BY CUTCOMMON
Melbourne Chamber Orchestra is gearing up for its first event of 2023. It’s also the first event Sophie Rowell has programmed as its new artistic director.
The violinist joins MCO fresh from her leadership roles with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Australian National Academy of Music. Through Woven Threads, she has curated a concert reflective of her passion, handpicking works from Bach to Eötvös that share stories old and new.
Here’s how Sophie is setting the tone for MCO in 2023 — and for her tenure as its artistic director.
Sophie, this is the first program you’ve curated for MRC. What does that opportunity mean to you as an artistic director?
As programmers, we have the chance to create stories: we retell old ones, find new ways to tell ones we’ve heard before, and ensure we’re creating space to tell and share new stories. The most exciting part for me is having the freedom to weave these together in a way that offers audiences not just a performance, but experiences — experiences that are comfortable and challenging, thrilling and calming, and most of all unforgettable.
It’s an honour to have been given the opportunity to curate this program and the rest of MCO’s 2023 season. Certainly, I have big shoes to fill, building on the wonderful legacy created by former artistic director William Hennessy. In short, the opportunity means the world to me!
What are some of the important things you need to consider when programming your first concert? For instance, how do you balance representing MCO and representing your own values as the artist at its helm?
The MCO has a strong history of performance excellence, something to which I am always aspiring. I share that same belief that the music-making and music-creating in Melbourne deserves to be celebrated. This program ultimately reflects MCO’s core values, and I’m the means to share the story.
Having said that, I really did take a long time to bring this program together. In the beginning, I was putting too much pressure on myself to come up with the best program ever. Once I stepped back and had an overview of the whole season, it made it much easier to bring together a story that was as much mine as it is MCO’s, and is as much MCO’s as it is the audience’s.
Tell us about the specific works you chose, and how they reveal your ideas.
The passion I feel for these works can be expressed most clearly by the foreword Melody Eötvös writes to her work, the second piece on the program: ‘Meraki: This is a word that modern Greeks often use to describe doing something with soul, creativity, or love – when you put “something of yourself” into what you’re doing, whatever it may be.’
This encapsulates exactly how I felt as the idea of this program came to life. This concert is essentially a programmatic depiction of me, musically and personally.
I cannot imagine a world without J.S. Bach, so I absolutely had to start my first concert with one of his works. And Mendelssohn is my favourite composer of all to play! The ebullience of his music brings a twinkle to me eye and, I hope, my sound.
The first two works following interval are in tribute to my teacher and mentor Alice Waten who passed away last year. The Mozart Adagio and Fugue was the first piece she gave my quartet, and I always associate Arensky’s Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky with her passion for chamber orchestras and for the rich Russian string sound.
And to finish, those who know me are well versed in my ‘passion’ for a good knees-up. The Perkinson is exactly that: an outburst of joy to bring a smile to us all!
How does this concert set the tone for MCO in 2023?
A strong thread for the MCO’s 2023 season is to shine the spotlight on the powerful ways in which music can transform, whether that be across the ages or when reflected through different lenses.
Mozart’s homage to Bach, and Arensky’s Variations on a Theme of Tchaikovsky written in response to his friend’s death feature, in the first program are examples of this. Similarly, through the whole year we celebrate works that have been inspired by ages past, for example Vasks’ Da pacem, Domine which is based on the 5th-Century Gregorian chant (featured in Higher Power), or the way genres like the symphony have developed (which we explore in Art of the Symphony).
Another strong thread woven through the season is the celebration of the wonderful artistic talent we have here in Melbourne. We have a giant treasure trove of musicians and artists here and I truly believe they deserve to take centrestage. We will be joined by artists such as Genevieve Lacey, Paavali Jumppanen, Lior, and Polyphonic Voices as well as performing the music of Melbourne composers Melody Eötvös, Stuart Greenbaum, Ade Vincent, and Caerwen Martin.
Perhaps it is Caerwen’s commission for the MCO which best sums up our 2023 tone. Her piece Embracing Duarte is a modern-day reflection that will be interspersed by Sinfonias by the 17th-Century Flemish composer Leonora Duarte. We are looking at music of all ages, telling its story in a way that celebrates its tradition but also examining it through the lens of today’s society, particularly that of Melbourne.
As MCO’s new artistic director, what do you hope to achieve through your tenure?
During my tenure, I hope I can continue the MCO’s legacy of bringing great music to the people of Melbourne and Victoria in a way that reaches more ears and touches more hearts with every year.
My dream is to bring music to all, from our youngest listeners who might be seeing a musical instrument for the first time at a school’s performance, to the oldest members of our community to whom we need to take our music, and to all those in between.
I also love the idea of being a vibrant part of Melbourne’s artistic community, sharing the stage with musicians in all stages of their career, and blending the MCO’s musical talents for collaboration with other artistic disciplines and institutions.
The prospect of the future is truly an exciting one for me!
With your experiences as concertmaster of MSO and teaching musicians at ANAM, what do you believe to be the most important quality a music leader must possess?
Forgive me, but I am going to give two answers to this question.
Firstly, I think a music leader needs to bring a fine balance of two things to any situation where leadership is required: the ability to invite collaboration; but at the same time, a conviction of — in this case — musical intention. And they need to have the capability to recognise which of these is needed in a rehearsal to make it both collaborative and productive.
Secondly, a music leader needs to stay calm in a musical crisis so, in the event the music-making takes an unexpected and somewhat terrifying turn, everyone on the stage is reassured that you will make sure it will be okay.
I am thrilled to be part of MCO, and am so looking forward to sharing this concert and the rest of our 2023 musical offerings with everyone, both musicians and audiences alike. I think we all have a wonderful path to explore, and I can’t wait to see where it takes us.
Visit the Melbourne Chamber Orchestra website to learn more about Woven Threads.
The program will be performed at the Melbourne Recital Centre on 9 and 12 March, and streamed via the Australian Digital Concert Hall on 9 March.
Images supplied. Credit Laura Manariti.
