Which gives you the greatest satisfaction – composing, performing or educating?
It’s very hard to choose one over the other, as they can, and do, overlap and when you have that magic combination of innovation through collaboration and performance, you at the pinnacle of artistic expression. Particularly if a group can create and compose music and lyrics together, arrange and perform, this is a valuable way to learn music. Songs have always been the most interesting musical expression as there are still no fixed rules for what makes a great one. It just is. The magical, endless combination of words and melody is something that inspires and challenges all musicians. Think of the great songs you know and those moments in your life that accompany them. They remind us of the journeys of this life.
So that sense of belonging – our place, how we are defined by our story- is a driving force for you?
I want to bring to life the stories and the histories , both ancient and new, that define who we are and how we belong in this world. As an 8 year old boy in a remote Australian community once answered the question asked by Colin Offord, ‘What is music?’ with a simple, yet profound answer, ‘Music is the house sounds lives in.’
We make, listen and perform music to understand our past and how we came to be. We sing for the present, we sing for the future, and we sing to find our place in this world.
The landscape of time is signposted in this country with remarkable stories of conflict, of endurance and courage, of both physical and spiritual transcendence – I can never predict what the collaboration with artists, poets, students or musical communities will bring forth – every story, every history, has a soul within it, and in creating music I hope the story has been honoured – treated with compassion and dignity, and is the result of a community of curious people learning from each other.
Composing music is as compelling as breathing to me – it is a language I have grown up with and my hope is always to compose a piece that feels right, now, and into the future .
My music, my words, my work is about all of us in our own art and expression.
What are the challenges of composition?
To overcome the fear of failure I guess. I write with more success when I confidantly allow my brain to realise that I can achieve the right piece. You can teach yourself how to be in the right headspace to make creativity happen. You also need a good space, the time and spiritual and physical balance within.
Some pieces require weeks of strategy and planning. Others just happen.
Composing is a great challenge, and to say it is always fun would be a lie. It is sometimes frustrating but that always pays off. The rewards are huge. There is nothing like the moment that the first real inspiration happens and then your whole universe changes. It is like you have changed history and it is most often my favourite moment in all music – the birth. Sometimes it is incredibly difficult to find the right ‘path’, especially when it carries the importance of a revered or very personal story. The musical landscape that I construct should hopefully engage and challenge firstly those that will sing the piece, but importantly, those who hear it.
In 2006 the Hunter Singers, directed by Kim Sutherland, commissioned me to write a choral work about the experience of Australians on the Western Front during World War I. After an Australian premiere, the piece was performed in England and significant sites throughout the Somme in Belgium and France, with a special performance in the Last Post Ceremony at the Menin Gate, Ypres. This was the first time an Australian piece about the Western Front was performed in this ceremony.
When we have lived and learned together, laughed and cried together, danced and sung, sharing our stories and song, we grow into better people along the way.
Where has music taken you?
In my twenties and early thirties I guess I was a typical free spirit artist with a flair for spontaneity and adventure. I travelled Australia and the world with a famous band, played in cities and communities In over 30 countries, canoed rivers and canyons, hiked mountains and deserts, lived like a nomad, jammed, played, danced, ate and drank and sang my way through the festival of life – and why not?
In my mid thirties, I feel in love and started a family, so a new adventure was to take place, one with a little more responsibility. But with this great addition, my life is busier than ever, travel is in my heart. The music hasn’t stopped and at last count I have written over 120 works for ensembles, festivals and events. I tour for 3 – 5 months of the year and I’m more focused now on my music passions and love spending time with my family on our farm. I enjoy the beach, chopping wood for the fire, working on the farm and the rainforest around us. I love writing at our place. It is perfect for creativity.
Where have you travelled in the past few years?
Mostly China and Europe. As my work is becoming better known I find I am travelling outside of Australia to conduct choirs, workshops, residences and work on commissions. It’s a very exciting time.I also enjoy collaborating with my wife Bonnie on some of our commissions and we have been able to travel together. She has always been my second set of ears, my best critic and support, and she inspired some great pieces with me this year. I have never enjoyed writing so much.
I love working in remote Australian regions, and with Indigenous artists and communities especially but having my work sung across the world is empowering. A work I wrote in 2008, especially for the 40th Anniversary event of the death of Martin Luther ,was performed for President Barack Obama at the White House in 2014.. As a complete contrast, my song ‘The Will to Climb’ ( an anthem for world rugby) was performed in front of millions love across the world.
In 2015 I have been back to France, working on a new composition for the Hunter Singers, based around World War1 and the Australian soldiers whose bodies have just been recovered at Fromelles. It is such a powerful place and I guess one of my aims is a retrieval, if you like, of the pain and anguish but also the happiness, however momentary, of that time. The bodies of those men have been found but their story has become bigger, encompassing families, the community near by…… a powerful doorway into the values of perseverance, mutual respect and reconciliation.
I am also doing a fair bit of work in China with schools and choirs. I am enjoying that very much and I have formed a strong relationship with Dulwich College which has 5 campuses in China. I love the country, the people, the food, the culture.
You recently moved to Valla, in Northern NSW. Are you enjoying living there?
Valla is on the coast and offers unspoilt beaches and a rainforest hinterland, which is where we live. After intense workshops and collaborations I love the peace of the forest, to have the quiet to absorb and sometimes redirect what can be very peripheral ideas shadowing the lyrics as they were written. That discipline of silence allows me to reach for the sounds that inhabit the musical landscape being created. Valla is also a town of wonderful people, a real community who live and work together, sharing food, songs and stories, the passion for the surf, fishing, growing veggies and fruit, dancing the night away and enjoying family. We want to bring our children up there. The greater area of Coffs Harbour and the Bellinger, Nambucca and Kalang Rivers is honestly one of the nicest places I have ever been. I am honoured to live there..
An airport nearby makes work across Australia and internationally, easy!