Celebrity Soft Spot Jenna Robertson

Last year Scottish-Australian Jenna Robertson ditched her engineering job to take the plunge as a full time soprano. She had already clocked up ten major repertoire roles, won the Australian concerto and vocal competition and had been running her own company Operabox for six years. The last 18 months have been spent following her heart. And taking a crash-course in French for her debut this week in the title role of Manon.

photo Marnya Rothe

What music gets your heart racing?

Any good opera where there is that magical combination of singing, orchestra, acting, design, surtitles! Amazing! William Kentridge’s production of Berg’s Lulu at the Met got my heart racing like crazy – it was a totally unique and thrilling combination of music with theatre. Of course at the moment, it’s also Massenet.

What calms you down?

Anything that holds my attention for extended time. Film is one of my favourite ways to relax and I love subtle films like those made by director Sofia Coppola. 

What do you sing along to?

Verdi, Donizetti, Katie Noonan, Jessie J…so many things!

How are you preparing for your title role in Operabox’s production of Manon?

I’ve been preparing for Manon for most of this year and the biggest challenge for me was the language as I’ve never studied French.  I was very fortunate to have the help of Opera Australia Language Coach, Nicole Dorigo, who taught me the French. Of course there is also the musical, technical and dramatic preparation that I’ve worked on also.

 A sneak peek from the general rehearsal of Manon, which opens on Friday.

You are doing much more than singing the role; you are also producing and promoting the season plus running the company! Where did you learn the skills to run your own opera company?

I worked internationally in oil and gas for 10 years as an engineer and project manager and had world-class leadership and project management training and experience during that time. That was a warm up for leading an opera company, which is actually harder, as there is never enough money. I’m always trying to learn new skills too. I’ve recently completed a part-time course at NIDA in Directing and training with Creative Partnerships Australia.  I also soak up information from wonderful mentors.

Operabox is one of several relatively new grassroots opera companies making a refreshing and vital contribution to WA’s operatic landscape. Why did you decide to launch your own company?

Operabox started with a team of 6 in the beginning in 2011. We are now producing our 7^th production and have grown to an association with 170 members with 80-90 people involved in each production.  Now our focus is on both creating exciting meaty opportunities for arts professionals and providing interesting repertoire for WA audiences. We try to produce operas that meet both those criteria.

 

Robertson as Zerbinetta in Operabox's sensational Ariadne auf Naxos,
which I reviewed here.

Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

I think it has different roles for different people, and can help people in so many ways by healing, inspiring and uniting. In opera, I guess the role of the music is to help tell stories and deliver important messages and the music heightens story telling in a way that in my opinion is unmatched in any other art form.

You have a soft spot for opera. You studied Engineering (with a singing scholarship on the side) at Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh and worked for Chevron in WA before make the career switch to opera in 2016. What is the appeal of opera?

A soft spot is a bit of an understatement! Somehow I didn’t see an opera till my early twenties when I was already working as an engineer (it was Natalie Dessay as Lucia at the Metropolitan Opera).  I was blown away by the electrifying combination of theatre and music.  I’ve been working on moving in that direction ever since. Opera provides me with an unlimited challenge, which I love. There’s always more to learn.

How do you choose the repertoire for Operabox? Why Manon?

We take such care over choosing our pieces. We look at what would be interesting to both our artists, orchestra and our audience, and relevant to today’s society. We also strive for diversity in our offerings. Manon is our first French opera and has never been performed in WA with orchestra.

 

Gaetano Bonfante (Des Grieux) and Robertson (Manon)

You have a pretty stellar cast joining you including Opera Australia tenor Gaetano Bonfante and baritone Sitiveni Talei as Des Grieux and Brétigny, with Kristin Bowtell as Lescaut. Christopher Dragon is taking a break as  Associate Conductor of the Colorado Symphony Orchestra to conduct the season and Sydney opera director Joseph Restubog is bringing a twist to the traditional ending (spoiler alert!). What can the audience expect?

Yes, we have an amazing team of people and I am continually blown away by the team we are able to pull together for each opera. The audience can expect to see our cast who are a mixture of Perth and Sydney-based singers, a small chorus and an orchestra of 25 in the pit conducted by Chris. It’s a fully staged production set in the 1920s, which director Joseph Restubog chose because the story really suits that period. That said, this story is so human its themes are timeless. As there have been a few 1920s shows in Perth this year already, our design team focused on trying to do something different. I’m particularly amazed at the work that costume designer Stephanie Cullingford has done with the historical accuracy of our costumes.

So far your singing career has taken you to Austria to study at the AIMS opera studio in Graz, Berlin for coaching, NIDA to complete studies in opera directing and you are currently based in Sydney soaking up the teaching of legends like Tony Legge, Arax Mansourian and Nicole Dorigo.… Where to next?

I’m heading back over east after Manon.  I have some more concerts this year in NSW, then heading to Europe again in November-December for more coaching and auditions, and then have an exciting role in 2018 in a new Australian opera called Mimma, which will be premiered in Perth at the Regal Theatre. The producers saw one of my performances of Anna Bolena in 2016 and offered me this role.

As Violetta in La Traviata, Opera New England, NSW

What is your favourite place in Perth?

I don’t think it’s a specific place, but after living in Sydney this year, I just love the lack of traffic and ease of getting around! I love the colour of the blue sky that seems to be unique to Perth.

Do you have a soft spot for anything else in life or is it all about the music?

I love good food, wine, and have a passion for film and photography. In fact my recent studies in directing at NIDA in Sydney have changed how I see everything.

Big thanks to Jenna for taking time out of production week to chat with us. Manon runs 1st-7th September at Newman College and 3rd September at Darlington Hall. More details and tickets here but be quick because tickets are selling fast. For more info on Jenna you can stalk her on Facebook and her website and follow Operabox here.

Celebrity Soft Spot Alex Turley

Alex Turley has been a compulsive composer since high school and this year he is really hitting his stride. The WA Academy of Performing Arts graduate has had music performed by the Melbourne, WA and Perth Symphony Orchestras, Soundstream Collective, Greywing ensemble and this month Blue Heat is being premiered by Intercurrent Ensemble. Later in the year Alex heads to Hobart for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra's composer's school but first he stopped by for a chat on Celebrity Soft Spot.

