DECLASSIFY

Welcome back to Declassify Season 2! I am so pleased to welcome you all back to this new season, and most importantly, to begin this following season with a host of international guests and conversations. I am so pleased, not only to have returned, but to welcome Declassify’s very first guest for season 2 and it is none other than the incredible Jessica Cottis. Jessica Cottis is one of the most prolific Australian conductors working today having been named in 2018 as the Classical Face to Watch by the Times in the UK. In this premiere episode of Season 2, host Victoria Pham and Jessica Cottis discuss the power of silence, conducting into the future and collaborative music making to forge new pathways for future classical music.

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Resources:

Jessica Cottis website: https://www.jessicacottis.com/ 

 Non Classical trustee: https://www.nonclassical.co.uk/engage-1/2020/4/28/spotlight-jessica-cottis 

Royal Opera House: http://www.roh.org.uk/people/jessica-cottis 

Limelight Interview with Jessica about the Canberra Symphony Orchestra: https://www.limelightmagazine.com.au/features/jessica-cottis/ 

The Music Show: ‘Conducting through Silence’ – Jessica Cottis and Andrew Ford https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/musicshow/jessica-cottis-conductor-symphony-grammys-global-music-rick-howe/13260070 

Hello everyone, 

Welcome to Season 2 of the DECLASSIFY PODCAST! Firstly, I need to thank everyone who took the time to tune into Season 1 and to all of the fourteen guests who joined me in 2020 and January of this year.

And so, after much thought, DECLASSIFY returns with the apt Season title of ‘The Aftermath.’ Season 1 focused its attention towards conversations about the issues in the classical music industry – ranging its blatant narrow programming, its archaic modes of representing contemporary practitioners and audiences and its, if I dare say so, crisis in regards to its feeble connection to reality and desire to create a thriving and sustainable culture. In this Season, we will continue discussing these issues and themes but with an emphasis on making change and on action. After all, what good is it to talk things through and have a consensus and then proceed to do nothing?

The guests for Season 2 expand beyond the Australia-focused nature of Season 1 and into the international realm of classical music making. They span activists, advocates, artistic directors, board members, conductors, composers, artists and musicians whose expertise and advice might be able to give us idea of how we might change and steer the direction of classical music away from the archives. 

 I hope you will all continue to join the podcast as it passes through its second season and where I hope we can work together to find a more positive outcome and strategies in the aftermath of the last 12 months. The premiere episode of Season 2 goes live on August the 16th and I hope some of you will listen on more conversations about classical music. 

Catch you soon - your host,

Victoria

This week is a very special insight into the world of being a music critic, an arts journalist and thinking about how to listen to the new, the challenging or listening differently. Declassify welcomes Dr Harriet Cunningham is a writer and researcher, best known as music and theatre critic for the Sydney Morning Herald. She writes for publications including The Saturday Paper, Limelight and the Financial Review. She has recently completed doctoral studies at UTS writing a cultural history of Dartington International Summer School of Music. She has been known to play the violin. Join us as we unpack the world of opera, the backlash from Opera Australia in reaction to criticism, narrowing repertoire choice of major arts companies and its consequences.  

Selected Resources (full list available in transcript):

Harriet Cunningham 

http://www.acunningplan.com/index.php/about/ 

Opera Australia barring of music critic:

https://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/opera/so-childish-opera-australia-artistic-director-lyndon-terracini-revokes-critics-tickets-20150103-12hait.html 

Ideas on opera and opera funding

https://theconversation.com/does-opera-deserve-its-privileged-status-within-arts-funding-84761 

Selection of Harriet’s work

https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/gender-equity-and-diversity-in-opera-summit-the-listener-s-account 


Harriet’s choices

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/jeremy-dutcher-pays-moving-homage-to-mother-earth-20200116-p53s0m.html

 https://www.thesaturdaypaper.com.au/culture/music/2020/08/22/new-music-online/159801840010298

For our first episode of 2021, Declassify welcomes onboard a good friend and extraordinary performer, Paris-based Australian saxophonist, Mary Osborn. Having completed a Bachelors of music performance at the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, a performance diploma and Masters of music at the Versailles Conservatoire and Université de Versailles Saint-Quentin, Mary is forming her career as a classical and contemporary performer, creator and teacher. Mary has won numerous awards at international music competitions, she has worked closely with many composers and premiered their works, and enjoys developing multi-disciplinary projects. She is currently studying chamber music at the Conservatoire de Paris with her saxophone quartet, Quatuor Loriot. This week Mary and Victoria unpack working as a performer, the importance of transcriptions, the agency of being an artist and the emerging musicians stage, and the ‘isms’ of the classical music world. 

