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 explore long-distance collaboration. Next time you’re wondering how to schedule in time to work with your ensemble, think about Ensemble Peregrine. The emerging musicians in this group don’t even live in the same country. But they’re making it work.
The ensemble members hail from Melbourne, Perth, Vancouver, and Luxembourg – and they’re brought together exclusively to present the ANAM Artists tour this month.
The musicians are Thomas Hutchinson (Melbourne Symphony Orchestra associate principal oboe), Alex Morris (Vancouver Symphony Orchestra assistant principal clarinet), Jack Schiller (MSO principal bassoon), Andrew Young (member of the Orchestra Philharmonie horn section in Luxembourg), and Gladys Chua (one of the busiest freelance pianists in Australia).
Ensemble Peregrine will perform works by Mozart, Poulenc, and Paul Stanhope. So how do long-distance musical relationships work? We ask Gladys Chua to talk us through it all, and offer advice for others who refuse to be limited by distance.
Hacking the long-distance relationship.
Gladys, tell us about your upcoming ANAM Artists tour. What’s been your relationship with your fellow four artists?
We met across a few years, while studying at ANAM. But all five of us were never there at the same time. We have a number of various connections, though, even from before our time at ANAM:
- Andrew and I studied at university together (and in fact played together quite a lot);
- All of us except for Thomas were at National Music Camp in 2009;
- Andrew, Jack, and Alex went on the AYO international tour together to China and Europe in 2010;
- and Jack and Thomas now play in the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra together (the only two who live in the same city!).
Embarrassingly, I only recently revealed to Alex that the first time I met him was at an AYO program, when we were in the same orchestra; I was in awe of his sound and musicality, and never dreamed that we’d be friends, let alone playing in a chamber ensemble together!
We have performed in various orchestral and chamber music projects together, and developed a mutual admiration for each other’s musicianship. There have definitely been times when we were rehearsing that words weren’t necessary to communicate our ideas; or you instinctively understand, and agree with, each other’s musical interpretation. I guess you could say we have waited many years for this project to finally come together!
Ensemble Peregrine doesn’t sound like a simple venture. In fact, you’re coming together from four places across the world to perform. So tell us, what’s the point in putting in the effort to maintain a long-distance musical relationship?
It definitely helps that we’re friends in the first place, so it’s not a burdensome effort to keep up with each other’s lives and to stay in touch. It’s special to find people that you enjoy working with, and can fathom the idea of spending quite a lot of time together – it doesn’t happen with everybody! If we find ourselves in the same city, we always catch up and usually end up plotting some kind of concert, or dreaming about our ideal chamber music project.
Even though it’s far more difficult to plot projects together, because everybody’s schedule is so different and traverses state and country borders – and it costs so much to mount something (let alone factoring in international travel!) – it’s worth it when you know the result is gong to be satisfying musically and personally. I almost can’t quite believe this particular dream is actually happening!
How do you work together across different timezones when it comes to ensemble decision-making, such as choosing music and planning, and administrative tasks?
Technology for sure is a friend here. When we were applying as ANAM Artists initially, we were in five different cities at the time, juggling performances, various jobs, and festivals; many emails flew back and forth! It’s definitely not as easy as if we were in the same city and able to actually sit down and brainstorm ideas, or read body language or tone, as it’s all in written (typed) communication. There is a fair degree of waiting for messages or emails to get through, time to think, then time to reply, and then act. I think it means we need to be a little bit more organised, to coordinate the opinions of the five of us.
For all our decision making, such as choosing repertoire, it’s all pretty democratic and respectful; voting for what would be the best outcome for us an ensemble. We haven’t yet had to resort to a Skype meeting where somebody has to be awake at a crazy hour…
And, of course, the most important question of all: how do you practice together?
We will actually be all coming to Melbourne for just under one week prior to our first concert to prepare together. In some ways, this seems like a short time, but it’s not uncommon – orchestras play different programs each week, so the turnover is quite high. Obviously, we already have all our music, so we’re individually preparing our parts.
In the case of the Mozart quintet and Poulenc trio, we have played them before (but with different combinations of people), so we have a good idea of where it all fits together. I think the challenge for us individually and as an ensemble with familiar works is to find a way to avoid it being stale and like every other time we might have performed it. It requires listening really actively, and really considering and being convinced of our musical choices.
Preparation of less familiar works, such as the Stanhope and Widmann, also involves a lot of referencing the score, marking up our own parts, listening to available recordings, and knowing what to expect of the other parts.
When you finally come together in the same spot, what do you imagine will be the biggest challenges of finding your chemistry as an ensemble?
Chamber music definitely has its fair share of give and take. Ideally, the product is greater than the sum of its parts. There is also a fair degree of trust involved in order to make it work, and thankfully I know that the others are seriously great musicians. When we applied to be ANAM Artists, we thought about who we really wanted to do this with, and it wasn’t a difficult decision, because it was so obvious to us who would make up our ensemble.
Having matured musically since our student days, I anticipate we’ll have five strong musical opinions – hopefully they’ll mostly align with each other, or if they don’t, that we have the diplomacy and care to come to a well-considered decision.
Talk us through your first rehearsal together for this specific concert tour.
Do you mean after our catch-up over our morning coffee?! Just kidding, though I’m pretty sure the first thing that will happen are great big bear hugs and I’ll probably be squealing with excitement with a ridiculous grin on my face!
We’ll play through all the music together, and see where it’s all sitting. Often the first time through together is like calibration – getting used to how the others sound, how they move, what cues they give and need, and getting an overall sense of everybody’s ideas about the music. The Widmann quintet is the least familiar to us all, so a fair amount of time in the week will be devoted to nutting this out, and putting it together and deciding on a unified musical interpretation.
What are you learning from the process of working with others around the world?
All of the others have at some point studied overseas, and it’s been a little while since we’ve heard each other play, so it’s an exciting prospect to see how we’ve all developed post-study and into professional careers.
I think being in different places allows us to absorb a variety of influences individually, which surely can only add to a richer experience together as an ensemble. Hopefully, our tour together will not only be a time to reconvene as friends making music together, but also an opportunity to learn from each other as well before parting ways again (hopefully for not too long!).
And finally, what is your biggest piece of advice for making a successful long-distance collaboration work?
Preparation and being clear about expectations is really helpful. I’m sure it’ll save a lot of trouble when you do finally all come together. Long-distance collaboration requires patience as well – it might take years for ideas to come to fruition, but dreaming extravagantly is a great place to start, because it might actually happen (or kick off some other ideas and projects)!
If and when it does happen, I guess you have to be willing to dive in, be flexible and kind, and commit to pulling it off!
Anything else you’d like to add?
We are so excited to be finally able to do this. I hope we’ll catch you on our tour, and that you’ll be able to share the joy with us!
Ensemble Peregrine will tour various locations across Australia from 14-27 July as part of the ANAM Artists tour.
Check back in soon for our next What the Fact?! with professionals in the music industry.