What music gets your heart racing?

I’ve recently become a bit obsessed with horror movie soundtracks. They’re all about using known semiotics and codes, but sometimes they’re just put together really intelligently. Michael Abels’ score for the recent movie Get Out was pretty masterful.

What calms you down? 

Carrie and Lowell by Sufjan Stevens or anything by Takemitsu (his music is not necessarily ‘calm’ but it’s very reflective).

What do you sing along to?

Anything from Travelogue by Joni Mitchell or Fleetwood Mac.

Your work Blue Heat is being premiered this month by Intercurrant Ensemble, commissioned by co-co-director Lachlan Skipworth who has also been your composition teacher for the past five years. Intercurrent has a fairly unique instrumentation of percussion, piano and clarinet; how did you go about creating this piece? 

Skipworth conducting Intercurrent

What I always look for in an ensemble – and is sometimes tricky to find – is some sense of homogeneity, that everything is working together as part of one machine. The instrumentation of Intercurrent is unique, yes, but at the same time feels very natural to write for. Marimba and clarinet blend well, especially in their lower ranges, and a piano can complement anything. Ashley, Louise and Emily are three of Perth’s most talented musicians, so when I was writing Blue Heat I was conscious of not letting them go to waste. So what I’ve written is really fast and difficult!

What do you hope the audience will experience when they hear it?

The piece is all about exploring energy and motion. I called it Blue Heat for a few reasons, firstly to capture a sense of fire-like energy in the sound, but also because it’s about contradictions. Can something be moving fast but at the same time not really moving at all? Can something be almost inaudible but at the same time intense and exhilarating? It’s quite a visual piece, too – the players throw different melodies to each other, and interact in lots of different ways. At some points everyone comes together and it’s difficult to distinguish which sounds are coming from whom, and at some points the ensemble breaks apart into three separate fields of individual activity. I’m hoping that the audience’s focus will be constantly moving around the ensemble, as that sort of thing makes a piece of music really exhilarating to experience.

Have you established a standard method of composing or is each piece unique? 

I certainly have a ‘groove’ that I get into when I’m composing, but I’m still very conscious of not making all of my pieces sound the same. One of the tricky things about learning how to be a composer is finding a balance between having a voice and language that you can claim as uniquely yours, but not churning out the same piece over and over, and I’ve watched many composers fall too far on either side of that spectrum. For me I try and focus each work on a different visual or extra-musical idea (an image, poem or place, for example) that can take the audience into a unique world, but across every work I still have a very ‘Turley’ way of doing things.

Pencil and manuscript or computer?

Honestly, both are equally frustrating. I wish I could just Bluetooth my brain into a computer and write scores telepathically.

With Greywing Ensemble. Photo Bohdan Warchomij.

You’ve been composing since high school. You made a brave choice in pursuing it for a career; Australia is not renowned for appreciating its own composers! Why did you choose composition?

I caught the bug, unfortunately. In my teenage years I was immersed in a very musical environment, and I became obsessed with deconstructing the language of music, learning as much as I could about how and why everything works the way it does. It’s so mystifying to me how something as mundane as a vibration in the air can produce such intense physical and emotional responses in us. I spent as much time as I could exploring this process, eventually making my own music just as a means of understanding. When I finished school it was a little tempting for me to go and do Law or something nice like that but by that point I had such a deep fascination with music that anything else would have made me quite unhappy. Yes, Australian composers have a very difficult time getting people interested in their music, but I am really determined to make everything work and I’m not going to give up without a fight. There are lots of things that can go alongside composing really nicely – arranging, engraving, conducting, teaching, researching, producing, administrating – so it’s not as if I’m lost for things to do.

You are having a remarkably successful year including wining the Penrith Symphony Orchestras Young Composer Award and being selected for the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra Composer School, plus upcoming performances of your works in Texas, Mexico City, Brisbane, Sydney and Perth. Where to from here?

I’m still at that point in my life where everything is really new, and I’m just trying to pull things together into some semblance of a freelance career. 2017 for me has been the year that everything has really begun to pick up speed. I’ve got myself to a place where I’m really confident with my craft and my ability to produce good music for people. It’s still a huge rush for me when someone that I barely know from across the country (or in Texas!) is actually interested in what I’m doing and wants to work with me. From here I’m just trying to make as much good music as I can, and I’m trying to diversify as well into areas such as art installation and theatre. There’s lots of stuff in the pipeline!

Listen here to City of Ghosts performed by the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra in 2016.

Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

It’s hard to argue with that statement. For me I think music just needs to produce a response – emotional, physical, memory, whatever – and the more intense the response the more powerful the music.

You have a soft spot for saxophone. You’ve composed a Sax Quartet, a Sax Concerto, a work for Sax and piano and another for Sax and cello. What is the appeal of this instrument?

I never set out to write so much for saxophone! It all happened because one of my close friends from uni (David Gioia) is a saxophonist, and he is incredible. I’m completely in awe of how he’s able to paint melody with an astonishing amount of precision and nuance. Together we found that his style of playing was really well suited to my style of writing, so we collaborated on all of those pieces that you just mentioned. We even recorded an album together which will be released in the near future. That kind of ongoing collaboration ended up being very significant in my development as a composer.

'Ink' with Alex Turley piano and David Gioia saxophone

Who are your music heroes?

My heroes are the people around me – young composers and young artists in general – that are taking risks, producing great work, making things happen and being lovely people in the process. Lachlan Skipworth, Dan Thorpe, Josten Myburgh, Lisa Cheney, Peggy Polias, Connor D’Netto, Bec Smith, Kezia Yap, Samuel Smith, Sally Greenaway, Tim Newhouse, Cassie To, Sam Wolf, to name just a few!

What is your favourite place in Perth? 

The beach near my old house, lovely place to take my dogs at sunset!

Do you have a soft spot for anything else in life or is it all about the music?

I love taking photos, I’m also a huge fan of visual art and theatre, I’ve recently become quite obsessed with architecture, I travel as much as I can afford to, I try and keep up to date with feminism, I’m obsessed with interior design… the list goes on! I also work in a fancy-ish restaurant and I actually really enjoy it (weird, I know).


