BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Earlier this year, we’d teamed up with the Australian National Academy of Music with big plans to put together some exciting articles for you. We were going to interview locally and globally renowned musicians about their live performances. But now, ANAM finds itself in the middle of a unique COVID-19 situation: not only has it needed to cancel its concerts due to COVID-19 lockdowns, but it’s also closed its doors to musicians who are training at the educational institution.
That is, closed its physical doors.
Musicians, faculty, and arts administrators of the ANAM team are working hard behind the scenes to deliver an online training program — and they show no signs of stopping. That’s why we’re launching a new interview series about the unstoppable artists of Australia — established and emerging — so we can facilitate an honest discussion about how musicians are continuing to engage in their music education during COVID-19.
In this series, you’ll hear from musicians in training — and musicians who are providing that training! We hope you’ll be inspired to continue your own engagement in music education, whatever form that may take.
Here, we chat with unstoppable artist Virginia Taylor (ANAM Flute Faculty)
Having won the National Australian Flute Competition and the ABC Young Performer of the Year awards, Virginia was off to a great start — and it led to her performances as soloist and guest principal flute with pretty much every Australian orchestra.
She has played at festivals and concerts across the globe and recorded with Tall Poppies and ABC labels. Virginia was the principal flute with the Australian Chamber Orchestra for more than a decade, and associate professor of her instrument at the Australian National University for more than two decades.
Virginia, the pandemic is unlike anything our industry has seen before. Where were you in your life, and career, when it all came to a halt due to the lockdowns?
My weekly schedule, which involves one-on-one teaching at Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University and at ANAM in Melbourne, was about to be turned upside down. The people I see each week would no longer be in the same room as me, and while lessons would continue on a one-to-one basis, the very personal nature of working with an individual — their goals, their sound, and their individual personal challenges — would need to be re-thought.
Sure, all my concerts for the foreseeable future were cancelled within days. Those that initially weren’t cancelled, we soon realised would be.
The loss of music-making with others is something that I and my colleagues and students will and are missing. None of us practice in a room alone to make music on our own. Music is a gift we share, and the hard work and collaboration is realised in the performances we love sharing with people.
For all of us in this situation — and I do remind my students that it is global, not national — it will end. In the meantime, it is important to stay focused on where we were heading, and what we can do now to maintain our individual goals and routines.
The reason we’ve used the word ‘unstoppable’ is because, despite the restrictions placed on artists in our community, practitioners like you are still spending their time working hard to keep things afloat. What have you done to continue connecting with your students?
As it became more obvious that changes would need to be made in our lives, I did encourage my students to move home or back to where their individual ‘happy’ place would be, should they need to be somewhere for a number of months.
I was fortunate enough to have time to spend with each student working through their ongoing and regular plan for 2020 — but adding an extra and separate plan which we have happily referred to as our ‘Luxury Corona Lockdown Plan’.
As part of the luxury plan, each student has a set of activities that are factored into their current lives. These hold good for me, too! Some of the lists are common to us all; books we read and share — perhaps it could be referred to as a ‘virtual’ book club.
Exercise was another factor and important aspect of our lists. Outdoors, fresh air, and movement keep our minds healthy and active. What better place than Australia to be able to do this with our clean air, personal space, and beautiful country?
With myriad free offerings on the internet, we have travelled internationally together as a class to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art to visit some of the masterpieces on virtual offer. It is a wonderful way to be inspired, and to gain a greater understanding of our own artform. We watch operas presented from some of the great art houses around the globe. Our lives are rich with opportunity.
For my own students, we have a flute ‘page’, which is a closed [online] group. The students post their daily performances of studies, excerpts, and repertoire to each other. Pressing the ‘record’ button is a big responsibility, and the daily/weekly contributions are wonderful and inspiring.
More than anything, I love our group Zoom lessons as a class. It is so lovely to see each other together on the screen and connect as people. They inspire each other, and I am inspired by their motivation and commitment.
Music education has shifted to the digital world almost seamlessly, hasn’t it? As a teacher, what have you found to be some of the best techniques to communicate in these new ways, in the absence of physical presence? After all, music is indeed a physical practice!
Music education has indeed shifted to the digital world. As teachers, and as students, we have no choice if we are to continue to engage and educate or be educated through this period.
I’m not sure I would refer to it as ‘seamless’. Our lives have been spent nurturing and mentoring musicians; listening to the finest nuances of sound, style, rhythm and intonation; and suddenly, the sound is a digitised, mp3 or mp4 version of the true version. The quality of sound is very much dependent on internet speed, microphones, and quality of equipment on either end of the line.
My first week of online teaching was exhausting! There were adjustments to settings for each student’s equipment in order to get the best possible sound, and I’m not sure the higher register of the flute is friendly for sound processing.
