**On the spot**

Matthew Hindson is emerging as one of Australia’s foremost young composers. He studied composition at the University of Sydney and at the University of Melbourne with luminaries including Peter Sculthorpe. One of the busiest composers in Australia, he has recently joined the prestigious list of Faber Music Composers. Often displaying influences of popular music styles within a classical music context, musical elements such as driving repeated rhythms and loud dynamic levels are typically found in his works. Indeed, directness and immediacy are common features in much of his music. His piece “Home” from the choral work Heartland was recently published in the Faber New Choral Works series. Described as “…a serious musical thinker” by the Sydney Morning Herald it seemed appropriate to ask him some searching questions.

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What first made you want to compose and what were the first steps you took on your route to becoming a fully-fledged composer?

Apparently when I was about 6, my violin teacher said to my father, “Matthew doesn’t really have it here (pointing to my fingers) but he has it up here (pointing to my head), so maybe he’ll end up a composer or something one day”. So she had a good sense for these things!

My first piece was written when I was between 10 and 12 years old. After that I wrote a few smaller pieces, and was always interested in writing bits of music. When I left high school, I actually started work as a computer programmer, but was also accepted into the University of Sydney Music Department majoring in composition! I decided to give composing a go, thinking that if I didn’t like it, I could do computers again. However, I’m still working as a composer today!

How did you feel the first time you heard one of your pieces performed?

I remember being proud and somewhat amazed. I was 12 or so the very first time someone else performed one of my works. It was a piece for the junior string orchestra in which I was playing at the time. The problem was, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a full score, so just wrote straight to the parts – and there were some bars rest missing in the cello part. So the importance of checking one’s parts was learnt very early in life!
Which individuals have inspired you most on your musical journey?

Peter Sculthorpe, Ross Edwards, Olivier Messiaen, John Adams and Brenton Broadstock. I have always made the effort to study with people whose integrity and passion for music-making has been obvious. They have been very influential. Peter’s role is largely that of a mentor. By looking at him, you see a composer who has been passionate and uncompromising about Australia and music. He has also provided an important role model to me in terms of how professional composers work. Many of my peers have also provided inspiration.

Does the continent of Australia have any direct effect on your work? Are you consciously striving for an Australian sound?

I think that as I am Australian, having pretty much spent my entire life here, it will have had some effect on the music that I write, in the same way that Australian culture is different to many other places in the world. So I don’t strive to create an “Australian sound”, but think that it is probably there anyway. Perhaps it’s better for overseas people to make judgements on what sounds “Australian” or not!

Does a precise commission limit creativity? Are there times when you are just not inspired?

Usually I find that a very precise commission can help to focus the compositional process. Sometimes the hardest pieces to write are those very rare commissions when someone says “do whatever you want”. There are often times when I am not inspired, but that just usually means that I’m not working hard enough, or that I need to have a good look around me and look at life in general – after all we live in a very rich and diverse world.

Do you see yourself as on a mission to break down musical barriers?

I think that it’s tremendously important as a composer to be open to whatever influences, be they musical or otherwise, come your way. To be closed-minded is counterproductive, at least it is to me. Hence some of my music is influenced by, for example, popular music genres such as techno. It’s not so much trying to break down barriers but rather saying, “here’s some music (e.g. techno) with some very interesting characteristics” – there is no reason why I shouldn’t be able to utilise some of that interest in a piece of classical music.

What are the challenges and rewards of writing for voices?

Writing for voices is certainly different to writing for instruments. Obviously the text angle is fantastic, as is the flexibility of what voices can do.

Having a text gives you another way to ‘get into’ writing the piece. It can lead you in a certain direction both in the initial planning stages of a composition or when you’re in the middle of writing it. Text can give you something else to hang your musical ideas on, or even inspire them in the first place. Such inspirations are always welcome!

There’s also something very fundamental about people singing together, and this aspect appeals as well. It’s like something that everyone can do, from small vocal ensembles with amazing technique (such as the Song Company here in Australia) to amateur choral societies to gigantic crowds of people singing at the football!

How do you choose a text/texts to set? What are you looking for?

