BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Love playing music, but a full-time orchestral role isn’t for you? Have a second instrument you’d like to play with others? Want to make music simply for the sake of making music?
These are just some of the reasons you might like to take part in a community orchestra experience. The idea is to come together with other players of a wide range of skill levels and age groups, and simply have a great time playing Brahms!
Oh, did we mention Brahms is on the program?
This weekend, the Tasmanian Youth Orchestra will host its Brahms Open Day – open to anyone and everyone to participate. We chat with Melbourne-born conductor Professor Rob McWilliams, who will guide players through the day. He tells us why he loves to lead community orchestras.
Rob has degrees in education and conducting from the University of Melbourne, Florida State University, and University of Minnesota. His conducting experiences have taken him across the world, and he’s now a Yamaha Music Australia Education Outreach Clinician and freelance musician, educator, conductor, composer/arranger, and adjudicator.
Rob, tell us why you love working with the TYO.
I love to work with young, talented musicians as they are typically keen to learn and open to new/different ideas that they will typically do their best to implement with minimal reservations.
Your career has largely been centred around providing musicians with professional development. Why do you enjoy sharing knowledge and helping others to learn?
I have always been involved in teaching in some form or another, and I still get a thrill if I feel I can create some ‘light bulb’ moments with those I teach, conduct, or work with.
Learning to be a better musician in any area is very much along the ‘apprenticeship’ model (learning from others) rather than purely reading about it, etc.
Being heavily involved in teaching and delivering professional development is a way of giving back for all the wonderful teaching I have had!
What are the things that you enjoy most about working with a community orchestra, such as that coming together for the Brahms’ Open Day, compared to a major or commercial orchestra?
There is a typically genuine enthusiasm for making music for music’s sake rather than because it’s a job. Not all professional players have that same unbridled enthusiasm for the art, as it can become more of a ‘job’ that one has gotten into, rather than choosing it as something to do in leisure time outside of work.
Why should people come together to make music – quite literally – for fun?
Music making is such a great activity when approached openly with a view to collaborating with all the other musicians in the ensemble. Music making is fun, but it also has so many other benefits in terms of brain activity and health: every member is an integral part of the team, creativity, problem-solving, etc. It is also an activity you can do long into old age, which may not be possible in sports [and similar activities].
What does working with a community orchestra teach you about conducting?
As a community orchestra is made up of players of varying capabilities who don’t all have the high level of expertise or experience with conductors as professional musicians do, you have to have a level of communicative clarity on the podium to make it all work. This means your gestural and rehearsal technique and communication has to be up to that, and is tested each time you work with groups like this. I love that challenge to my conducting and rehearsing skills!
What do you wish emerging conductors could know about what it takes to lead an orchestra of any level?
That it is a very complex task and requires serious study, practice, etc! Conductors not only have to be an advocate for the composer’s intentions in the music, but also have to be able to communicate that with clarity both verbally and non-verbally. Conductors must have a clear point of view about the music they’re conducting, and this can only come from in-depth study and reflection. Then they need to have the gestural and rehearsal technique to bring the ensemble into that point of view and turn it into meaningful, expressive sound.
Add to this that you are dealing with the complex psychology of a group of human beings, and you see what I mean about complexity!
Register online today for the TYO Brahms Open Day, or head along to the concert on 27 October.
Images supplied.
