including music from Australian composers makes for a gift the composer can give to the community, and the wonderful thing is that the gift is a mutual one.
It is a humbling experience to become acquainted with a few people from St George’s; they are encouraging me to have one of my compositions performed there.
Working in audience development, do you also feel it’s your responsibility to develop the audience itself by introducing new sounds through FOMS?
This is a good question. Yes, I do feel this would be enriching for the audience, and mutually rewarding for performers and audience. But we are not here to simply impose our tastes onto others. As performers and composers, this needs to be done sensitively, to join with and educate others in a manner that inspires them to embark on the journey of embracing new musical ideas that have already inspired us.
Head along to FOMS 4 at St George’s Anglican Church, Flemington at 2pm March 12 to see William Zhong present music by Kats-Chernin, Beethoven, Ravel and more.
