BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE
Welcome to our series, What the Fact?!
Throughout 2018, we’re teaming up with talent at the Australian National Academy of Music to bring you informed answers to real questions and topics about your music career.
Ever wondered why you feel performance anxiety? What the deal is with tuning to 440Hz – or not? How to lead an orchestra? We’re here to tell you all about it.
Today we chat with Michael Olsen about the musical value of friendship. Should you maintain a personal relationship with fellow professionals? And are there benefits if you do?
Michael Olsen is pretty good mates with his fellow players in Golden Gate Brass. Michael and Jackson Bankovic, who studied at ANAM in 2018, are members of this group along with three ANAM alumni: Fletcher Cox, Aidan Gabriels, and Jason Catchpowle. They’ve performed together for years before forming Golden Gate Brass, and we wanted to know more about this relationship.
Michael grew up in rural Western Australia, and has been playing the trumpet since he was 10 years old. He has studied at the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts and Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University.
Outside Golden Gate Brass, he has played with the Melbourne, Sydney, and West Australian symphony orchestras; Australian and Queensland youth orchestras; and completed a 2014 internship with the Queensland Symphony Orchestra.
Here he is with Golden Gate Brass (he’s the dude on the left).
Hacking music + friendship
Michael, early last year you formed Golden Gate Brass with four friends from ANAM (including three Perth friends that you already knew before you started there!). Why are friendships with other musicians, outside the practice room, so fulfilling?
I always really enjoy playing in small chamber groups, and it’s great to do it with a group of friends.
We formed Golden Gate Brass at the beginning of 2017 after playing in different brass quintets over the years, and wanting to perform more regularly with the same ensemble.
Four of us are from Perth and have been performing together for years in a variety of groups. We all ended up together at ANAM where we decided we wanted to form a quintet.
How can the friendships you make during music studies at university be good for your future career?
It’s such a small community, and it’s always nice to see familiar faces. It’s amazing where you bump into people, and it’s nice if you’re working somewhere new to already know a few people.
I find I always learn a huge amount from friends, and it’s always good to have someone you can trust to be brutally honest every now and then!
How did your friendships with the group evolve since starting at ANAM, and how have you continued collaborating as a group even though some members are now alumni?
We pretty much signed up to knowing everything about each other, good and bad, from going on tours together.
Fletch and I were dubbed the ‘brass brothers’ at ANAM, and even joined our recitals together one year. We tried to make the most of studying together and being able to rehearse whenever we had spare time, whereas the scheduling has become much trickier now; especially interstate. We’re slowly learning to organise our projects further in advance!
There’s a strong culture of competition for those working in music. How important is it that we treat each other with kindness, even when we might be competing for the same roles or jobs?
I never feel like it is competitive between musicians. I think it is more like a competition with yourself, and everyone is in the same boat trying to achieve their own goals.
Music is such a shared activity with other musicians and it is important to remember why we play music. I’ve really enjoyed the kindness and support of the community, and I think it’s important not to lose sight of the value of what we do.
How does performing with friends fulfil you, compared to performing with an orchestra or ensemble on a purely professional level?
I always really enjoy performing with any ensemble, but performing with a group of friends means you get to choose what you want to perform and why. As a freelance musician, you get to play all sorts of amazing pieces, but actually putting on your own concerts with your friends and choosing what to play is both scary and exciting.
How have you been feeling during your final months at ANAM?
This whole year has been pretty crazy, and the recent Brett Dean concert was a great orchestra concert to finish my time at ANAM. Our final quintet concert for the year is on Thursday 20 December, and I’m really looking forward to playing with the group again. We’re premiering Cloudscapes, the work we commissioned from Alex Turley and it will be a great way to finish the year!
Any advice for musicians too guilty to socialise with their friends because they want to practice?
Both are definitely important! I feel like a good mix of the two is the best balance for me.
Unless you’re performing an unaccompanied work, you’re almost always onstage with other people, whether that’s in a chamber group or a full orchestra. Socialising and having a good support network is really important. Practising can be a very personal activity, but performing rarely is.
Golden Gate Brass is supported by the Lorne and Ann Cole Prize through the Ursula Hoff Institute and the Australian National Academy of Music.
ANAM presents Golden Gate Brass at 12pm December 19 in MPavilion.
See them again with new Alex Turley composition Cloudscapes at 7.30pm December 20, St Lukes.
We’re partnering with ANAM to hook up with some of the strongest talent in the world in our new educational series! Check back in soon for our next What the Fact?! with professionals in the music industry.
Emoji via APACHE – License 2.0. Images supplied.