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Resources
Mary Osborn 

Syrinx Revisted: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y99s_RnHSz0 

Quatuor Loriot

https://www.facebook.com/quatuorloriot/about/ 

Mary’s Arragmenet of Tallahatchie Concerto by Jacob Ter Veldhius (JacobTV):  https://www.boomboxshop.net/tallahatchie---ensemble.html

Merism Duo

https://singaporesaxophonesymposium.com/2018/performers/merism-duo/ 

This week, Declassify welcomes the formidable and forever-passionate CEO of the Australian Music Centre, John Davis. He has been a great advocate and supporter of contemporary Australian Music and his work has been key for establishing and broadening the Australian music scene internationally, such as his representation of Australia as the Vice-President of the International Association of Music Information Centres and for the International Society for Contemporary Music. This week we talk new music, what does the word classical even mean? Has 2020 been a time for reflection and what does community well-being mean in this ecosystem of an industry?

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Resources

John Davis

https://iamic2020.miz.org/speakers/john-davis 

Australian Music Centre

https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/ 

Interviews

https://themusicnetwork.com/hot-seat-john-davis-ceo-australian-music-centre/ 

John’s Op-Ed: The significance of ‘art music’ in Australia - https://theindustryobserver.thebrag.com/op-ed-amc-ceo-john-davis-on-the-significance-of-art-music-in-australia/ 

Australian Music: http://www.realtimearts.net/article/issue53/6967 

For this episode of Declassify we are joined by one of the most passionate people I know, Megan Steller. Megan is an artist manager, writer, speaker, and producer based in Melbourne. She is passionate about working with emerging artists and seasoned performers alike to help create fulfilling, diverse and creatively empowering careers in the classical music sector. As an artist manager, Megan has worked at Intermusica (UK) and Patrick Togher Artists’ Management (AUS). As a journalist, she has been published in Limelight Magazine, The Age, and The Music, and has worked in a freelance capacity for Melbourne Recital Centre, Melbourne Conservatorium of Music, Musica Viva, Melbourne Youth Orchestras, and Orchestra Victoria. With such an incredibly broad range of skills and experiences, this episode is all about the significance of community and resource-sharing across the classical music industry, the sometimes-unknown world of being an artist manager (or agent) and us asking, what about opera?

 Selected Resources (many more in the transcript):

Megan Steller

http://www.megansteller.com/ 

Rehearsal Magazine

https://www.instagram.com/rehearsal_magazine/?hl=en 

Opera Australia at a crossroads
https://musicaustralia.org.au/2020/09/opera-australia-at-a-crossroads/

As COVID wreaks havoc in the performing arts, do we still need a national opera company?
https://theconversation.com/as-covid-wreaks-havoc-in-the-performing-arts-do-we-still-need-a-national-opera-company-145461

Discrimination in Casting Black Singers at the Metropolitan Opera

https://www.middleclassartist.com/post/discrimination-in-casting-black-singers-at-the-metropolitan-opera

Opera in a post-Weinstein World 

https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2017/12/05/opera-post-weinstein-world/

This week, Declassify welcomes onboard composer and interdisciplinary artist, Kezia Yap. Kezia, another Sydney Con graduate, is currently an MFA candidate at the Victorian College of Arts where her work current work interrogates how cultural identity and the Asian-Australian experience can be explored through interdisciplinary creative practice. She is quickly gaining reputation internationally, with her works performed around Australia, as well as in Europe, Asia and the USA. Her current collaborations are with prominent female new music performers Hannah Reardon-Smith, Flora Wong, Kaylie Melville and Madi Chwasta, producing three new works as part of the SHARING SPACES project, supported by The Australia Council for the Arts. In this episode, host Victoria and Kezia, unpack the experience of being Asian-Australian, how the questions of cross-cultural dialogue and identity inform our work and experiences growing up in Australia, and the intricacies and often, contradictory nature, of being an emerging composer wanting to compose for orchestra. 

Resources:
Kezia Yap

http://www.keziayap.com/ 

Goldsmith, Kenneth. Uncreative Writing : Managing Language in the Digital Age. Columbia University Press, 2011.

