BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic, the entire nature of our industry has shifted — seemingly overnight — with artists forced to abandon their live events and projects.
But despite such mass cancellations, musicians are proving they have the power to take some control over what can only be described as a horrendous situation — and adapt with ingenuity, determination, and creativity.
In this interview series, we document the COVID-19 impact on the Australian arts industry while facilitating a candid discussion about what it is like to work during this difficult time. We hope this series will bring hope and solidarity to our creative community – things we need now more than ever.
Sam Weller takes part in our latest interview. (He’s the guy pictured above.) Sam is a conductor, saxophonist, and the founding artistic director of Sydney’s Ensemble Apex.
Sam, how did the pandemic lockdowns impact Ensemble Apex — from its event schedule to the ability to rehearse or come together for admin and planning?
Unfortunately, the biggest and hardest decision we had to make was the cancellation of our season opener: EURO X. Of course, we aren’t the only ones feeling the heat — many organisations have had to cancel countless performances. However, as we only perform as a full orchestra three to four times a year, this was a really tough but inevitable call to make.
This concert was pretty unique in our 2020 season, as it featured two Australian premieres from established European composers, Dobrinka Tabakova and Dmitri Kourliandski. Both these premieres were being promoted on an international level, which was very exciting for us. We were also saddened to not be able to host Harry Ward as a featured soloist.
Our project schedule is understandably up in the air at the moment, but we are crossing all limbs that we will still be able to bring Verdi’s Requiem — quite fitting, in a macabre way, in regards to the state of Australia’s arts industries — back in August, as well as our December concert with Nigel Westlake.
We are looking into livestreaming solutions in the event we can’t host a large audience. Luckily, our admin is pretty concentrated on emails and we are able to gather if necessary via Zoom.
Whilst it’s tricky not knowing when we will be able to perform again, it’s great to have some real downtime to properly plan and make all the draft programs we may not have had time to properly put together if we were all going at 100 per cent capacity.
Talking about Apex before this interview, you’ve said you have avoided “spamming” your socials with content. In a time when social media is saturated with arts organisations moving into digital content, what have you found to be some of the benefits of taking things a little slower?
It’s absolutely stunning to see Australian arts organisations finding creative ways to overcome this challenge and find content that will engage and hopefully expand their audiences. Truly, it’s such a privilege to have all this content available at our fingertips.
One thing we did want to keep in mind at Ensemble Apex is that we didn’t want to create content for the sake of content. Social media is now saturated with readily available high-quality performances, so it is very easy for another organisation to venture into this realm and fall into the background. Instead, we want everything that we release to reflect the Apex ethos of collaboration, creativity, and the cutting-edge.
We decided it was somewhat a rite of passage to create one of those multi-cam isolated orchestra collaboration videos. Luckily, we had the very talented Ruari Campbell on hand — Ruari is a percussionist with us and is responsible for anything audio/visual that we do — to properly edit this together.
Something that could have potentially been thrown together in a couple of days took Ruari about three weeks, with constant back and forth with myself to properly mix the recording to sound as much like an orchestra as possible. Putting extra care into this video resulted in its release being quite successful on social media and, rumour has it, Ruari has seemed to pick up quite a bit of extra work from it!
At a time where we can’t engage with our audiences live, it’s incredibly important that we release content that promotes engagement on our socials. Two of our role models for this are our very own Australian Chamber Orchestra, as well as Berliner Philharmoniker’s Digital Concert Hall.
Tell us more about this Ensemble Apex “iso edition” video. How did you come to plan and produce this performance with so many musicians involved?
This video came from a creative slump, particularly from myself, and I thought that it was high time we got something in the works. I sent out a signup form to musicians who had played in our programs in the last year or so, and within 48 hours we had a full orchestra lined up!
I then needed to pick a royalty-free piece of music that we could use for this performance. Lots of organisations are going for Beethoven Symphony No. 9 because of the strong message it sends. His seventh symphony is my favourite, so naturally, as a means to be different but also show some continuity, it seemed like a good choice.
We sent out a click track as well as a performance guide so that everyone was on the same page with articulations and phrasing. Then Ruari had the colossal task of piecing it all together. He had to put up with me constantly emailing back and forth to adjust the audio levels.
So what were some of the biggest logistical difficulties?
We were about to finish a first draft of the video and it was all looking great. I thought I’d better just check that everyone’s videos were included. Turns out the whole viola section was missing. There’s something about violas…
How have your followers responded to the video, and what others do you have in planning?
Our followers have responded incredibly positively, with praise from both the public and industry professionals who we look up to. There has been a chunk of direct support from our musicians sharing the video, which speaks volumes.
Once Ruari has psychologically recovered, we will record until our lockdowns are lifted. Someone suggested Rite of Spring.
Recordings aside, how have you used your time in isolation to step back and look at how Ensemble Apex fits into the industry – including where to from here?
This was an important year for us, as we have undergone large business restructurings and have become a whole lot more official.
I think one thing that I’m particularly proud of the orchestra for is exceeding expectations. For an establishment that’s steeped in culture and tradition — i.e. the symphony orchestra — it’s quite hard as a large group of young people, in the respect that they haven’t been on the planet for very long, to establish a reputable and respected reputation. Thankfully, all the musicians that we work with are dedicated, focused, and wear their heart on their sleeve, making it somewhat easy for the orchestra to establish itself on the Sydney scene.
In May, we were excited to bring musicians together from around Australia: Perth, Adelaide, Queensland, Melbourne, and Sydney — meaning we were moving from being a Sydney-centric organisation. I think we have established ourselves as perhaps an unpredictable organisation, in that our programs are multifaceted and are rarely similar. Perhaps that goes hand in hand with the unpredictability of the current climate.
It’s important that we uphold this reputation, as it’s unique. We can spend some time putting together programs, projects, and collaborations for the future that we will be able to properly dig into. This is certainly not new news, but this situation has simply reaffirmed that our musicians are everything. They are incredibly dedicated, flexible, positive — and not to mention highly skilled, eager to seize new creative outlets.
What shape would you ultimately like to see Ensemble Apex take when the restrictions are finally lifted?
All in all, I hope the organisation is able to come out of this period with our heads held high, ready to perform more great music. Everyone’s resilience has been tested, but I think the real challenge is yet to come. It will be interesting to see how organisations bounce back from this tough situation. I hope that we will be a voice for young Australian musicians ready to show what they’ve got.
Visit the Ensemble Apex website or Facebook page to follow its journey during COVID-19.
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Images supplied. Sam captured by C Connor Malanos.
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