Thank you Alex Turley for participating in the Celebrity Soft Spot series. You can read an interview with Alex here at CutCommon mag and listen to a Making Waves podcast here. For more details about Alex and his work go to alexturley.com. Future performances:

29th August: World premiere of Blue Heat by Intercurrent, State Theatre Centre. Program also includes works by Julian Day, Chris Tonkin, Hannah Lash and Philip Glass.2 Sep: Between the Ocean and the Sky performed by Jonathan Thompson, a PhD oboist from Texas who has commissioned composers from all over the world via the internet. 10 Sep: New Commission (piano duet) performed by Liam Viney and Anna Grinberg, Queensland Art Gallery. This is a part of a concert series called ARGO that seeks to take classical music out of the concert hall and into interactive spaces. They are playing the piece from either sides of an indoor lake.28 Oct: New Commission (orchestra) performed by the Penrith Symphony Orchestra in Sydney as part of the Young Composer Award.

Celebrity Soft Spot Harriet O'Shannessy

Harriet O'Shannessy is calm, unflappable,and the owner of a deliciously creamy soprano voice which you will hear in WA Opera's The Merry Widow this weekend. These days she has an irrepressible sparkle in her eyes and bubbling energy; her company Freeze Frame Opera is succeeding beyond her wildest dreams.

What music gets your heart racing?

Cavalleria Rusticana – the fight scene between Santuzza and Turridu: “No, no Turridu”  either watching it or singing it! It was the first opera I was in at WA Opera and it has a special place in my heart. I watched from the wings every night to see Dennis O’Neill and Nicole Youl singing this.

What music calms you down?

I listen to 101.7FM Capital Community Radio. Best station for golden oldies. I love it. I keep saying to anyone that’ll listen that it is not just a station for “the senior citizens of Perth”!

What do you sing along to?

I love singing along to Romeo and Juliet, (Dire Straits of course!)

Singing in the WA Opera chorus for Carmen

How are you preparing for your role as Sylviane in WA Opera's The Merry Widow which opens on July 15th?

We have had a wonderful rehearsal process with Graeme Murphy creating this show before our eyes. It is great to be involved in this original production. Sylviane is a little bit quirky and also quite naughty, so it is a lot of fun. I am a privileged Pontevedrian. I get to wear three amazing and glamorous costumes that have been designed by Jennifer Irwin. So much detail and thought has gone into every aspect of this show. This opera is going to look and sound amazing.

Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?  

I absolutely agree. Interesting, and it must affect my emotions. I like watching a show when I’m so involved emotionally that I want the inevitable sad to ending to change, or when I get goosebumps and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up, or when something makes me cry. Music should move emotions.

You have a soft spot for opera. What is the appeal of the art form for you?   

Opera has such power and passion.  It has the ability to speak straight to the soul, through the power of the human voice.  It is also just so impressive hearing a singer in full flight. It’s something primal and electric, and electrifying. I believe that the power to capture human emotion is the reason that opera can appeal to anyone. And, when you put that with a full orchestra…! Sensational.
 

How did Freeze Frame Opera come about?

I was inspired to start FFO to provide more opportunities for top quality Perth based singers to perform, and to increase opera audiences by making operas in a shortened format (like 20/20 is to test cricket, we are to grand opera), in a more intimate venue and in a more relaxed atmosphere. Camelot Theatre, where we performed La Boheme in May 2017, is perfect for that. The quality of the acting is as important as the singing.  Audiences have responded to that. Also, they can take their wine into the show, and come in their ugg boots if they like.  Always a good selling point.

Many would say you are mad starting FFO when opera companies around the world are going bankrupt. It is often an expensive and elite art form. What gives you hope?  

It is true - you have to be a bit mad! It consumes my waking (and sleeping) thoughts! Where there’s a will there’s a way I guess. I get lots of nice, encouraging feedback. And I get kids stopping me on the hockey field to ask “How I kept my eyes open?” when Mimi died  … so there’s hope there that the youngsters are getting interested!

O'Shannessy singing Mimi in La Boheme with Paul O'Neill as Rodolfo

Your debut opera La Boheme in May generated overwhelmingly enthusiastic responses from the Perth public. What is it that creates such a resonance with your audience, many of whom are opera virgins?  

I think they liked our 90’s grunge Boheme because the cast were so immersed in their roles, and so well suited to their roles, it wasn’t too long – (90 mins including interval), and it is such a good opera! I love it that people new to opera are coming and willing to give opera a go. I think they connected to Boheme with Rachel McDonald’s modern setting and surtitles. We hope we’ll get them hooked.

Where did you learn the skills to manage an opera company?

Definitely learning on the job! I’ve had great sounding boards in Bourby Webster (PSO), Rachel McDonald (director La Boheme) and my husband, Greg. I have collaborated with the some of the best in the business (Robbie Harrold, designer and Geoff Glencross, lighting). All have worked so hard. The singers are very much a part of the collaborative process at FFO. They even change the sets! Having produced Boheme, I feel more equipped to know what will or might come up next time.
What is the most important quality required for running a business in the arts sector?

The passion has to be there. Nothing would happen without that.

How do you go about putting together an opera such as Pagliacci from scratch? It is scheduled for mid next year and I know you have already started working toward it.   

I’ve locked down the dates at Camelot Theatre, the availability of the cast, and the director, musical director, designer and lighting designer. I will focus on obtaining funding, selling tickets and learning my role.  Boheme was pretty successful, and we all want to make sure our next show is even better!

Creative Partnerships Australia, through MATCH LAB 2017, will match up to $10,000 in donations that we receive between now and the end of September 2017.  Donations to FFO are tax deductible and details about how to donate can be found on our website: www.freezeframeopera.com. All donations are used towards furthering our aims of spreading the love of opera, and giving opportunities to talented singers

Rachel (director) and Robbie (designer) are already busy working on their vision for the show. FFO is very much a collaborative effort. And, being, FFO, there will be some unexpected things happening in this show…. All will soon be revealed!  

Children’s opera isn’t something we see a lot of in Perth but I know you have plans to change that. Is  opera an art form for kids?   

