25 August 2014
Barry Conyngham on teaching, learning and the stuff of music
Composer Barry Conyngham talks about his teachers and mentors, his orchestral works and his two-fold career in composing and academia, in this interview conducted just a few days before his 70th birthday on 27 August 2014. Conyngham's latest orchestral work, ANZAC, will be premiered in a concert at Melbourne's Iwaki Auditorium on 31 August (for details, see the AMC Calendar).
Anni Heino: You have taught many composers
yourself - what is your approach? Does it owe anything to the
example of your own teachers Peter Sculthorpe and Toru Takemitsu?
What did you learn from Sculthorpe?
Barry Conyngham: With Peter I mostly learnt from
just being around him, and from the music he exposed me to. When
you were working on a piece, he would make some suggestions, but
mostly he just asked why you were doing a particular thing. He
did not like my early tendency to 'smudge' harmonic textures -
but at the same time he encouraged me to be different, to write
things he would not write. But mostly it was just being open and
generous with his time and company, and demonstrating commitment
and hard work.
With Toru too, there was no formal, 'this is how you do it'. Like
Sculthorpe, he encouraged me to listen to certain works, usually
with the score. He did talk about some technical matters and
particularly liked sharing his knowledge and exploration of
individual instruments. I remember (and still have) his
'illustrated' talk about the harp where he showed particular
notations and other technical points.
The most interesting elements we talked about were his sense of
'space' and 'time'. And as I was beginning to write
Ice Carving, a work that was a watershed piece for me
after I finished it back in Australia, he encouraged me in the
exploration of what he called 'orchestral space': a relationship
between pitch, register and texture. Later I decided that what
was, for him, an inner space was becoming, for me, the sense of
isolation and disconnect that I saw as a possible expression of
what it was to be Australian: people living in a huge continent
'occupied' in the name of another country - insecure, uncertain,
fond of nostalgia, sentiment and (oddly enough) displays of
self-satisfaction.
When it came my turn to teach I tried to pass on the notion of
being 'professional' - hard work, clear thinking - and, like
Peter and Toru, I was very enthusiastic about listening to a wide
and particularly new range of music. But, unlike them, I was more
technical, even if the techniques were diverse, and not too
prescriptive.
AH: Some of your most powerful works have
been dedicated to the memories of Takemitsu (Passing,
1998) and Sculthorpe (Dreams
go wandering still, 2004) - and also Hiroyuki Iwaki
(Gardener
of Time, 2010). How do you go about honouring a person -
and these particular friends and mentors - in music?
BC: When Takemitsu died in 1996, the loss was
not only of a teacher, mentor and friend but of someone who had
created so much extraordinary music. When I decided that I wanted
to create an orchestral work reflecting on my relationship with
Toru and his music, I was determined to create a good piece. The
mixture of the feelings involved in trying to encompass all he
embodied, and the challenge of doing a piece worthy of him,
seemed to work. I enjoyed writing the work and I somehow knew it
released a range of emotion and a kind of power that was special.
A few years later I decided to do a work that did a similar thing
for my other teacher, mentor and friend, Peter Sculthorpe - but
while he was living, indeed to celebrate his 75th year. Once
again I enjoyed the struggle and the depth of emotion in doing
that work. Likewise, my piece for the conductor, Iwaki, had to do
justice to our friendship and to all he had given me during our
times together.
AH: From your new vantage point as a
septuagenarian, can you see, looking back, a line that stretches
through your body of work?
BC: I think I am one of those composers, like
Takemitsu and Sculthorpe, who found a musical territory that
fascinated them and continued to explore it. Thus there are
technical and emotional threads that run through most of my
pieces. I am fond of ambiguity, heightened nostalgia, harmonic
tension that moves forward, energy, stillness, too... Lots of
things are always there.
AH: You composed a
Symphony in 2012 - how does it differ from your other
orchestral works? I understand that here, too, there are some
extra-musical links to do with themes of teaching, or
learning?
BC: The Symphony was written in response to a
suggestion from Richard Gill to whom it is dedicated. Though
calling something a 'symphony' was something I had resisted
through many orchestral works, I wanted to see if I could write a
Conyngham piece that was what that title implied. It turned out,
however, that I needed some extra-musical assistance. So I
reflected on the fact that both Richard and I had, in different
ways, spent a lot of time helping people learn, and that gave me
an emotional trajectory, a musical narrative, that could assist
the structural expectation and gestures that are implied by
calling an orchestral work Symphony.
AH: You are the only composer that I know of
who has also been the Vice-Chancellor of a university. Are there
any parallels, or links, between composing music and managing a
large academic institution? How does a deadline for a large
orchestral work fit in?
BC: I guess the most obvious link is that I have
enjoyed doing both. As a manager I strive for good will and I
seek to create opportunities for as many as possible to get
satisfaction out of their roles. Just as a composer must bring
together the different textures, personalities and contributions
of all the instruments in writing a piece, perhaps managing an
institution is a little like that. It is difficult to see any
other explicit connection between management and composing -
indeed the former should be an intensely social interaction,
whereas the latter tends to be a very personal, solitary
activity. I occasionally say that composing keeps me calm for
managing, whereas managing drives me mad so I have to compose.
The truth is that I have one useful ability that helps me do
both: I find it easy to concentrate on whatever is in front of
me. And, I enjoy making things.
As for deadlines and time constraints - I give myself lots of
lead time, work through Christmas Day…whatever it takes!
AH: Finally, your next orchestral premiere
is of a work entitled
ANZAC, for orchestra and nine soloists, to be premiered
at the end of August by the Melbourne University Orchestra - can
you tell me a little bit about this work, its background and how
it sounds?
BC: I believe it is impossible to live very long
in Australia, let alone all your life, without being involved in
the various aspects of the ANZAC phenomenon. Whether you are
referring to the men who made up that military force, or the day
that is the yearly commemoration that bears its name, or all the
feelings, symbols, memories involving other military action that
is now subsumed under the ANZAC tradition, a myriad of images and
feelings are thrown up by the sight or sound of that word.
For me the images and memories are both old, and relatively new:
starting with recollections of growing up in my small suburban
street in the late forties where our neighbours dressed in
uniform on ANZAC Day (or at least wore military decorations),
returning in the afternoon, drunk, sad or nostalgically
exuberant; and most recently attending a dawn service in
Melbourne, where thousands of women, men and children stood
silent as the sun rose to the traditional bugle.
The feelings and images - real or re-imagined - are inescapable:
preparing for battle, confronting death, experiencing fear,
mothers and fathers waiting for news. We all remember or recreate
(and, if we don't, television and other media do it for us) the
images of young men, and now women, going off to war, coming home
in coffins, or on foot, on stretchers, on crutches, in
wheel-chairs - many with mental scars to share with their family,
friends and perhaps strangers. So ANZAC is a powerful and
challenging topic to write music about; but tempestuous events,
strong emotion, nostalgia, life and death are the stuff of music,
and one should try.
AMC resources
ANZAC on 31 August at 2:30 pm, Iwaki Auditorium,
Melbourne Victoria -
all event details (AMC Calendar)
Barry Conyngham - AMC profile (biography, works, recordings
and other resources)
CDs and
MP3s of Conyngham's music available through the AMC
© Australian Music Centre (2014) — Permission must be obtained from the AMC if you wish to reproduce this article either online or in print.
Subjects discussed by this article:
Anni Heino is a Finnish-born journalist and musicologist, and Editor (Communications & Resonate) at the Australian Music Centre.
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