“Metropolis is a joint venture between the Melbourne Recital Centre and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra,” Siddle explains. “It’s a celebration of music made for, or inspired by, the moving image. The festival includes local and international artists performing music they’ve written in response to something they’ve seen. We’re celebrating contemporary cross-genre music, celebrating how well music and film work together; there’s a lot of music written for film, composers influenced by the moving image, by animations, and are propelled and motivated to write something in response. The work are not necessarily film scores, they’re pieces composers felt a compelling need to write, triggered by the moving image. The germ or idea came to them while they were watching this or that film. They experienced a pivotal moment and there was a need to respond. Music has such a pivotal role in how effective the moving image can be.”
“There’s a huge range in the repertoire,” Siddle continues. “We’re very excited and proud to be presenting 12 or 13 world premieres of work, as well as seven Australian premieres, so audiences will get to experience pieces that have never been heard before. This festival is a great platform for composers, for the artists, and is very exciting for audiences. Being there at a premiere performance is really fantastic.”
Audiences will get a remarkable cross-section of performers and music. “The festival features Australian composers as well as international composers,” says Siddle. “We have pieces from very well-known names like Ryuichi Sakamoto and Philip Glass, along with lesser known names. There are new works from artists like Julia Wolfe (presenting a multi-media collaboration with filmmaker Bill Morrison), Alexander Garsden, a piece by Kat Hope. It’s a wonderful collection – all of the musicians are really passionate, they want to make exciting things for people to listen to, they’re committed to setting the scene for a wonderful festival.”
Siddle is clearly thrilled by the diversity of music in the festival. One Australian premiere Jonny Greenwood’s There Will Be Blood suite from the Academy Award-winning film starring Daniel Day Lewis. As well, there’s a performance of the musical adaptation to Shaun Tan’s graphic novel The Arrival, by Ben Walsh and the Orkestra of the Underground. Melbourne’s Speak Percussion will present Between two parts there is an intermission of a hundred thousand years. “That one involves the audience moving between the stage in the Elisabeth Murdoch Hall to the back of the hall and finishing up in the Salon – so they get to experience the music in different spaces which have been chosen to suit the work,” explains Siddle.
Not surprisingly, Siddle says it’s hard work to choose the pieces to include in Metropolis. Where does she even begin? “We start with the MSO. By virtue of this festival, the ensembles of MSO are already involved so we start with what the MSO have in their program. We work with their conductor, who this year is Andre de Ridder from the UK. So we start with those programs. Then it fans out, we talk to musicians and composers and talk about our ideas and their ideas and how they might fit together, there’s a sort of snowball effect and then it’s a matter of honing them all down.”
But not only are the concerts in Metropolis diverse, Siddle notices that audience attendance patterns at Metropolis depart from the norm the MRC experiences at other times of the year. “There’s a difference in attendance with this festival,” she says. “Some people who might come along to one or two concerts a year at other times, will come along to almost all of the shows, festival goers tend to dig deeper into the subject matter, and there are people who want to be there at all of the show; we have that core group of people who follow the festival avidly, who get involved, People appreciate these programs, they come with an open mind and a sense of adventure.”
It’s an unfair question but we ask it anyway – are there any concerts in particular Siddle is especially looking forward to? “Zubin Kanga, an exceptional pianist,” she answers. “It’s the world premiere of his work Dark Twin. I’m also looking forward to his performance of work by Michel van der Aa. I love what he does, he approaches everything with such commitment and deliberateness, and it will be a really exciting performance. I’m also looking forward to hearing Ben Walsh’s The Arrival again. Ben’s an exceptional musician, a really exciting musician who does exciting things; he’s always creating new sounds. The Arrival is absolutely beautiful. He just came across the book by accident in a bookshop, fell in love with it, and was compelled to set it to music. We had a concert of The Arrival here at the MRC in partnership with the Wheeler Centre, a lot of people missed out on it, and kept clamouring to have it performed again.”
BY LIZA DEZFOULI
