They do things a little differently at Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra. Always have done.
Founded in 1987 by musician and educator Elizabeth Morgan, Camerata began as an idealistic ensemble of emerging artists working in a non-hierarchical framework. One of the most obvious point of difference between it and other ensembles was that operated without a conductor.
Brendan Joyce (left) and Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra. Photo supplied
Thirty-five years on and now a professional ensemble, Camerata continues in much the same way. That early idealism is baked into its DNA says Camerata’s current Artistic Director Brendan Joyce as he prepares the ensemble for its next concert, From my Homeland, a program of evocative, all-Australian music.
“The orchestra has always rested on some pretty simple foundations,” Joyce tells Limelight. “Basically, we’re about the joy of playing music and communicating that joy to the audience. And one way we’ve found that helps us experience that joy is by making sure our musicians feel engaged and have a sense of collective ownership of what they’re doing.”
Even though he’s the capital-A Artistic Director, Joyce prefers to think of himself as a “small-L leader”.
“The way we’re are set up, if I suddenly fell off the planet, Camerata would continue as is,” he says.
Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra. Photo supplied
Joyce admits that it’s probably easier to be a conductor-led ensemble rather than something more collectively inspired. “There are certain practicalities to having a figurehead,’ he says. “It’s a safe and easy marketing angle; the single vision. But we grew Camerata around the idea of it not being polarised around an individual and we’ve persevered with that.”
In the end, Joyce says, the marketability of one person’s vision can’t compensate for “those special and unexpected moments we get in our concerts when everyone is completely connected.”
“We get a so much positive feedback from audiences saying how much they sense that connection between the players, which is something that comes from listening to everyone around you rather than focusing on someone on the podium.”
So how do rehearsals work? Like … who’s in charge here?
“What tends to happen is that I lead the first and last rehearsal and pretty much everything in between is up for grabs,” Joyce explains. “Sometimes there’s a bit of chaos, but it’s healthy chaos and we have developed some tools to alleviate it.”
Joyce says he took some inspiration from observing the veteran English conductor Benjamin Zander, the Musical Director of the Boston Philharmonic Orchestra, at work. “We borrowed his idea of handing out pieces of paper to all the musicians which they fill in and hand back after rehearsal. Through those, we find out that say, bar 64 isn’t working, or that someone has concerns about a particular passage and then we address those in the next rehearsal.”
Working without a conductor can require a shift in attitude among players entering Camerata who are accustomed to focusing on the podium, Joyce says. “You have to become more of a chamber player, more sensitive to other members of the orchestra outside of your own section. Yu have to find that balance between being authoritative in your playing while being adaptable to what’s going on around you at the same time.”
“Sometimes you have to be bolshy enough to take a bit of a lead,” Joyce laughs. “It’s hard to be a wallflower in Camerata.”
Joyce suspects that Camerata could have only developed as it has in Brisbane. “It’s something to do with the way the city is,” he says. “You are a bit removed here, there’s a certain degree of isolation that makes it possible to experiment and test ideas. It’s an intangible thing and hard to articulate but any artist working here feels it. I never want to leave it. I enjoy working here and feel very connected to the city we live in.”
Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra: From My Homeland. Photo supplied
Presented in QPAC’s Concert Hall on 25 May (and in Toowoomba the following night), Camerata’s From My Homeland will showcase the orchestra’s emotional connectedness in a program of works by Australian composers Margaret Sutherland, Frederick Septimus Kelly, Brenda Gifford, Cameron Patrick, and William Barton and Véronique Serret, whose Bushfire Requiem is at the heart of the program.
“It might be music a lot of people are not familiar with, but I think it’s going to be very moving,” Joyce says. “Bushfire Requiem is such an evocative piece. You really sense the mourning for the terrible losses of the Black Summer fires – the animal as well as the human losses. It’s music that really has something to say.”
Camerata – Queensland’s Chamber Orchestra plays From My Homeland in the Concert Hall, QPAC , 25 May and at the Empire Theatre, Toowoomba, 26 May.