I’ve found it difficult to find appropriate texts, and from speaking to many other composers, they seem to find the same thing. One important aspect is that the text should have some sort of internal rhythm that is sympathetic to the sorts of rhythmic ideas that you can use in music. I tend to use shorter texts as, most of the time, you don’t really need much text to write a choral piece – and let’s face it, in many cases you can’t understand what’s being sung.
Can you tell us a bit about your working process – given a text, how do you go about setting it to music?

Generally I’ll have an idea of the broad musical mood that I would like to create. Then I will select a text that’s appropriate to it. The next point is usually selecting certain words or phrases from the text and creating a motive or rhythmic figure from that – then the compositional process is on its way. I also like to think about the structure of the text, and contemplate any possibilities of correspondence between the text and music in that regard.
Does writing for a specific group of voices affect the compositional process?

As with any piece, the exact forces for whom you’re writing can have a considerable effect upon the end product, especially in terms of the number of performers and their general technical ability. In the case of Heartland, I knew that I was writing for a massed choir of over 200 voices of varying ability levels, and this elicited a certain soundworld that I was interested in exploring. I listen to other repertoire, through performances that the relevant singers have made. This helps me to get a feel for what their strengths are, and hear what they find most fulfilling to sing. The group’s musical director will often give an idea about what sort of piece they’re looking for. Then I will pretty much go through the process of writing most of the piece, or maybe all of it, before giving it to the choir again. If there are any questions I will ask, but in most cases I like to get the vast bulk of the research into what will be going on in the composition before actually starting. Personally, I would find it distracting to go back and forth to the choir all the time – but that’s just me, and of course other composers work differently.

I can’t pretend to say that every piece that I write comes out perfectly the first time! Some techniques such as voicing may work better in some ways as opposed to others. If there is a way to make a piece better, then I’m all for pursuing it, and often the singers themselves can give valuable pointers in this direction.

What are your long-term musical ambitions?

I would like to continue on the journey that composition has taken me on so far, to become the best composer that I can possibly be. I am interested in writing for ballets and maybe film, the dance aspect has already started to happen, and also write works such as concertos for a variety of instruments. I’ve been tremendously fortunate in having so many superb performers play my works, and I hope that that continues to be possible in the future. I also have a strong interest in the amateur music scene, and hope to continue to work more in this area. There is a large market available for works that can be performed by amateur musicians.

Are you optimistic about the future of classical music and if so, why?

Here in Australia there has been a slow but inexorable shift in terms of people really coming to like, appreciate, and expect contemporary Australian music in their music-making and music-appreciation experiences. I’ve experienced concerts in regional areas with performers playing a wide variety of musical styles, and pretty much always, it is the contemporary Australian works that seem to strike a chord. So I am optimistic, in the sense that there are so many good composers now writing in a wide variety of styles. Such breadth leaves classical music very well placed into the future. There’s really something for everyone.

###11.07.03###
###Lottie Fenby###

The attached document is the exegesis I created to go with my portfolio of works for my Ph.D. submission at the University of Sydney.

It contains some analysis of specific works (e.g. Speed, technologic 2, In Memoriam etc.) as well as a general introduction to my background and philosophies of composition.

Download this PDF file (approx 3.8 MB)

THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH

SUN 08 SEP 2002, Page 116

**Encore for classical composer**

By DIANA SIMMONDS

When Graeme Murphy’s new dance work, Ellipse, burst upon audiences earlier this year at the Sydney Opera House, people were electrified by the energy, excitement and freshness of the piece. The choreographer himself had already identified the source of his inspiration: the music of 33-year-old Matthew Hindson.

Lucky Sydneysiders now have an extra opportunity to experience Ellipse, this time at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre, and the composer is chuffed.

“I found it astonishing to work with such a creative team,” Hindson says of the Sydney Dance Company experience.
“And Graeme Murphy really is a genius. I’m more an aural than a visual person, so when I saw what he’d done with my music, I couldn’t believe it.”

Classical composers are rare — there are probably more bilbies running around than there are musicians with complex orchestral scores in their heads.

Hindson has a plausible explanation for this.

