Hugh Robertson dispels the myth of the lone composer-genius in conversation with international composer Leah Curtis (a Canberra export) and Connor D’Netto, whose influences span classical, opera, electronic and pop sounds.
Ahead of forthcoming CSO commissions, both composers share insights into their creative process and the role of collaboration.
Hugh Robertson (HR): Let’s talk about inspiration. Where do your ideas come from?
Connor D’Netto (CDN): I have a little wellspring of creativity, a background of processes and ways of writing music that I can tap into, and then explore and re-adapt. If inspiration hits, that’s great, but for me it is about being in the studio, being able to sit at the piano and tinkle, and come up with ideas there, and then try permutating them and exploring them in different ways.
I also love collaborating as much as possible, whether that’s working with a writer, a librettist, or other composers. I’m a fairly extroverted person, which is strange for a composer given I spend the majority of my life in a room by myself.
HR: Leah, what does this look like in the context of writing for films?
Leah Curtis (LC): With the breadth of music required for a film, I start developing a rich musical world and language for each project before I begin writing the score. These all emerge from the script and emotional subtext of the film. I explore textures, timbres, instruments, and curate specific musicians to perform which I find by far the most exhilarating part – even things such as which space to record in, and which microphones we might use.
I studied classical and contemporary flute, and that has influenced how I phrase and the texture and tonal qualities of how I write.
I studied classical and contemporary flute, and that has influenced how I phrase and the texture and tonal qualities of how I write.
HR: It sounds like, for both of you, the most important thing is process, and working diligently, rather than sitting around and waiting for inspiration to strike?
CDN: I think of creativity as almost more how you curate ideas, and select the good ideas from the bad ideas. And knowing that it’s ok for the thing that you came up with to be wrong. It’s ok to write bad music. My composition teacher at university said, ‘You should write two minutes of music every day. And if it is awful you can throw it out, but if you like it then you have written two minutes of music.’ Getting to the stage where I was writing two minutes of bad music was what made the difference, because I was able to write every day. I became way more productive than when I was only writing ‘good music’, and only writing two minutes over a month.
I think of creativity as almost more how you curate ideas, and select the good ideas from the bad ideas…It’s ok to write bad music.
LC: I’ve found if you force the music to be what you think it should be, it is never going to arrive as authentic, beautiful, and whole. If you approach it in a way of uncovering the idea and letting it speak in its truest form – which requires space, intuition and time, and being with that progression or rhythm or texture until it feels right, and you know in your body when it’s right – I think that is where some of the magic of what we do can appear.
I find an enormous amount of inspiration from my collaborators. Over the pandemic I joined the London Writers’ Salon, and I spend an hour a day writing with them. I think composers can learn so much from the writing community.
HR: When writing a new piece, does it help to know the musicians that you are writing for? Do their unique abilities influence your writing?
LC: Absolutely. For this commission with the Canberra Symphony, I’ve imagined myself in the audience, in this space and what will emerge from the silence with this jewel of
an orchestra. I know this will be opening the concert and be the first thing we will all experience, that the Sibelius Violin Concerto and Stravinsky’s Petrushka will follow with their stunning virtuosic threads, and folk influences.
I’ve enjoyed engaging with Jessica Cottis on the work and gleaning insights into the programming, and visualising Kirsten Williams leading as Concertmaster. There is already a relationship there with the CSO musicians and the space. I think about what sort of experience I am creating for the players individually, the conductor, the audience, the orchestra as a whole. So in a way they are all collaborating with me, they just don’t know it at this point.
In her artistic vision and programming Cottis has provided brilliant depth and intuition, almost as a film director would.
I like to imagine that I am curating the concert, and if those two pieces were already chosen, what kind of feeling, piece, emotion, texture would I choose to go there?
CDN: I also really like to know the other pieces on a program. I like to imagine that I am curating the concert, and if those two pieces were already chosen, what kind of feeling, piece, emotion, texture would I choose to go there? And then I either write that, or subvert that relationship, and create something else that works within that relationship.
I enjoy being thrown the challenge of a collection of instruments that I haven’t worked with, because then there is creativity and inspiration to be found in adapting whatever your ideas, and whatever your practices are – and perhaps seeing how something you have tried somewhere else works on a different instrument, and how that then spirals off in its own way.
Hugh is a music journalist, arts administrator, recordings consultant and marketing guru. Previously label manager at ABC Classic and ABC Jazz, Marketing Manager for the Australian Romantic & Classical Orchestra, and prior to that manager of Sydney’s iconic classical record store Fish Fine Music, Hugh is currently Editorial Manager at the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and a freelance consultant for a number of different artists. Equally at home in a sweaty punk show as a classical concert, Hugh is passionate about ensuring classical and art music survive and thrive in the twenty-first century.