Yes! Thinking about this question made me think about my first experience of opera. I was in Year 7 and our wonderful, unforgettable music teacher, Miss Stevens, adapted Mozart’s The Magic Flute for us. I played Papagena. I would like to introduce more kids to the magic of opera. This December, we are planning to launch an opera designed to tour to primary schools. The opera we are working on is a shortened version of Dvorak's Rusalka (based on the Hans Christian Andersen) fairy tale. The launch will be at Camelot Theatre in Mosman Park and we'd love people to bring along their kids and grandkids, in the Christmas pantomime tradition. From 2018, we would love to offer the show as an incursion for primary school children in metropolitan and regional schools in WA.

At the opening night of La Boheme I met your greatest fan; your husband Greg is a very proud groupie! Is running Freeze Frame a whole family affair? How do you manage work/life balance with young children?  

Husband groupie. That’s cool. I like it when he’s in the audience cos he cheers as though he’s at the rugby! It is certainly a family affair. Not just my husband, but the kids get involved, dropping off flyers etc. They also come to the shows. They are the motivation, and part of the team. Robbie (our designer’s) kids were helping making props for Boheme. Maybe we can even use them on stage in the near future. Mine would like that…  if it meant pocket money!

What is your favourite place in Perth?  

The beach. Good for the soul.

Do you have a soft spot for anything else or is life all about the music?  

At the moment, outside of opera, it is all about the kids and their interests, and then there’s wine and coffee of course! I'm also a bit of a Dockers tragic.

Thank you Harriet O'Shannessy for sharing with us. You can get tickets to hear Harriet sing in The Merry Widow here, and go here to support Freeze Frame Opera and find out about future operas. 

Celebrity Soft Spot Robert Braham and Voyces

Robert Braham has been conducting Perth choirs for decades with the kind of magic that can extract joyful, enthusiastic singing even from teenage school boys. His new ensemble Voyces is attracting attention for its clean, fresh sound. They have performed at the opening of the 2016 Perth International Arts Festival,  collaborated with artists the calibre of Emma Matthews and Sara Macliver and built a reputation for commissioning Australian composers. Voyces' debut album will be launched this week at a concert called Hush.

Robert Braham. Photos Nic Babic Photography

What music gets your heart racing?

Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Second Piano Concerto springs to mind but virtuosic jazz playing is just as good. Wycliffe Gordon on trombone is a current favourite but I always come back to Wynton Marsalis and the Jazz at Lincoln Centre Orchestra where everyone is a virtuoso player.

What calms you down?

There are some wonderful current composers of choral music and vocal solos. Henryk Gorecki’s  Symphony of Sorrowful Songs (No. 3, Op. 36) for soprano and orchestra is just the ticket but on the a cappella choral side the works of Ola Gjeilo, Paul Mealor and others are both rich and calming at the same time. These and other modern choral composers know how to write so expressively for choir. Voyces will do some Ola Gjeila in their September concert.

What do you sing along to?

Symphonies mainly. I think this comes from my time as a horn player, especially the Romantic repertoire. Of course I cannot help but sing along with the symphonic choir repertoire; Handel’s Messiah, Mendelssohn’s Elijah, the works of Vaughan Williams. The list would be long. It is what I conducted for 14 years with the Perth Oratorio Choir.

What was your original vision behind the creation of Voyces choir?

The original vision behind Voyces was a youth aged choir who would sing a lot of contemporary classical music and especially Australian composers. After the WA Youth Music Association choir finished up a group of ex Trinity College boys who were members of the WAYMA Chorale wanted to start a new choir. It was based in St Joseph’s Church in Subiaco for a while and so was called the St Joseph’s Chamber Choir. Now we are based at Trinity College but still have our annual Christmas concert at St Joseph’s. The age of the choir has also expanded.

The choir membership has always been based on selecting highly trained musicians who get what it is to sing quality choral contemporary music. They don’t all have to be highly trained singers but they do need to have good musical skills and be quick learners. We love presenting quality modern choral works that our audience will enjoy. Sometimes that involves breaking down the traditional choir model of stand and sing. At our Spin concert, last year, we had several pieces where the choir moved around the stage while singing with images projected onto a screen and one piece where we started in the auditorium with a dramatized political narrative and ended on stage with some very intense singing. You can pretty well guarantee that the audience will hear works they have never heard before at a Voyces concert. Always interesting but also accessible. With our June 10 concert the program will be all Australian works including works for choir, percussion and strings. Every piece is novel and musically wonderful.

Voyces sing Night by Matthew Orlovich, 2016.

How are you preparing for the Hush concert on June 10th at the Government House Ballroom?

The preparation for the concert is tied in with the preparation for the recordings. The choir is doing such detailed work for the recording that it is ideal for concert preparation. The difference is we mainly sing concerts from memory but record with the scores so we have yet to test how the memorization is going. I am sure with all the recording time the memory work will almost take care of itself. Fingers crossed.

Voyces will also release an album as part of this concert – why did you decide to make an album?

Our public has been asking about a CD recording for quite a while now. It is time I think to put some of the repertoire down that we think defines who we are as a choir. We were also very keen to record ‘Hooves of Fate’, a work we commissioned from Australian composer Dan Walker as well as other pieces that we either premiered, or, were versions of compositions that have not been recorded.

Voyces has commissioned and performed a significant amount of new choral music in the five years since its inception. Why is it important to be singing music by contemporary Australian composers?

There are wonderful young and established Australian composers writing choral music. There are also a multitude of good choirs in Australia these days. They should be championing Australian music. I  love building the relationship between a choir and a composer. It is a very personal thing having music written for your choir. It also comes with great challenges and ultimately  (even with an open conversation between the composer and yourself) the end result can still be full of wonderful musical surprises. I have never been disappointed with a commissioned work. You have to trust but also be prepared to take a risk. 

At Trinity College we commissioned Paul Jarman to write a work for the Senior Chorale for our USA tour. Paul warned me that it was not what our original intentions had been but thought I and more importantly the boys would love it. He even left a section open to workshop with the boys over a weekend. By the end of the weekend the boys owned and knew the piece. It was a great hit. If anyone has a youth male choir try it. It is called ‘Let Go of My Hand’.

Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

That is the million-dollar question. Music is tied up with life, with the evolution of humans since before language. It is a part of every culture. It represents the extremes of emotion, it lifts us and it calms us. It is a great discipline to be involved with for there are so many skills in the art of music making. It lights up more of the brain than most other human activities so it has to be mentally healthy as well. It is something we all should have in our lives at some level. I think it was the great conductor Zubin Mehta commenting on an orchestral concert in the middle east who said something like: while the audience is absorbed in the music they at least have peace in their lives. It is a nice thought.

Voyces with Sara Macliver at St Joseph's Church Subiaco

You have a soft spot for choral music – why the voice?

Choirs were not my first choice of music making. I sang at school but mainly played orchestral music through university. Eight years in the orchestral pit with the Western Australian Arts Orchestra playing for opera in particular was a great education watching conductors and singers interact. My first real conducting work was in music theatre. From there I took on the Perth Oratorio Choir and discovered a whole world of large-scale choral music. So getting into choral work happened slowly at first and was paralleled by conducting opportunities. 

Your day job is director of music at Trinity College. The only time most Aussies practice communal singing (!) is at the footy – how do you go about teaching school boys to sing?

There is a great culture of singing at Trinity established over many years. Boys need to be given the chance to sing with other boys and the more the merrier. If you can get them through the vocal transition successfully they progress from loving their treble voices to loving their mature voices. They love bold sounds, they love rich harmonies and they love rhythmic interest. And if they love it they bring their mates. If you can build a culture where the whole senior school sings then developing expressive choral singing in teenage boys is just a refinement. It is always hard work but once they are hooked with quality repertoire there is no turning back. We also make sure the younger boys get the opportunity to hear the older boys. Aspiration means a lot in a boys’ school and a bit of competition never hurts.

Voyces perform Tanguendo by Oscar Escalada with 

dancers Geoff Hendrikse and Jelena Martinovic, 2016.

The choir will be heading to Choralfest later this month. What will your role be there?

Voyces is a guest choir at Choralfest. It is our second venture to the Australian National Choral Association festival. We will sing two separate programs of Australian music from our CD along with other fine Australian choirs. It is a great chance to network for the choristers and conductors and there will be wonderful international people there to work with and learn from. It is not often that choirs of this level actually get together and sing to a choral community so it is a real buzz. Always a bit of pressure but that will sharpen the performance.

Where did you learn the skills to direct a choir?

On the job would have to be the best answer to this question. Attending master classes and symposiums, observing and discussing conducting with other conductors and then implementing changes to what you do over many years. It is an ongoing process. Recently I attended the Vancouver Chamber Choir conductors’ symposium working with Jon Washburn. It was an intense week working with a professional choir but it was highly motivating.

Can you describe the unique sound of Voyces?

It is the sound of young, switched on musicians who love what they do. It is fresh, clean and always exciting.

Robert Braham

What is your favourite place in Perth?

I love our back garden. It is such a calming place to sit and enjoy. I have always loved the view of the city from Kings Park. It must be one of the best city views in Australia. I also love the combination of the old and new in some of Perth’s architecture – like St Mary’s Cathedral and of course the Mt Lawley strip for Saturday morning shopping.

Do you have a soft spot for anything else in life or is it all about the music?

I love art especially pastels and used to do quite a bit of drawing. Maybe it is something I will get back to when life is not so hectic. The gym has become quite addictive in recent years. I am also a sucker for good Nordic Noir and BBC dramas. Of course there is always the cricket.


Thank you to Robert Braham for participating in the Celebrity Soft Spot series. Voyces will launch their debut CD at the Hush concert on June 10th. For more information about upcoming concerts go to the Voyces website or check them out on Facebook.

Celebrity Soft Spot William Yeoman

William Yeoman is Literary Editor and arts writer at The West Australian newspaper.  His widely respected views on music can be read in Limelight and Gramophone magazines. Behind his dignified persona is a yoga-loving guitarist whose love of the arts is such that he will walk out of a rubbish performance. Will shares with us his thoughts on the much-maligned and desperately unappreciated role of the music critic.

What music gets your heart racing?

Vivaldi violin concertos performed at breakneck speed and with plenty of improvised ornamentation!

What calms you down?

Much of Ravel, Debussy and Chopin’s solo piano music, every time…

What do you sing along to?

Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter, Finzi’s Houseman and Hardy settings, Bach’s Matthew Passion, Handel’s Messiah (of course!)

You are currently books editor at The West Australian plus contributing to Weekend West and writing features and reviews covering the classical music scene. You seem to fit three jobs into one – a mammoth undertaking! Why is it so important to you that the WA arts scene is covered in the newspaper?

There is something of Schiller and Schopenhauer in this, but I believe the arts are fundamental to civilization because they allow us the freedom to explore, experiment and grow our creativity in a way that benefits every other aspect of society. As I have written elsewhere, “no endeavour, whether scientific, political, social, economic, military or recreational, can be realised in a way that benefits every member of the community unless it arises from, and is inspired by, that creativity and freedom which only the arts can engender. The arts are not a luxury. They are a necessity.” Therefore the more we can do to support and promote the local arts scene through the newspaper, the better it is for everyone. And readers seem to be responding positively.

William Yeoman on Seven West Media's Travel Club

What does a day in the life of Will look like?

3am Meditation and creative writing
5am Breakfast and reading
7am-between 3 & 5pm: Work (writing, editing, administration, interviews, meetings) Lunch somewhere in there too!
After work: Yoga, dinner
Evening: guitar or piano practice, freelance writing OR concert if reviewing for the paper.
Before bed: reading, listening to music

Watch William in action conducting a hilarious interview with Helmut Wunderlicher here.

How do you select content and discern what readers are interested in?

I look for a) the most significant events from an audience perspective ie WASO, WA Opera; and b) the most unusual events which are nevertheless likely to expand someone’s understanding of the arts and should therefore be pointed out ie a concert of contemporary classical music or an avant garde opera. It is also important to take risks, not just with style but content. Your readers will let you know when you’ve got it wrong!

Why is it important to be reviewing concerts and productions? Is it to register the event on the public record or is it more than that?