“It starts from school,” he says. “We’re all taught to write, so we can imagine being a writer of a sort. But when we learn music, we don’t learn composition, we learn to play.”

Hindson was no exception. Growing up in Shellharbour, on the NSW south coast, he learned the violin and viola. But he was blessed with a special teacher.

“My first teacher was Hiroko Primrose,” he says. “She was Japanese and her husband was William Primrose, the Scottish viola virtuoso. After five lessons, she told my parents I didn’t have it in the hands, but I’d probably end up a composer.”

And so he has. Hindson is currently Musica Viva’s featured composer and he was recently signed up by the UK mega-music publisher Faber.

It’s fantastic,” Hindson explains, “because it means they’re pushing my music, so it’s starting to happen overseas for me. And I’m really lucky that I’m able to live off composing at the moment, because of commissions and so on.”

At the same time, he teaches composition two days a week at girls’ school MLC.

“I’ve been very lucky in that I always had inspirational music teachers,” he says. “And it’s changing in schools now, which is how I get to teach, I suppose. When I see what the kids come out with! The standard is extraordinary. It’s really interesting.”

Access to computer technology is something that has changed since Hindson was at school.

“Having computers as a tool means that even if you’re not really aware of theory, you can work out how to do what you want to do. I write on paper first but I use a computer to do things like check structure. A computer can make work so much quicker.”

It also means he is not restricted by the time limits of the usual three or four rehearsals with musicians before a piece is played.

“I always try to remember the people who are playing,” he says of the process.

“It’s fantastic working with an orchestra, because you’re listening to experienced musicians and that really makes a difference. But in that time, you can’t really change things significantly, which is where the computer comes in.”

The music for Ellipse is a collage of Hindson themes.

It is richly romantic as well as in-your-face ferocious, with soaring horns, heart-stopping percussion and complex rhythms and melodies.

“I loved seeing it the first time and I’m probably even more excited that it’s happening in western Sydney now,” he says.

“You know, last week when the Sydney Symphony was doing their evening of Viennese waltzes, the same night in Blacktown there was a concert of seven Australian premieres. It was fantastic.”

Many of that audience will be rushing to Parramatta, too.

(This article was originally written for the Financial Review before the premiere of In Memoriam, my concerto for amplified cello and orchestra.)

There are around about 330 contemporary classical composers whose works are represented at the Australian Music Centre. That is a huge number of dedicated and hard-working artists, covering a wide range of interests and specializations. Some composers may specialise in the chamber music domain, others music theatre, others may deal mainly with electronic or electro-acoustic works.

A number of commentators have remarked that Australian music seems to be going through a ‘golden age’ at the moment, particularly in terms of the high standard of works that are being written and of the growing appreciation of Australian music by musicians and audiences.

Perhaps it was the Opening Ceremony of the Olympics that will be seen in later years as a turning point for the appreciation of Australian music and culture. The memorable marching band fiasco, for example, was possibly the first major mass-revolt of the general population in response to the idea of having another culture’s musical traditions paraded as our own.

After a lot of conversations with members of the public including members of the arts community, there was a universally tremendous response to the Opening Ceremony. People were proud that given a large enough budget and excellent homegrown artistic vision and performances, superb results would be achieved.

Maybe the Cultural Cringe is now fading away. Australians seem to be interested in, and proud of, their own homegrown product as well as what’s going on overseas. I would imagine that an ever-increasing appreciation of Australian music is most necessarily going to be recognized by larger performing organizations, since it is inconceiveable that younger audiences will be interested by the “standard repertoire” in the future. New works of today will become their standard repertoire 40 years down the track. The extraordinarily wide range of different musical styles available through recordings and digital media faces us all. As Australia has developed into a much more pluralistic society over the past 30 years, so the choices of music, art and entertainment in general have expanded.

The Opening Ceremony was also a good indicator of such plurality in terms of the eclectic nature of the material that was included. There was indigenous Aboriginal music, tap dancing, and even a quasi-Wagnerian lighting of the Olympic flame, and it was impressive to think that the 100,000 people or so who purchased tickets for at least $1000 per head were not going to necessarily see the athletes march in, but rather to witness a spectacular cultural event showcasing this country.

