BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Take one look at Sarah Elise Thompson’s portfolio, and you’ll see a list of names that’ll leave you feeling awestruck. Deborah Cheetham. Monica Curro. Stefan Cassomenos. Will Hansen. Ensemble Offspring.
The composer has flooded her career with inspiring collaborations, having written music for Australia’s brightest artists to perform. This month, though, Sarah focuses on something a little more personal.
Her debut album self centre explores the theme of “coming back home to yourself”. In one way, it’s a culmination of the impressive work she’s achieved to date. In another, it’s an intimate self-portrait that reveals her original creative voice.
In this interview, Sarah shares the story of her new album — including the people and experiences who have helped shape it.
Sarah, congratulations on your debut release. My first question for you is: Why now?
I started to make the album in early 2020 – before the pandemic hit and all of the lockdowns. I certainly was not anticipating releasing this project in these circumstances. But I didn’t want to let the pandemic deter me from finishing the project, so I spent the multiple lockdowns recording, mixing/mastering, filming the visuals, and working alongside an amazing team of people in order to get it finished and released.
An album was something I’ve always wanted to make as an artist, but I wasn’t too sure if or how I could do it. I had been trying before I was a composition student to make it as a singer-songwriter, and so to make an album was a big dream of mine. Seventeen-year-old Sarah in her band would be in total disbelief to think I actually got the opportunity to release an album, and that it would be a contemporary classical album!
I’m so happy it’s finally out, and that people now have the chance to discover my music.
So tell us a bit about this contemporary classical album, starting with the title. What does this concept of ‘self centre’ mean to you?
self centre is a portrait of who I am individually and musically. In all my previous offerings, I had been in either a group (SPIRAL), or I had written music for another musician to perform and present alongside other works. The album is my solo record, with every piece having been written by me. If you listen to the album from start to end, you get to focus on just my compositional voice, and discover stories about my life, where I grew up, and memories from the past 18 months.
The title too reminded me a bit of meditation, and ‘coming back to oneself’. Throughout lockdown, I got really into the practice of mindfulness and daily meditation, and the music on the album I think can serve the same purpose, too. The pieces are peaceful and reflective, transporting you to other worlds, and my hope would be for you to listen and relax, coming back home to yourself.
Your album may be called self centre, but you’ve brought so many other musicians along with you. How did you choose the artists you most wanted to collaborate with, and how do they complement your own values in music?
The most rewarding part about making the album was collaborating with all the incredible musicians from all different parts of my musical life, and getting to record with them in the studio.
All the musicians on the album were previous collaborators of mine that I had the opportunity to work with over the years, and I wrote the pieces with those specific musicians in mind for them to perform.
Deborah Cheetham, Monica Curro and Stefan Cassomenos (PLEXUS) had premiered the track undone previously at the inaugural Women in Music Festival at RMIT Melbourne back in 2019, and it was commissioned by the festival as the recipient of the Young Composer’s Award.
The United States artists on the album, pianist Huizi Zhang and percussionist Matthew Stiens, are some of my good friends and collaborators that I met in Maine in 2017, as they were members of the Pierrot Ensemble at the Atlantic Music Festival that premiered Refracted, my first piece in the US. The opening track sanddollar was written especially for Matt, and pink salt was originally for Huizi’s debut solo piano recital at Carnegie Hall. It was such a special moment that she got to premiere the work in such an iconic hall, and so I was really happy that we finally got a chance to record it and feature it on the album.
I’ve had a very long relationship with Ensemble Offspring throughout my studies. I wrote the track striking out as a participant of their Hatched Academy Summer School in 2019 where I got to workshop the piece closely for the group, and I’m really honoured that they are a part of my first release.
A big part of making the album for me was to not only to work with these established musicians, but to also feature emerging talents such as bassoonist Jye Todorov and double bassist Will Hansen who are forging awesome music careers in their own right. Will played in SPIRAL with me and is my close friend and collaborator from all throughout my time at the Conservatorium, and Jye and I met and played at the Australian Youth Orchestra National Music Camps together.
Sydney Symphony Orchestra principal trumpet Dave Elton was a last-minute addition to the album. […] We had been email pen-pals during the pandemic, and I quickly emailed him and asked if he would be a part of the album [through track core] and he agreed, which may not have happened in usual circumstances as his schedule had been cleared due to the lockdown!
It all came together! And with so many collaborators and pieces on this album, I’m interested in the way you have such an identifiable sound. It’s one that can be heard throughout each track, even though the works involve this diversity of artists, and weren’t all written for the purpose of this album.
The music was written in quick succession between late-2018 and early 2020, and I started all of the writing sessions in the same way — at my home piano, recording and singing all the melodies on top of my piano parts.
I didn’t consciously try to emulate the previous piece I had written. But when I was writing each of the pieces, there may have been an idea or two that was still floating around in my head that I really loved and I wanted to keep exploring.
That may have been the best part of creating the music for the album — just being able to create for myself the music that I would love to listen to, and drawing from my own background as a indie-rock/pop songwriter and channelling that into my chamber music.
These incredible commissions haven’t stopped over the years, even during COVID. How are you feeling about working during a time when your composition career is flourishing as the industry in which you work faces so many challenges?
These past few years have been extremely challenging for our arts community both here and abroad, and I think anyone [continuing to create] opportunities through this period should be celebrated. We’ve all had to rethink how we continue our artistic practice, particularly in light of live shows being cancelled, rehearsals and teaching going digital for an extended amount of time, and limited financial support. During COVID, I was lucky to have the support from my collaborators with the music, and postponing performance dates and rescheduling a few deadlines.
The thing that kept me going through all of the pandemic was the album. I loved the whole process from drafting the album concept, writing the music, recording in the studio, and shooting the visuals, as well as meeting and building a relationship with Hugh Robertson — my campaign manager. Hugh encouraged me to change focus from being a freelance composer working gig to gig, to building my own artist profile, who I want to be artistically and focusing on my own career, and where I want to take my music next.
With the release of your debut, you have proven yourself a powerful new voice to have emerged in Australian composition. If you could use that voice to share one message with CutCommon readers, what would it be?
It can be really overwhelming when you see on a regular basis your colleagues, peers, and classmates having incredible achievements all the time — and there is almost this undercurrent pressure to be achieving the same amount, or go one further, otherwise you’re ‘not good enough’ or ‘need more practice’. The truth is that the pandemic, and making the album, gave me the opportunity to focus on myself and my music for the first time. And I made what I wanted to create, not what I perceived ‘everyone else wanted me to create’.
Back yourself, focus on what you are passionate about at your ‘core’, research a lot, don’t rush, and ask for help. You never know what could happen!
Listen to Sarah Elise Thompson’s debut album self centre on Spotify, and keep up to date with the composer on her website.
Images supplied. Credit: Billie Jean Bullard.