A review is often the only record of an event, so it is important for that reason. But reviewers should also be able to contextualize a particular event for those who were there as much as for those who were not, retrospectively, and evaluate it in light of similar kinds of performances and similar kinds of music. I also believe reviewing is a form of literature which should educate, entertain and form an integral part of the larger cultural conversation.

Fewer and fewer media institutions around the world are covering arts and providing specialist reviews. Is music journalism a dying artform?

There has arguably been a decline not just in content but in respect for serious music journalism. But I think that as long as the quality of the writing, the quality of the knowledge and the quality of the ideas are strong and original, music journalism is here to stay.

Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

See above – the role of music should be to challenge rather than console. But music has to be interesting first, because otherwise nobody will bother listening to it. Then it has to be original, challenging, well-crafted and philosophically and theoretically well-grounded. And hopefully still fun!

You have a soft spot for guitar. When did you first begin learning?

I started learning guitar at the age of 10 from a crazy Yugoslavian guy in Northam. I studied all styles and only started focusing on classical and jazz in my early 20s.

I remember when you were working at a Nedlands music store and moonlighting as a music critic after hours. Where did you learn the skills to be an arts journalist and make the transition to The West?

I suppose I had a modest talent for writing, and always read and wrote a lot from a young age. Studying Latin at university level certainly helped improve my grammar and develop a sense of style. But my time working in the Classical Music retail industry, both here in Perth and in London, proved invaluable for my arts journalism: apart from the endless hours of comparative listening possible in such an environment, nobody should ever underestimate the musicological knowledge and essayistic skills one can glean from the finest writers of CD liner notes. I’m thinking of Graham Johnson, for example. I was lucky enough to start freelance reviewing for The West about 12 years ago. I guess they liked my work enough to offer me a fulltime job as a staff writer when one came up! After that, it was onwards and upwards, as they say. I have always loved all the arts, especially music and the visual arts, and there is never any shortage of great arts stories out there.

Inside goss on the The West – the paper is losing pages and readers by the month. Will our local daily survive the rise of digital media?

This may have been true in the past, but more recently we’ve had more and more space devoted to the arts, which in turn has been bringing former readers back to The West while attracting new ones. I know this from the amount of feedback I’ve been getting, telling me precisely this! There has also been a noticeable levelling-off in the print vs digital arena, and it is no longer seen as a marriage of convenience – more a match made in heaven!

What is your favourite place in Perth?

New Edition Bookshop in Fremantle.

Do you have a soft spot for anything else in life or is it all about the arts?

I enjoy yoga and meditation too – though I suppose they are art forms in themselves as well!


Thank you William Yeoman for appearing on Celebrity Soft Spot. Follow William on Twitter @Sesquialtera  and in the arts pages of The West Australian newspaper.

Celebrity Soft Spot Carolyn Chard

This year the West Australian Opera celebrates its 50th anniversary and at the helm is Carolyn Chard, general manager for nearly two decades. Carolyn worked in arts management across multiple platforms in Perth before discovering opera. She shares a glimpse of the inner workings of the company and why 'music is the strongest form of magic'.

What music gets your heart racing?

Dance music with a heavy beat, the kind you feel in your body on a dance floor.
Beautiful music, music that speaks to your soul  (too many to name plus depends what mood I am in; today maybe Parsifal overture, Mahler 5; tomorrow I would name others). Some renditions of Ave Maria just melt me; at other times I dissolve listening to Nick Cave’s Into My Arms.

What calms you down?

Massage
Walking on the beach
Beautiful music

What do you sing along to?

‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams (although you don’t want me to).

This year WA Opera celebrates its 50th year. The company has been collecting stories and memories from past cast and audience members. What have you learned about WA Opera from these?

That there is an appreciation for the company and a memory bank that is very personal and individual to many patrons; that the company has made an impact on collective memory. The stories are all on the website and worth reading at waopera.asn.au.

Carolyn with the ‘hero image’ marketing team

What is the role of an opera company in a city like Perth?

To present the artform in a beautiful theatre, to maintain the tradition of grand opera in an isolated city.

You walk something of a tightrope balancing traditional repertoire with bold contemporary repertoire like new works by Richard Mills and Iain Grandage. How do you navigate the responsibilities of expanding your audience while also retaining traditional subscribers?

It’s a risk every time and actually hard to navigate or balance through the level of risk you are willing to expose the company to. How do you measure what that success looks like? Is it financial success at the box office? Artistic success? What if you have one without the other? Is it still worth the investment event at the cost of forgoing other work?

The WA Opera team is a small family. International singers often talk about the warm welcome they receive when performing here. What is special for you about your team?

I try to engender a caring culture where we welcome and look after people, Many years ago a theatre director pointed out to me that we trade in human emotion, that’s our widget, our product. It means that we have to look after that carefully and that boils down to looking after people. I work with some wonderful, committed, energetic and enthusiastic people who love the company and the theatre, who have a passion for opera and who take great  pride in our singers, our chorus, our creative colleagues and WASO musicians.

In your other life (before opera) you were in banking and fashion design. You worked in management roles for Barking Gecko and Deckchair before heading into opera in 2001. What was the appeal of opera?

At Wesfarmers Centenary Dinner with her daughter

I studied fashion design. I worked in banking. I promoted bands, events and DJs in clubs during the dance music and rave scene in the eighties and nineties (The Prodigy, Blackbox, Kevin Saunderson, Dream Frequency, Sasha). I did the arts management degree at WAAPA and moved into theatre management at Deckchair Theatre and Barking Gecko Theatre (during this tenure we established the Awesome Festival). I worked with Black Swan Theatre, Perth Theatre Company and Kulcha. I met Richard Mills when we co-produced the Britten children’s opera Noyes Fludde/Noah’s Flood and he encouraged me to consider the management role with opera. He taught me much about the artform and engendered a passion for producing and presenting opera. I worked with my Australian opera colleagues at Opera Conference and was invited to a dual senior management position with Opera Australian based out of Sydney and Melbourne offices. I was invited to resume the general manager’s role with WAO when my successor moved to the CEO position with WASO.

What are you proudest of in your years with WA Opera?

