Organising an entire festival because I’m coming to visit, offering us to stay with them in their home for two weeks, inviting us to their kayaking family, helping us find the most beautiful spots in the blue mountains, we sure met amazing people in Sydney.
The story began seven years ago in North Adams (USA), where I was assigned to share a room with flutist Naomi Johnson from Australia. Naomi and I had a fabulous time at the Bang on a Can summer music festival and since then I have been curious to visit her and her ensemble in Sydney. So, I contacted her and “the music box project” to plan a cooperation. What I didn’t expect at all was that they were not only organising a concert, but an entire two-day festival with 13 concerts and 10 interludes in total. If I had to describe what “tmbp” is doing, I’d say: playfully planning mischief. No wonder the festival’s name Cut, Paste, Play was witfully drawn throughout in many lovely details. Just have a look at their festival’s zine to get an idea.
After the Welcome to Country by Brendan Kerin, we started off together by playing “in 4”, a piece commissioned by tmbp written by 40 composers. Between the sets, they creatively filled the stage shifts with talks, poems or an improvisation through the nearby park, where I also participated along with Liz and Pete from tmbp. Even though I just met them for the first time in my life, it felt like coming home to my music-family on the other side of the world. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one feeling that special atmosphere, as all the musicians stayed to listen to each other’s performance. My set was the last one on the first day and I premiered a new piece by Tamara Friebel written for me unleashing the forces of my inner dragon. I was very much looking forward to performing “Awaken Thy Dragon” as it was also my first time to experience the whole sound on a good PA system. And since then, I can’t wait to set more dragons free.
The creativity and playfulness of tmbp inspired a lot of other acts to present something new, try out a different approach or even improvise a whole set like the Ossicle Duo from Melbourne. The music box project’s own set was filled with pieces in non-traditional notation. They started with a game from Naomi, where I was invited to play with them, climaxed in a piece with chaotic rules eating pickles and smashing avocados, and ended with interacting with the sounds of a sewing machine embroidering the festival’s logo. The final performance of these packed two days was a collaborative piece written by the audience on sticky notes and played by all the musicians together.
Our next days where filled with meeting Naomi for a fantastic kayaking tour on one of the many rivers passing through Sydney, hiking Jerusalem bay together and taking a dip among swarms of harmless translucent jellyfish, taking the train to the blue mountains to meet Stephen, who showed us hidden nature gems, where we couldn’t resist to capture Australia’s beauty in music videos (meaning a full day of hiking with the bass clarinet and the video equipment…). And of course, meeting Liz again several times to improvise together, chat and enjoy the views of Sydney Harbour. You will for sure hear from Liz and me again, as I have rarely ever before met someone so easy-going yet fun to talk to paired with very similar aesthetics in regard to music.
And after all these words, you still don’t know anything about the second string that brought us to Sydney. This story is even older and started at a classroom at the mdw where I met my clarinet colleague Georgina Oakes. During our studies in Vienna, we played a lot of concerts together, took the same classes and became close friends. So naturally I was very sad when she told me that she was moving back home a few years ago. A lot has happened since, both of us have become mothers and Georgina and her husband and two kids moved to their own house in Burwood. From the beginning of our journey, I was very excited to meet and get to know her family and play with her again. They have been so generous and offered us to stay at their house with them. But you can imagine life with three kids between age two and five has a quite energetic dynamic. As the three of them didn’t speak the same language, their way of communicating was making mischief for the sake of making the other ones laugh. We parents were left with the single hope that at least they don’t understand each other to plan their cheeky ideas together.
Among managing every-day life with three kids, Georgina and I managed to rehearse a new duo piece by a work colleague of hers. We performed Nicholas’ piece at the lunch recital at Sydney Grammar School for the students and teachers. The piece came with a very fast audio track, which reminded me of the music of a computer game from the 90’s and therefore had a completely different style than any music at the festival the other weekend. After the recital I held a masterclass with very talented boys and gave a little demonstration on contemporary playing techniques. Strange for me was the fact that Sydney Grammar is a school just for boys. I had quite a few conversations about that and was surprised to learn that many parents don’t want to change this system. Especially for their girls they don’t want a mixed school. I still can’t wrap my head around that as I keep asking myself, who is benefitting from a separate school system? Are we teaching things differently to girls and boys? Don’t get me wrong, there are also mixed schools and public schools in Sydney, but as the city is very competitive, parents are worrying about getting their children the best possible education and how to pay for it from birth on.
Sydney is pretty, Sydney is famous, but Sydney is not an easy place to live. I’m in awe of everyone making a living here. Maybe in order to not get eaten by all the competition, you have to keep yourself a playful, mischievous mind. I would definitely love to come for the second edition of Cut Paste Play in two years.