However there is still work to be done. There are consistent complaints (mainly by composers) about the levels of Australian music that are being programmed by larger Australian performing ensembles, and the levels of support that are being directed to the creation and maintenance of new and existing pieces of Australian music. For example, it was noted that the hotel bill alone of a recent visiting soloist could have funded an entire year’s residency of a composer with one of Australia’s symphony orchestras!

As a composer, of course I have a vested interest in an increasing level of Australian music support. Personally I have been very fortunate to receive much support from different organizations over the past number of years, including the Australia Council and most recently, the Peggy Glanville-Hicks Trust.

What such support enables a composer to do is to (1) have the time and ‘headspace’ to be able to develop ideas fully, and (2) have your works performed by excellent performers to a large audience. It is probably the second of these that is more important. The whole experience of getting a work performed shows the composer – the hard way! – what works, what doesn’t, and consequently, how all sorts of things can be improved upon in the next piece.

One extremely important level of support that I was lucky enough to receive was in the form of a “Composer Attachment” with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra in 1999. The main parts of the residency from my point of view involved writing three works for the SSO as well as gaining the opportunity to go along to many concerts and rehearsals.

One of the more unusual parts of the composer attachment contract stipulated that I was to write a work “for full orchestra, lying outside the composer’s usual idiom”. Initially it seemed slightly weird that I should be asked to do something that was not typical. After all, as a commissioner it would to be preferable to have some idea of what you’re going to get!

Happily, this stipulation drove me to consider the idea of writing a concerto, which was a form that I hadn’t tackled before.

Writing a concerto is certainly different to writing a piece for orchestra alone. Initially it was a bit of daunting prospect. You’ve got a single soloist on the front of the stage, fronting the entire orchestra. Plus whatever instrument you write for, there’s a whole history of concertos written by other composers over the past.

The opportunity to write a work for a performer such as Nathan Waks was fabulous. Nathan in fact first suggested the idea of a concerto for amplified cello and orchestra, “so we can put lots of effects pedals and other wacky stuff into it”.

Nathan Waks is an amazing soloist with an amazing musical history when it comes to new works. Not only has he worked with some of the twentieth century’s greatest composers such as Iannis Xenakis and Olivier Messaien, but also he has had one of Australia’s seminal solo cello works, Peter Sculthorpe’s *Requiem for Cello Alone*, composed especially for him. The equivalent would be getting Gary Ablett to come in at full-forward for your local AFL team.

There was a bit of to-ing and fro-ing in terms of writing the work. Because the work is for cello, I felt that it needed to have a slow movement that could showcase the extraordinary lyricism that is so possible with this instrument. Having the amplification available meant that in addition, some very fast music could be written with reduced worries about adequate projection from the soloist when contrasted with what the orchestra is playing. The best of both worlds!

Having the ability to work closely with a soloist and get first-hand feedback on musical and technical matters is also a valuable process. It’s satisfying to know which parts of your work can be easily played, and which parts are “stretching the friendship”.

If Nathan Waks is Gary Ablett, then the conductor, Richard Gill, is the Kevin Sheedy of the whole process. It’s amazing what a difference a conductor can make to the whole compositional process. When a conductor is up on stage, they seem to be just waving their arms about, but what is often not obvious is the many hours of work that go into learning a new score beforehand. A conductor may have discussed the piece many times with the composer, questioning as to the exact intentions. The conductor is responsible for not just directing the musicians where needed, but keeping the whole performance and rehearsal processes intact and focussed. A sympathetic and dedicated conductor can make all the difference in the world as to whether a new work is successful or not.

Having a large work like a Cello Concerto being premiered by the Sydney Symphony Orchestra is certainly a success for any composer, even before a single note is performed. It’s a huge honour and a privilege knowing that you have the opportunity to write basically whatever you want and know that you have the highest calibre of musicians expressing whatever it is you choose to convey. In the case of this performance, I have a Dream Team in there playing for me, and I sincerely hope that many other Australian composers get similar opportunities in the future. The Australian audiences of the future will thank us for it.

Matthew Hindson