I have worked in opera now for almost two decades, in two stints as General Manager with this company split by a few years with the national opera company based out of both Sydney and Melbourne. I am proud of presenting and producing two of Richard Mills’s works, both new operas with the Perth Festival – Batavia, which was commissioned by Opera Australia as part of the Centenary of Federation and first presented in Melbourne in 2000, and The Love of the Nightingale which was part of the Wesfarmers Arts Commissioning Series. Both operas were composed and conducted by Richard Mills and both directed by Lindy Hume. They had a special rapport which translated well on stage. On opening night of Batavia in Perth the CEO of Opera Australia turned to me and shook my hand and congratulated me on getting the work into the theatre and onto the stage (it was a production that I had been told ‘would not fit the Maj’ and, with my clever Production Manager Mandy Farmer, we found a way to store some of the scenery between Acts in containers on the street)

You are one of a very few women heading up an arts company in WA. Any ideas why there aren’t more women in management roles?

Sometimes it just cyclical – there have been times when the four major companies in WA have been headed by women. Right now three of the four majors have women leaders (Nat Jenkins at Black Swan and Jess Machin at the ballet while my predecessor Craig Whitehead heads WASO).

WA Opera's first mainstage production for the year is opera Tosca which opens on March 28th with Antoinette Halloran in the title role, Paul O’Neill as Cavaradossi and Teddy Tahu Rhodes returning as Scarpia. Perth audiences last saw Tosca in 2011. What does this New Zealand production by Stuart Maunder have to offer?

Stuart is a wonderful colleague with great insights into character and story as well as understanding the music and the genius of it. For this particular season Stuart and I actually negotiated a production swap – he has enabled us to present the New Zealand Opera production of Tosca which he directs and I have enabled him to take the WAO Lindy Hume production of Carmen so effectively we swapped productions.

Teddy has sung Scarpia here for me before and I am so pleased that we have Antoinette in her debut with this company – and in role suited so well to her – and also delighted to welcome Paul O’Neill back after many years in Germany (he left as a young man and has returned, with his beautiful family including four children, to make his home base in Western Australia again)

Mark Applebaum says music should be above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

I think music should make you feel. Or just ‘does’ make you feel.

I love a quote from Marilyn Manson that ‘music is the strongest form of magic’.

I mentioned the song ‘Happy’ by Pharrell Williams and there’s a quote from Rusty Rueff contemplating why that song become such a global hit; he said ‘I think its because at the time the world was looking for something…we were recovering from a recession, war and many other things…and we needed a movement of hopefulness that allowed us to stop the madness for a moment and pick us up. Will it be timeless? Maybe for the generation who were in the heart of the trouble. Maybe they will reflect back on this time and remember this song and make it timeless’.

Where did you learn the skills to manage an opera company?

I did the three-year arts management degree at WAAPA which, some twenty five years ago, included foundations of law, economics, human resource management, marketing, business management in the main ECU stream as well as full involvement in arts campus life doing front of house, publicity, ticketing and so on. Before that and after that it was about learning on the job. Plus I think you need a natural aptitude for the skills required. You need to have a passion and love for the work each day. The hours are long and there is no corporate paypack so it’s usually an intrinsic reward we chase.

You were involved in the #artsmatters push to get arts into the pre-election political debate. What’s it going to take to get arts on the radar of our major political parties? 

The central premise of that campaign is very simple; that the arts matter. The arts matter to all of us. We all need to lead on this. Everyone is impacted by the arts. It’s up to each of us to engage, promote and participate in the arts, all arts: performing arts, visual arts, literary arts, music, film, design, libraries, dance, comedy, circus, puppetry, mime, books, magazines, apps, games, fashion, writing, singing, dancing, acting.

With a new state government we have a fresh start to engage. I want everyone to get the message that so many others articulate better than me:

Art washes away from the soul the dust of everyday life

 (Pablo Picasso)

Art is the only serious thing in the world

 (Oscar Wilde)

If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams 

(Yann Martel, Life of Pi)

Running through Melbourne streets to an Opera Australia meeting.

What do you have a soft spot for?

I love words and music. Two of my favourite quotes are from The Little Prince: ‘The most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or touched, they are felt with the heart’. And another, which to me applies not only to music but to values I hold true like kindness and truth and love, is: ‘And now here is my secret, a very simple secret; it is only with the heart that one can see rightly; what is essential is invisible to the eye’.


Thank you to Carolyn Chard for participating in the Celebrity Soft Spot series. Tosca opens on March 28th. For more information go to WA Opera. 

Celebrity Soft Spot Yarmila Alfonzetti

Yarmila Alfonzetti is the new classical music programmer for the Perth International Arts Festival. Yarmila worked for many years as head of classical musical at the Sydney Opera House, but perhaps her best credential is her decades of obsessive concert attending! She splits her time between Perth and Sydney where she is CEO of the Sydney Youth Orchestra. Yarmila shares below her first impressions of Perth and her enthusiasm for chamber music, opera, leider, symphonic repertoire... well all things musical! 

What music gets your heart racing?

There is nothing like a big symphonic work; I defy anyone to not be jolted out of their everyday existence when listening to the Rite of Spring, or Pictures at an Exhibition, or Shostakovich Symphony no. 5, or Symphonie Fantastique… I could go on. These big works, full of power and complexity, when played by great orchestras (ideally live in a concert hall), are really the stuff of my dreams. Oh, and let’s not forget all the big requiems – Verdi, Faure, Berlioz! Oh, and the great operatic repertoire… there’s too much.

What calms you down?

Not much actually (I find it hard to relax). Because of what I do, music isn’t often in the background for me, so I don’t listen to relax. I find myself needing to concentrate too much. I do practice a lot of yoga, and this is my way of meditating.

What do you sing along to?

Nothing – I am a terrible singer! I leave it to the experts.

You joined the PIAF team in November when the Classical Music Program was ready to launch; what is your role now heading into the Festival?

Actually I have spent quite a bit of time in the second half of 2016 with the PIAF team, and it has been really wonderful. My role is really to support the Artistic Director Wendy Martin to realise the dreams and aspirations that she has for the festival, as well as shape the classical program and bring my expertise about artists and repertoire. I have programmed a lot of concerts, so I know what a good classical music concert is. Heading into the festival, my role now shifts slightly away from supporting the AD, to supporting the artists and the audience. I truly believe that the best thing I can do is be the conduit between these two elements; I will be hosting each concert, making introductions, talking to people before and after, and I am hoping to make classical music lovers in Perth feel like they can get as close as possible to this music.

