Music

I hope music will never not be a part of my life.
Even though it feels like I'm spending a lot of my time at The Spot, the new Economics and Commerce building, and a lot of my time is spent reading textbooks that explain theory, and articles about different perspectives and history. I can't say I've ever worked so hard in a different way before - I'd almost forgotten what it was to have to sit down at a desk and study so much! On the flipside, it is possible to bring some of this homework out and about, like on public transport, or to uni to fill in an hour here and there.

The Uni Orchestra is playing a concert on Monday night. Unfortunately, there is no orchestral piano in either of programmes this semester, so I am bitterly disappointed that I won't spend any of my final semester doing orchestra with uni. Thank goodness for MYO and that Rachmaninoff's Symphonic Dances has a fairly significant piano solo in the first movement! One of the pieces the uni orchestra is playing is Mussorgsky's "Night on a Bald Mountain". (It was going to be John Adams' "Short Ride in a Fast Machine" which has two optional synthesiser parts, but alas, it was not to be so!).

The Mussorgsky has a very special place in my heart, actually....that, along with Tchaikovsky's Cappricio Italien were the first two pieces I ever played in a symphony orchestra. It was part of the Shell Concert Combined Orchestra, which was the grand finale of a concert that featured the public secondary schools' music programmes (largely made up of Churchlands, Perth Mod, Rossmoyne, other large public schools). The combined orchestra was auditioned - I think it was the first external audition I did, at least on violin. I was actually in year seven, one of only two - the rest of the orchestra were secondary school students, so I felt really special that I was chosen!

It was the first time I had a sectional - it was a little scary, I was playing 2nd violin in the second or third desk, and having to all play our one part in this sectional was intimidating, because I was supposed to be playing the same thing as everybody else. Of course, I didn't really know how to approach this all, so I hadn't listened to the repertoire (this is what happens when you're twelve and have never heard of doing this sort of thing before!). But I struggled through the first sectional and resolved to practice my part so I didn't feel or sound like an idiot the next time.

By the time the full orchestra came together, I was fairly overwhelmed with all the new instruments and their sounds. It was a pretty amazing feeling - I didn't know what an oboe or a french horn was previously, and suddenly they had all these bits! We were conducted by Trevor Green, who I distinctly remember thinking was very cool, because he had been Principal Cellist with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra (somewhere that sounded really good!). There is one bit in the Tchaikovsky where he wanted the strings to sort of sound 'muddy' - in the swirling way, swirling down and becoming a rich pool (rather than being messy!). And the end of that piece introduced me to beating in one! Boy, was that fast, I thought!

The concert was pretty amazing, except for the last little bit in the Tchaikovsky - there was a minor miscommunication and the oboe was cued wrongly, and everybody in the orchestra knew where it was supposed to sound, and we were all singing it in our heads as the conductor and oboist desparately tried to pull it all together. But overall it went very successfully. And what an amazing feeling it was - the sound was glorious, and audience loved it. I felt so proud to be part of that.

Subsequent involvement in orchestras have been amazing for me - from Combined Anglican Schools' concerts (on violin), right through to the Australian Youth Orchestra. Some of the funnest repertoire I have played has been in orchestra, on violin. CAS concerts have included the Pergolesi Mass (I think?! I know it was Baroque, was chamber orchestra - so cool! And there was a great choir, and AB worked really hard!), Bizet's 'Jeux d'Enfants', 'Mars' and 'Jupiter' from Holst's 'The Planets', amazing settings/compositions of William Blake's 'The Tyger' and 'The Lamb'. I was also very fortunate to have a director of music at my high school who pushed really hard for us year nines to be in the orchestra (apparently not that frequent because there are lots of people across six schools who play violin!). In school orchestras, we explored some great string music - some of the stuff on tour: parts of Dvorak's Serenade for Strings, as well as the Elgar, Britten's Simple Symphony; we tried Barber's Adagio for Strings, Vaughan William's Fantasia on Greensleves, and Vivaldi's Concerto for Four Violins in b minor (there was a very good reason why they put us four girls across that front!).

Don't get me wrong, it has been amazing to play keyboard in the orchestra - there has been the thrill of West Side Story, the amazing feeling I got when across the 30-odd metres of the orchestra, the double basses and piano lined up in the first movement of Shostakovich 5. Or when the celeste is used as the most amazing orchestral colour, at the most poignant moments.

I have been very blessed to have such amazing orchestral experiences - something that has resulted from being a pianist so enthusiastic to get into orchestra (at least partly because most of my friends were playing in orchestra!), and learning violin for a number of years, and having some great teachers who pushed hard for me to have opportunities.