BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Rachel Bruerville may be a household name to the CutCommon reader. Having written widely about performance anxiety and mental health, and interviewed performers and composers about their work in the arts, Rachel has become a well-known voice in music journalism.
But Rachel is also a household name in the world of new Australian music. A burgeoning young composer in her own right, Rachel studies Honours in Composition at the Elder Conservatorium of Music, and recently composed and performed her solo cello/vocal score in the award-winning 2017 Adelaide Fringe theatre production Stories in the Dark.
Now the composer, singer, and cellist embarks on a new project – preparing for the world premiere of her piece Dot and the Kangaroo, which will take place in the Elder Conservatorium of Music in its first Lunchtime Concert Series show of the year.
To celebrate the new work, we take some time to get to know our writer, and learn about what she does when her pencil lifts from the writer’s notepad – and falls onto the composer’s manuscript.
Rachel, you so often write about what others are doing in their musical lives, that it’s wonderful that we can now meet you, in your identity as a composer! Tell us a little about yourself and why you love composing.
Thanks for chatting with me! I am always inspired by what others are doing in their musical lives – particularly by ’emerging’ artists.
Some brief information about me: I’m a 26-year-old musician from Adelaide, and right now I’m halfway through my honours year in composition at the Elder Conservatorium. I sing with the wonderful Adelaide Chamber Singers, and I play cello in a local band – with my husband, brother-in-law, and friend – called Minority Tradition. I’m also the parent of a quirky cat named Larry.
I love composing because original music is such a powerful way to tell stories, and to communicate emotions and important ideas about life.
You’re all set for the premiere of Dot and the Kangaroo – the first lunchtime concert at Elder Hall for the year. But, rumour has it, you’re not finished yet?! How long does it generally take you to write a piece, and what’s a typical day of composition look like for you?
Yes, let’s say we’re ‘all set’! That’ll make me feel better! As of today, I’m still preparing the score and the parts for the first rehearsal on February 27 with the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra. I’m happy to say that I have sent a draft to our brilliant conductor Luke Dollman in something like good time, but that draft score still needs a lot of proofreading and a little bit more ‘colouring in’.
As for how long it takes to write a piece[…]it all depends on the piece. If we specifically talk about Dot and the Kangaroo, I’ve actually had the idea for this piece in my head for over a year. The main reason I decided to go back to uni to do an honours year in composition was to improve my orchestration skills. To have the opportunity for ECSO to actually perform my work live to an audience is so exciting, and quite rare out there in the real world of symphony orchestras. If you count all of this rumination time from when I first had the idea, to then purchasing the book in a secondhand shop while I was on tour with a children’s theatre production, to chatting to Luke about the orchestra halfway through 2017, to then finally actually start putting notes on paper, it’s taken a long time!
A typical day of composition for me most definitely involves pencil and paper – I have a love/hate relationship (mostly hate) with computer notation software, but probably mainly because I still don’t know how to use it efficiently or properly. So I always start the composing work day looking at my notebook to decipher what I’ve scribbled so far, write some more scribble, then go about the typesetting as the final step.
Recently this year, at the suggestion of another CutCommon article, I’ve actually embraced the Pomodoro work method! I’m so dedicated, I got a mechanical kitchen timer shaped like an owl – her name is Hedwig. In each increment of focused work time, I try to have a mini goal to reach, for example ‘finish this variation of Kangaroo’s melody’, or ‘orchestrate these 8 bars of tutti’.
How do you work to tight deadlines when you are creating a piece of music from scratch?
I’m still trying my best to figure out the answer to this question. But basically, my diary, my journal, and my calendar are my friends. I always have clearly visible countdowns leading up to deadlines, so I know how to pace myself, and I try to have a plan about how much work needs to be done each week on which piece…’try’ being the key word!
Before we getting down to our interview, you mentioned you were guilty of procrastination when working on your compositions. What do you do when you procrastinate, and what are your favourite techniques that help you get back to the desk?
Yes! My name is Rachel Bruerville, and I am a procrastinator. (But aren’t we all?!)
The types of procrastination I engage in will depend on my surroundings, but seems to be worse at home: procrasti-cleaning, procrasti-cooking, procrasti-gardening, etc. My cat doesn’t help, either. When I’m struggling with internet distractions, I like to intentionally go to a place that doesn’t have a wifi connection and be without my phone.
