BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Rose de La Montaña is a young guitarist to look out for.
In fact, you might’ve read about her in our latest print edition. Rose was chosen to feature on these pages because she’s worked hard to take career opportunities into her own hands. She’s received a grant to be part of a performance spreading awareness of post-consumer waste. She’s lived in Brazil and studied the music of Hermeto Pascoal, later launching her own octet called Hermeto Magnético to share the style with Australian audiences. She’s studied her Masters of Music and come out the other side all the wiser.
Showing no signs of stopping, Rose has now locked in a suite of gigs for herself and other “cult guitarists” to make music together in Melbourne. Her original Guitar Kingdom residency program paves the way for fellow instrumentalists to come together and perform live at Open Studio on the third Sunday of every month.
We’re pretty impressed that she’s advancing others’ careers while building her own, so we asked her all about it.
So Rose, you started up your own residency for guitarists. Why did you want to launch this style of initiative to give opportunities to fellow guitarists, too?
G’day Steph, and beloved CutCommon readers! As a solo guitarist, I was creating an opportunity for myself to set up a residency where I get to play the repertoire I love on a regular basis, and feature special guests from my vault of musical friends that includes a collaboration tune or two at the end.
As a soloist, it can be tricky to get regular gigs, so this makes what I do accessible to anyone who walks into the bar, not to mention builds a community for instrumental music.
Your styles across the residency range from classical to jazz and in between. Why did you opt for this music to take place at a local bar? How have you found regular venue-goers have interacted with these sorts of styles, which they may not be used to?
I hate to answer a question with a question, but: Why not?! I think fine arts belongs anywhere, anytime, and I want make this accessible to anyone who walks in.
People are more likely to walk into a bar on a Sunday evening than wander into a nice concert hall or church venue — not that I’m downplaying the importance of those spaces, duh. From what I’ve seen, first-time venue-goers are surprised and glad to hear and see such great players in an intimate and local setting. Regular audience members come and properly listen to the music, which is an honour.
You’ve said in our correspondence that you want to remove the images attached to some of these styles, such as “exclusive, pretentious, or inaccessible”. How much of a problem is this really in the classical music world? How have you found negative stigma has made an impact on your music career so far?
Eita, I think it’s a problem for a few reasons, and I think the dwindling emphasis on music and fine arts education in schools is one aspect of it. I think its leads to a generation of listeners who perhaps don’t understand how to connect to the language of instrumental music unless they have studied it on some level.
Price-wise, I know it can be expensive to regularly see great artists in a great venue. And I think this results in perceptions of exclusivity with classical music as a result, because you can’t listen or see it live in any old place.
For me, I would say that impact has translated into a lack of venues and festivals interested in my gigs; otherwise, it would be easier for me to get solo guitar gigs, right? Hence, the residency.
How did you choose which fellow artists you wanted to feature each month? And what do they each have to offer that’s a little different from each other?
Well, I just asked around my network of musical friends and locked in who was interested and available. They are all beautiful musicians. Every Guitar Kingdom gig is a double bill with a different guitarist or instrumentalist of sorts, and I’ve been enjoying connecting with the fellow cult guitarists in Melbourne town.
Each guitarist offers their own set of repertoire that reflects their musical tastes. I also have a fly jazz trio on board for August, an Iranian instrumentalist and singer in October, and an Italian music band for December. I like that element of the unexpected.
Each gig features a collaboration tune at the end between me and the guest artists, which is good. Gives me fuzzy warm vibes.
You’ve lined up every month’s event until the end of the year, in fact! That’s massively organised.
Thank you. I am organised because great musicians are a busy peoples, and I couldn’t risk people getting mad at me by trying to book them last-minute, eh!
I racked my brains a bit and asked around. I’m lucky that everyone that I asked said yes. I would say the key was informality. And the residency, I just did a few gigs at Open Studio, and I figured I would keep playing there, so I requested to be a regular act and they made me a cool poster!
What’s your ultimate goal by the end of the residency — what do you want to learn, and achieve?
I want to continue it for as long as it’s fun for me. It’s great to have a regular gig for my solo guitar repertoire, and I want to keep getting better at it and bring people together for concert music.
Meet Rose and other guitarists at her Guitar Kingdom residency, Open Studio. Check out the full schedule on Rose’s website. Oh, and here’s that fancy poster below.
Images supplied.
