BY MARK BOSCH
I’ve been a violinist in the Sydney University Symphony Orchestra since the beginning of 2017, and our upcoming final concert for this year will be the eighth program I’ve been a part of.
SUSO is the only student society of which I’m a member, but it’s been all I really need from student life. The orchestra brings together students from all disciplines to make great music in fun, relaxed rehearsal conditions; and we’ve got a great chief conductor in Luke Spicer, not to mention comparably low membership fees, and pizza or a barbecue before each rehearsal!
The orchestra has actually been around since 1948 — this being its 70th year — and it’s made many meaningful contributions to the university’s student culture and the musical landscape of Sydney at large.
At 7pm, November 3 at the Great Hall, University of Sydney, the orchestra will make another contribution in the spirit of commemorating a century since the end of World War I, with a program featuring Shostakovich’s Cello Concerto No. 1 and Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man.
I spoke to our trumpeter and president Lachlan Penninkilampi about the upcoming concert and the orchestra’s role in university life.
The Sydney University Symphony Orchestra’s final concert for 2018 commemorates 100 years since the end of the WW1. As young people, almost none of us in the orchestra have ever experienced war first-hand. What do you think is the value of commemoration for those of us who have only ever lived in war’s long shadow?
Well, firstly, I think we’re already living in times of war, just not the times of the First World War. And while the value of commemoration, generally speaking, is to respect and understand history, I think the value of commemorating war in particular is to understand its true horrors, and how it’s not something that should be valourised.
As Karl Jenkins writes in his piece The Armed Man, which we’re playing for this commemorative concert, ‘better is peace’. So, the value for us as young people — who live with wars going on around us, even if we’re not directly part of them — is to have that close connection and understanding with war as a concept and as a historical reality.
Rehearsing Karl Jenkins’ The Armed Man is pretty gruelling stuff for the orchestra. But our choristers, assembled from all over Sydney and beyond, have been doing great work with the composer’s vocal writing. How do you rate the process of rehearsing with a choir?
The Armed Man is a very popular piece for choir, so, thanks to our contacts, we’ve managed to bring in choristers from all over the place — as far as the Blue Mountains, Wollongong, and the Central Coast — to form a choir specifically for this concert.
Now, how positive the rehearsal process is really depends on the choir. The fact that we have a really good choirmaster in Rachelle Elliott has made all the difference; we’ve also been having our hornist Jack Stephens liaise between the choir and the orchestra, and his providing that linkage has made rehearsing with the choir, in fact, really easy.
From a strictly musical perspective, rehearsing with a choir just adds several layers of texture and musicality that the orchestra doesn’t usually get to experience, and that alone is really valuable.
The orchestra itself was founded not long after the end of World War II, in 1948 — 70 years ago this year. It’s had a long and storied history, but tell us about some of the standout experiences you’ve had as a member of the orchestra.
I’ve been a member since 2016, so this will be the end of my third year in the orchestra, though I plan to stay for another couple years at least! I’d say the standout experiences are our SUSO camps. The camps are really amazing because they’re a weekend of playing together as well as getting to really know who you rehearse and perform with. And although we might have our weekly barbecues and pizza, when you’re actually camping with people, you get to know them on a different level. Establishing that social connection makes you feel like you’re not just in an orchestra, but in a family. Whereas in the rest of university life, especially for me at least as an arts/law student, groups of people come and go — and law students can be very cliquey — so it can be difficult establishing connections. The orchestra fills this gap.
But again, from a musical perspective, I’d say [our third concert last year, featuring Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony] was among the best we’ve done, and it was thanks to our having workshopped it at camp. We played it really well, and ended up selling out [the Sydney Conservatorium’s Verbrugghen Hall].
The orchestra plays a role in Sydney’s musical landscape, but also, of course, in the student culture of the university. Tell us a bit about how it fits into the ecosystem of student societies at the university.
SUSO is one of the oldest and most well-established societies on campus, but it’s also somewhat hidden. Despite its age within the clubs and societies of the University of Sydney, it’s got its own special niche. Whereas there are the societies pertaining to faculties, languages, disciplines, sports – and whereas SUSO is technically part of the family of musical societies, which includes Sydney University Wind Orchestra, Sydney University Musical Society – SUSO is almost standalone in that it doesn’t have much connection with them.
It sounds like there’s a lot of possibility here. What’s in store for SUSO’s future? Will we be seeing more collaborations with student societies anytime soon?
Absolutely. There are collaborations every second year on average, although we don’t have any particular collaborations with student societies lined up yet. But! Next year, we’re planning to do an opera with the Pacific Opera company, run by the prolific Simon Kenway — so stay tuned!
See SUSO Presents: A Mass for Peace at 7pm November 3 in The Great Hall, The University of Sydney.
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