BY KAYLIE MELVILLE
Things are become new! This weekend Rubiks, Melbourne’s newest contemporary art music ensemble, will present its debut concert at the Carlton Church of All Nations. In this piece for CutCommon, Rubiks’ percussionist Kaylie Melville shares her perspective on the joys and challenges of starting a new group.
Sometimes great ideas take time. Sometimes they take a lot of time!
Pianist Jacob Abela and I started discussing Rubiks in late 2013 after meeting at the Australian National Academy of Music. Back then, we didn’t have a name, or any other players, or any real idea of what repertoire we were going to play. We knew we wanted to start an ensemble, play really great contemporary music with great people, and the ‘Pierrot-plus-percussion’ sextet seemed like a good place to start.
Finding our other players didn’t take long. We were incredibly lucky that we had four friends who were just as excited as us, as well as being great musicians and wonderful people. We had a name, we had great repertoire plans, we were on our way! But unfortunately, the catch with great musicians is that they tend to be incredibly busy people. The first major stumbling block for our ensemble came in the form of six completely incompatible schedules, packed with study, tours and other performances. Time flew by, and before we knew it we were at the end of 2014. We’d had grand plans, but hadn’t managed to play more than a single piece together.
It would have been easy to give up here and let the whole idea of Rubiks slide into oblivion, but this is when we realized this ensemble had a serious future. We were disappointed we hadn’t been able to make it work in 2014, but we were determined that 2015 would be different and began serious planning for the year. Forest Collective offered us a position as their Ensemble-in-Residence, which meant performance opportunities in their Metropolis concert in May and Sunrise concert in December. We decided that our goal for the year would be to make one stand-alone Rubiks concert happen. Our schedules weren’t really any lighter, but we were on a mission to make it work!
There have been other minor stumbling blocks and frustrations along the way, but we’ve quickly learnt to brush these off and make a new plan. We’re all quite practical thinkers, so the tendency has always been to get stuck into finding solutions rather than worrying about things we can’t change…but the occasional venting-over-post-rehearsal-drinks session is allowed when you discover your concert venue is double-booked and cancelling your show, or when you realise there’s just no way that giant projector screen is ever going to fit into anybody’s car!
Without a doubt, my favourite part of working in Rubiks so far has been experiencing the ridiculous, never-ending explosion of ideas about current and future projects. Over the past few months, it feels like I’ve spoken to a member of the ensemble every single day about planning for this concert, proposals or grant applications for future activities, or great new repertoire we’ve stumbled across. There’s a lot of trust involved in these conversations. It’s easy to feel vulnerable when you’re sharing ideas that are still works-in-progress or learning the whole set of new skills that are required to put on your own concert – especially when you’re asking for help or feedback – but it can also be completely empowering. And while the admin and marketing side of things can be a drag at times (‘I just want to go play music!’), these skills are invaluable for the modern musician.
So now we’re getting ready for the big debut! This will be our first concert with the full ensemble performing together, and we can’t wait. Expect fluttering butterflies, video game animations, thundering steelworks and a few other surprises – because the biggest joy of all for us is going to be finally sharing Rubiks with the world!
Rubiks: things are become new takes place at Carlton Church of All Nations, 7.30pm November 28. Tickets $20/ $15 concession. More info: www.rubikscollective.com
Image supplied. Credit: Cameron Jamieson.
