BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
For students enrolled in music performance, university orchestras and ensembles can provide a gateway into industry life. These groups can empower their musicians to gain solid professional experience (and in the company of fellow students and friends, too).
When that university orchestra commissions new Australian works, it’s even better — giving these emerging artists the opportunity to incorporate music by living composers into their repertoire, before they even throw that graduation cap into the air.
This month, the University of New South Wales will celebrate a big anniversary. The UNSW Orchestra is turning 30 years old! It’s an occasion that proves this model of industry training is not just a successful one, but capable of facilitating positive experiences for many generations of artists.
We chat with one such artist ahead of 30 Years in the Making — John Peterson. He’s a composer who was commissioned by the university to produce Anniversary Music, a special work that’ll be performed at this event. It honours the value of Australian composers such as John (who also teaches at the university), as well as paying respects to the 1300 staff, students, and alumni who have performed in this group throughout the decades.
John, tell us a bit about your relationship with UNSW in light of this huge anniversary.
I have been associated with UNSW, and with the UNSW Orchestra, since 2004, and over that time I’ve heard the orchestra perform some fantastic music.
I love teaching in the School of Arts and Media but, because my courses are often based on music theory rather than on performance itself, I am sometimes unaware of what instrument some of my students actually play. So it is very heartening for me to see students from many of my lectures up on stage and achieving such great levels of performance ability within the orchestral ensemble.
This is a huge anniversary for your students and the UNSW Orchestra. In fact, you were commissioned to compose a piece aptly titled Anniversary Music for the occasion. How do you wrap 30 years of an orchestra’s experience and memory into a single work?
Well, I was actually commissioned to compose Anniversary Music for the orchestra’s 20th anniversary in 2009 and, when the 30th anniversary came around this year, the orchestra wanted to play the 2009 work again as part of its celebrations. I agreed — but in honour of the new 30th anniversary milestone, I did make some revisions to the original work, and so the piece is now slightly different — and slightly better, I would like to think — to the original.
I wasn’t really trying to write music that commented on the orchestra’s 30-year history. I just wanted the music to be not only fun and exciting for the audience to listen to, but also fun for the orchestra members to perform – it is meant to be a celebration after all!
What is also really great for me is that Colin Piper was the conductor of the orchestra in 2009, and thus conducted the first performance of Anniversary Music; and Colin is back with the orchestra playing percussion in this 2019 performance under conductor Steven Hillinger. That is a bit of history in itself!
Why do you think this orchestra has been around for so long, anyway?
I think the orchestra has managed to survive for 30 years due to the energy and passion of the students, staff, conductors, and administration staff who love what they do and give so much of their time, and bring so much talent, towards achieving amazing performances of terrific music.
Audiences, however, are often unaware of how much work goes on in the background in order for an orchestra to continue to function. And I know that everyone involved with the UNSW Orchestra over the past 30 years has worked very hard in areas like fundraising, stage production, and basic aspects of orchestral management, because they truly believed in the value of this orchestra and the wonderful opportunities it provides for musicians.
How important is it that university orchestras commission new Australian music?
Given that orchestras generally play a lot of music from the existing repertoire that is available to them — the majority of which often dates back to the first half of the 20th century and earlier — there is sometimes a perception that there is no new music begin written for orchestra. So I think it is incredibly important for orchestras to try to commission new works, written especially for them, as it gives the orchestra members and their audiences the opportunity to realise that the composition of new orchestral music is alive and well in the 21st Century.
As a teacher, what do you hope young people playing in this orchestra will gain from the experience, which will be sure to be moving to many who will return to their alma mater to listen?
Playing in an orchestra is an amazing experience: there is nothing like the feeling when 50 or 60 people all work together toward the preparation and presentation of polished and satisfying public performances of some great music.
For the young players in the UNSW Orchestra, this is an absolutely invaluable experience, and they really are privileged to have an orchestra on campus that allows them to demonstrate and express their musical talents.
The fact that the orchestra has lasted 30 years shows just how much they appreciate and love the opportunities this orchestra provides to them.
At the end of the day, what’s your favourite UNSW Orchestra memory
My favourite memory is from 2016, when the UNSW Orchestra performed a 15-minute orchestral film score, while the film segment was projected on a screen behind the orchestra. What was special was that the music had been written by one of the music department’s composition students, and this performance represented a wonderful collaboration between the orchestra and the young aspiring composer, and it also turned out to be a great crowd-pleaser.
While the Sydney Symphony Orchestra often presents many of these types of events, I think this particular performance was unique in the world of university orchestras.
See 30 Years in the Making with the University of New South Wales Orchestra, featuring John’s work, at the Sir John Clancy Auditorium, 7pm August 9. It will also feature the UNSW 2019 Concerto Competition winner Alice Hu.
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