To get over these issues, my students record various set excerpts, technical exercises, and repertoire for their lessons, which they send to me in advance. This way, we can work through the sound files they have sent, listening to them together, and not be reliant on current internet speed.
Let’s face it, when all the family are working from home, there is often incredible drain on the family internet, and this can affect the quality of the lesson!
How connected do you still feel to your community — from your ANAM community through to your friends in the industry? And how are you maintaining or even enriching these connections?
I’m very grateful to have a variety of communities around me. Now more than ever, we need people in our lives so that we can continue to engage, not only to keep friendship and communication, but to also be able to keep an eye out for each other.
FaceTime, Zoom, and Google Duo are just some of the apps and platforms that I have been using to keep in touch with friends, family, students, and colleagues over the last weeks. It is not the same as our face-to-face meetings, but nonetheless it is important to still ‘see’ our families and colleagues, and to see their smiles and hear how they are also managing.
Connections have also changed; some not for the worse. An example of this is the book club in Canberra, of which I was a member for 13 years. It was something I truly missed when I left Canberra. Now that we are all in isolation, the book club has become a ‘virtual’ book club, and I have been able to reconnect, which is lovely!
Outside community, there’s a lot of time spent in solitude. How are you filling it?
For some reason, I imagined that if I wasn’t heading to Melbourne or into the conservatorium in Brisbane, I would have much more time on my hands. Not so, really.
By the time my teaching is done, I’m definitely ready for a computer screen break, and this is usually in the form of a walk in the nearby area. Our walks are long, and we find ourselves easily 5-10km from home as we meander the suburbs or head out on the bicycles. The weather is mild and it’s great to get out.
I’m enjoying listening. Easter Friday was a great opportunity to tune into Berlin Philharmonic’s Digital Concert Hall and listen to and watch Bach’s St Matthew Passion with Sir Simon Rattle. Indescribably beautiful!
I have had more time to cook, and this has resulted in some great meals and the opportunity to do a more ‘slow’ cooking. I have a pile of books that I’m keen to read, but have not got into these as quickly as I would like. Yes, there are two jigsaws sitting in their unpacked boxes, but whether there will be time to get them out, who knows.
I think, here in Australia, we are in relatively luxurious isolation. We have space when we head outside; we have fresh air and blue skies and trees. All of these put a smile on my face!
Back in your work, how has your practice routine changed?
My practice routine has not changed. I made that decision before isolation became a part of our daily lives. Routine is something that is important when we are working from home. Sure, things change in various ways. However, from a professional point of view, I think we need to stay focused and stick to our practice routines. One day we will wake up, and it will be time to head into a rehearsal. It would be frustrating and unhealthy to have let our standards slip.
More than anything, I am finding a little more time and joy in focusing on some aspects of my playing that I otherwise may not have time to. When the daily schedule is a little less mandated, we possibly have access to a few more small windows that can be opened. These windows allow us the opportunity for a perspective and view we may not otherwise have seen.
Who else is with you in lockdown, and how are you navigating around your different needs?
Lockdown is physically small at our place! Just my husband Vernon and I. We both teach during the day. Vernon has a small number of hours teaching, and we mostly manage different hours. We have discovered that sound is not an issue if we teach at the same time, however, internet drainage is.
I am fortunate to have a room to work from, and I have quickly turned this into my messy studio, managing to angle the cameras away from the pile of books, ‘flutey’ bits and pieces, and cups of tea! Brisbane temperatures are a delight at the moment, and before the day gets going, we enjoy the morning coffee on our verandah, and take pleasure in the blue sky and the bougainvillea in the arbour below.
With no-one treading on the beautiful lush lawns at the moment, I stepped outside last night and did a series of cartwheels and handstands to celebrate the green velvet grass beneath me! We live above a restaurant strip, and I’m happy to report that the sound of garbage being emptied and Spanish muzak from a restaurant below has temporarily ceased. The silence is wonderful!
What are you most looking forward to doing when it’s all over?
When the COVID-19 episode has run its course, or when we are allowed a little more freedom:
- I am looking forward to seeing my parents and hugging them.
- I am looking forward to climbing a mountain.
- I am looking forward to listening to the ‘live’ sounds of my wonderful students, whose illustrious tones and sound colours are one of my greatest daily joys.
- I am looking forward to making music with my friends and colleagues.
- I am looking forward to watching and hearing my students collaborate again with their own peers.
- I am looking forward to hugging my friends, family and students.
I am looking forward — with a smile and a happy heart!
Catch up on our UNSTOPPABLE ARTISTS interview with ANAM Musician Jared Yapp.
Images supplied. Jared captured by Pia Johnson.