My most important technique to overcome the procrastination is to break up tasks into really small bits, and just start with the easiest bit. Just to start by doing something, then the rest will usually, hopefully come. It’s also really important for my productivity to not stay sitting in the same place for an extended period of time; to break up the work day with getting outside and moving, for example.
You’ve battled through procrastination and deadlines alike to prepare your upcoming world premiere. So after these efforts behind the scenes, what’s Dot and the Kangaroo all about?
Dot and the Kangaroo is an old Australian children’s book by Ethel Pedley (1859-1898). Ethel was, apparently, a great musician as well as a writer. The book was made into the popular 1977 movie of the same name (containing some extremely hilarious songs) by Yoram Gross, the producer who did Blinky Bill.
It’s about a little girl called Dot who gets lost in the bush and befriends a kangaroo to help find her way home. It’s very charming, despite some content being quite dated. I think of it as a little bit like an Australian Hansel and Gretel without the witch, with a bit of Little Red Riding Hood thrown in, which is why I’ve subtitled my piece A Miniature Australian Fairytale.
Musically, I’m having lots of fun with it. It’s broken it up into these basic sections: Introduction (lost), Meeting kangaroo, Meeting the platypus, Dingo chase!, Nursing kangaroo, Willy wagtail finds the way home, Coda (found).
Melody is really what drives the whole work: we begin with the lost theme, then kangaroo has her theme, platypus has his own theme; I can do fun things with these melodies, like making the found theme a noticeably ‘happier’, recognisable version of the original lost theme.
Why did you use this Australian kids’ book as a source of inspiration?
I was really interested in composing my own narrated orchestral piece after working with Paul Rissmann and the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra at the ASO Festival of Learning and Participation. I first met Paul in 2016 at a workshop through the ASO Professional Pathways program, and then in 2017 I was engaged by the ASO as a vocalist to perform with Paul in his work, The Chimpanzees of Happytown – Paul narrated the story and I sang the songs (while we both did the actions and dance moves!). It was one of the best gigs of my life so far.
I have come to absolutely love performing for children, because as an audience they give you back so much energy. They will definitely, vocally, let you know whether or not they like your performance or your piece. I hope that one day a version of Dot and the Kangaroo might be performed specifically for a young audience.
I hadn’t read the book or seen the movie before I started working on the piece. I came across it just by googling something like ‘children’s books with environmental themes’, and was really happy to find a classic book like Dot and the Kangaroo that was written by an Australian woman. Like I mentioned earlier, it does contain some dated material, but that’s the good thing about using a book as inspiration rather than completely staying true to everything – picking and choosing what to keep and what to leave out. The aspects of the story I am including in my piece can be seen as having an environmentalist message about looking after native Australian wildlife, as well as just being a really sweet story.
What does it mean to compose an ‘Australian’ piece like this today in such a globalised world?
Oh wow, what a big question. I could ramble on about this for ages – however, I will try to keep it brief. As a white Australian living and working on stolen land, I do not define myself or my work as specifically ‘Australian’. I think people might see Dot and the Kangaroo as an ‘Australian’ piece, simply because it has the word ‘kangaroo’ in the title. But musically, I will say now that I have no idea what ‘Australian-sounding music’ actually is, or should be. I think I’ll spend my whole life grappling with that.
Your work will feature a narrator, and is so much an orchestral tale of animals…how much do you love Peter and the Wolf?!
Oh my gosh. I bloody LOVE Peter and the Wolf. That, and Carnival of the Animals, was my orchestral childhood. Although, I am still sad about the duck.
Any parting words?
One of the most exciting things I find about children’s orchestral programming is the potential for music that is interactive, relevant, and actually newly composed. Paul Rissmann’s work is a great example of this, and I’m so happy to be working with him and the ASO again as a vocalist this year, performing the also excellently titled Sir Scallywag and the Golden Underpants in June.
Although this premiere performance of Dot and the Kangaroo isn’t specifically a families concert, I hope that the regular, older crowd will get something out of it, too. And I hope anyone who’s read this article to the end might be interested in coming to hear the piece, if they are in Adelaide on March 16!
Watch Dot and the Kangaroo when the Elder Conservatorium Symphony Orchestra performs the work on March 16. Bookings online.
**UPDATE** APRIL 11 – You can now listen to the recording of this work online, right here!
Images supplied. Featured: credit Amy Herrmann.