I noticed the recent addition to the program of the Classic Flow Yoga. Was this your idea?

Classic Flow was originally the brilliant brainchild of a fellow yogi Ramona Curmi and the most inspiring yoga practitioner and teacher Lara Zilibowitz who have recorded some podcasts for ABC Classic FM. To bring this beautiful combination of yoga and live classical music to an outdoor setting in Winthrop Gardens seemed like the most natural thing in the world (the lengths a girl has to go to in order to get her weekend yoga fix)! Lara is really someone quite special; for her there is no end to the movement in each yoga pose, and this continual stretching, adjustment and reaching is made seamless when in consort with classical music.

The Brodsky Quartet

The program is dominated by chamber music, in particular lots of string quartets (Calder Quartet, Brodsky Quartet, Australian String Quartet! Why is this genre the focus?

Well, the repertoire is THE BEST! I also like diving deep into something; if we are going to do it, let’s get into it! In the chamber music program, audiences can really get to know something, they can walk away knowing a lot more about the genre, the composer, the period of music. Goethe said that listening to a great string quartet is like eavesdropping on a conversation between four brilliant minds; I am so excited to have a long weekend of this in Perth.

The Chamber Music Series builds on the success of the inaugural chamber festival last year. The program includes the Brodsky Quartet performing the complete string quartets by Shostakovich. Listening to 15 string quartets over 3 days is a marathon task. What can audience members expect?

The can expect to be moved, to be taken on a journey, to feel like they are part of a private moment in time between the composer and the life he has tried to capture in notes. It is a commitment, but it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and the rewards are great.

The Dark Mirror takes Schubert’s iconic Winterreise into new directions with tenor Ian Bostridge accompanied by the WA Symphony Orchestra, video imagery and a wintry landscape setting. It sounds absolutely fabulous, although I wonder if it could offend purists. Is reimagining masterworks in a contemporary framework the way of the future if classical music is to build a new audience?

I must admit that I personally am someone who requires nothing more than a bare stage and a brilliant musician to enjoy a performance. I don’t need any bells and whistles. But what I really want people to understand about this performance, and in fact all varied performances of Winterreise (and I have seen and heard many), is that it will enhance and layer your interpretation. True lovers of this work, and people like me who adore lieder in general, will be so excited to have an opportunity to add to their understanding of this piece; to be tutored in a deeper understanding of Winterreise by the master himself – Ian Bostridge – is an absolute privilege. I do hope that WA residents realise how exceptional this opportunity is…the rest of the classical music community in Australia is gasping that Ian is only coming to Perth! I don’t think we need to re-imagine classical music to make it appealing, what we have is the world’s best artists here in Perth presenting the very best repertoire, and it is this commitment to quality across every show in every artform which will appeal.

Composer Mark Applebaum says music should above all else be interesting. What do you think is the most important role of music?

Hmm, I don’t think that music has to be the same thing for all people, but essentially I do tend to agree with Mark. The best music is interesting, and it is also complex. The music I think people are drawn to is often appealing and simple on the surface, but beautifully intricate and complex underneath (the same thing can be said for great folk music, jazz, and even pop music; the best pop music often has a couple of unusual chords, or a twist in the standard structure). Works by the greats - Bach, Mozart and Beethoven - no matter how melodic and simple in structure - have attracted the minds of hundreds, if not thousands, of musicologists throughout history who dedicate lifetimes to unpicking the complexity that is required to create this beauty. So, interesting is good, underlying complexity is better.

You have a soft spot for attending concerts. What is the attraction of listening to live music?

Life is busy, and messy and fraught with emails and devices and meetings. A concert is one of the best ways to find solace, to think, to allow your mind a moment of deep thought. And it’s hard to be interrupted – you have bought a ticket and are ensconced in a concert hall. If you are just at home reading a book, well expect the kids to disturb you at any minute!

When did you first begin to be an advocate for classical music?

I have wonderful parents and a family who all believe that art is the most important thing in the world. My parents let me learn every instrument I wanted, took me to concerts, and had a house littered with books and paintings and sculptures. So this allowed me to know that art is important, and it enriches everything in life. It changes your perspective and makes you think.

In my day job now as the CEO of Sydney Youth Orchestras I talk to hundreds of parents all the time, and I remind them about what music teaches young people – hard work, dedication, listening. The list goes on. And for so many young people, some of them troubled teenagers, if you have an artform (music, painting, whatever), you always have it. It’s yours. Friends might come and go, school life gets complicated, but your music is your own retreat.

Where did you learn the skills to curate concerts?

I just go to a lot of concerts, and I appreciate the skill of good musicians. When I was at the Conservatorium High School in Sydney, I used to head down to Sydney Opera House most nights of the week and sneak into an empty seat after interval. In my many years as Head of Classical Music at Sydney Opera House, I was in a venue almost every night. It’s not really about making a perfect concert, but more about sharing great repertoire, and providing another interpretation of the music, and allowing people an opportunity to hear something anew. The best concerts for me are the ones where musicians truly interpret the music.

What is your favourite place in Perth?

I don’t know Perth well enough yet to have my own secret favourite place, but Boucla is the best café (and I live in Darlinghurst in Sydney so that’s saying A LOT), the City of Perth Library is amazing, I love the boab tree in Kings Park.

Do you have a soft spot for anything else in life or is it all about the music?

Haha – it is really all about music. I have backed myself into a corner, and I’m not sure I want to work in anything that isn’t all about music. I made a decision years ago to surround myself with music and musicians, and that is what I search for in everything I do. However, I do also love gardening and dream about having my own huge garden to tend one day, and I do have a tiny soft spot for my husband (who is old and wise)!


Thank you Yarmila Alfonzetti for participating in the Celebrity Soft Spot series. The full classical music program for PIAF is here and there is an interview with her on the PIAf blog. Yarmila will be hosting concerts and giving talks throughout the festival so be sure to bail her up and add your voice to the classical music dialogue in Perth!