Ang, Ien. On Not Speaking Chinese : Living between Asia and the West. Routledge, 2001.

This week Declassify welcomes on media artist, educator and composer, Ciaran Frame. Ciaran is passionate about cross-disciplinary collaboration and education, seeking a place in the world of data, technology and music. He has found a home in interactive and generative computer music, creating everything from sonification toolboxes to make music out of plants, to performance works where players must purchase their musical material. Our conversation in this week’s episode, Ciaran is the author and researcher behind the fantastic data collection series and publication, the Living Music Report. This week’s episode is a deep dive into data sets as inspiration for bio-music, the intricacies of stats and their revelations concerning MPA (Major Performing Arts Company) programming choices, accountability and the nature of grants and funding. 

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Selected Resources (full list available on transcript)
Ciaran Frame

http://www.ciaranframe.com/ 

The Living Music Report

http://livingmusic.report/ 

 Reactions to the Living Music Report

Australian Music Centre: https://www.australianmusiccentre.com.au/article/living-music-report-2020-major-performing-arts-organisations-under-scrutiny 

The Age, Australia: https://www.smh.com.au/culture/music/dead-white-european-males-dominate-orchestra-music-survey-finds-20200623-p5559e.html 

 Gender Equity and Diversity in Opera Summit

https://www.australiacouncil.gov.au/programs-and-resources/Gender-Equity-and-Diversity-in-Opera-Summit/ 

This week Declassify delves into a newer and fascinating part of classical music practices, or it is really classical music? Our guest for this week’s episode is acousmatic composer and researcher Alexis Weaver. Her principal interest lies in composing fixed-media acousmatic music, she has also composed soundtracks for animation, short videos, radio, theatre, and dance. In 2018, Alexis was awarded the National Council of Women’s Australia Day Prize for her research undertaken during her Honours year on the visibility and practice of female electroacoustic composers and she has just completed a Master of Music at the Sydney Conservatorium, where she teaches composition and music technology subjects. This week we unpack the immersive realm of electronic music, the act of sound-making as music, accessibility to learning about music and music technology through to resources and programs for diverse listening, representation and engagement. 

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Selected Resources (A full list is available in the transcript)

Alexis Weaver

https://www.alexismarieweaver.com/ 

https://alexismarieweaver.bandcamp.com/ 

Alexis Weaver: Increasing the Volume: The Creative Diversity and Future Visions of Female Electroacoustic Composers in Australia

https://openjournals.library.sydney.edu.au/index.php/SCM/article/view/12675 

Tara Rodgers. Pink Noises. Can be accessed on-line via this link - 

https://muse.jhu.edu/article/449269/pdf 

http://www.femalepressure.net/fempress.html Female Pressure is an excellent database and data collection group who raise awareness of electronic artists around the world. The 2020 survey can be accessed here: https://femalepressure.wordpress.com 

This week, long-time collaborators and friends Victoria Pham and artist, academic and filmmaker James Nguyen get together to talk about childhood experiences of classical music and a perspective of working with classical musicians from those outside the art world. James Nguyen is in his own words is “Asian passing,” dabbles with painting, documentary filmmaking, and conceptual art. Born on a coffee plantation in Vietnam, Nguyen arrived to Australia by plane. Having studied Pharmacy, Nguyen then pivoted to complete his Bachelor in Fine Arts and is now completing his PhD. He has been a Samstag scholar and fellow at Uniondocs NYC and been commissioned by 4A Arts Centre, Gertrude Contemporary, Bleed Festival, The National Exhibition for the Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Australian War Memorial. In this episode, a conversation between two friends revolves from early musical expressions, the odd lag of classical music’s ability to critique itself under its illusion of its elitist and apolitical position in society, the cyclical nature of research in academia, and the revealing phenomena of Hamilton.

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Selected Resources (a full list is available in the transcript):

James Nguyen: http://jamesnguyen.com.au/bio/bio 

 PhD portfolio and research: https://chobotrouble.com/ 

Yeou-Cheng

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/19/arts/music/yeou-cheng-ma-childrens-orchestra-society.html

https://www.sundayguardianlive.com/culture/yo-yo-mas-sister-yeou-cheng-continues-familys-legacy 

Maria Anna Mozart

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2015/sep/08/lost-genius-the-other-mozart-sister-nannerl