CLARE BOWDITCH - APRA

PDAPOSTCARDS
Our 2006 Professional Development Award
winners report on how their APRA PDA grant
has helped them achieve their music career
ambitions. This issue features postcards from
popular contemporary winner, Amira Pyliotis
and classical winner Natalie Williams.
>> Natalie Williams
>> Amira Pyliotis
Amira Pyliotis (Tecoma)
Popular Contemporary
Music
Last New Years I decided
this was going to be the
year I’d finally record
my debut album. After a full
year of performing in 2005,
when 2006 rolled around I
was hungry for just enough
silence and space to dream
up the most beautiful record
imaginable. I’d put in place a
plan and a rough timeline and
managed to secure the financial
support of a mustering friend
from Alice Springs; so the
most important aspects of the
record would be captured in a
warm studio environment. But
I was torn between moving
to Melbourne, with its easy
access to great musicians,
my old music teachers, techheads
and great recording
facilities- and staying in Alice
Springs where I’d been living
and writing, to try and better
capture the colours my songs
had been conceived in.
And then I won an APRA PDA.
After getting over my initial
disbelief and momentary
hysteria (!!) my plans for the
year quickly went out the
window. The performance
invitations that were part of
being a PDA recipient (including
a live TV performance in
March, followed by the APRA
awards in July) introduced me
to musicians and songwriters
I would never have met
otherwise. Many of these
people have ended up shaping
aspects of my debut album
in ways I might never have
previously imagined.
Winning the PDA also enabled
me to buy sound equipment to
experiment with arrangements
and production of songs I’m
working on, regardless of
whether I’m on the road or at
home. As well as giving me
creative freedom I wouldn’t
otherwise have had, it’s given
me the capacity to record some
of the most talented musicians
I’ve had the good fortune to
cross paths with over the past
two years spent travelling and
playing around Australia.
By the time my debut album
Home Brew is mastered, it will
include performances from
musicians captured in Alice
Springs, Darwin, Sydney,
Melbourne and a couple of
places in between. But rather
than the end result sounding
like a musical modern day
Prometheus, it’s sounding bit
by bit like my dream line-up of
musician friends have all been
brought together and managed
to make music.
Next year after I release Home
Brew, side projects include
completing work on my
contribution to a Gotye re-mix
record, as well as spending
time exploring the first of
hopefully what will be many
co-writing collaborations I
began on a recent PDA-funded
trip to the US.
In a more subtle way, winning
the APRA PDA has changed
the way I regard myself as a
musician and songwriter. I’ve
begun to see myself as very
much a part of the wider
sphere that is the Australian
music-making community, as
opposed to a musician writing
songs in isolation at the
periphery of it. Collaborations
seem a lot more possible; a lot
less scary than they have in
the past and seem to present
an opportunity to continue
learning about music outside
of the classroom. While it
doesn’t seem that the new
challenges on the horizon
ever stop coming, being a
recipient of the APRA PDA has
much better equipped me with
resources to draw on in this
life-long ambition of making
music. Thanks APRA!
Natalie Williams
Classical Music
In February 2006 I received
two opportunities that
have immeasurably changed
my career as a composer. I
was accepted as a graduate
student into the Jacobs School
of Music at the University of
Indiana, and was also awarded
the 2006 Classical Music
category APRA Professional
Development Award.
Since August this year I have
been studying for a Doctoral
degree in Composition here
at Indiana University (IU).
The Music School boasts a
student body of over 1,500
which means lots of available
performers for premiering new
works. The school gives over
1,000 concert performances
each year, presents four opera
seasons, three ballet seasons
and concerts and recitals by
one if its five full-time student
orchestras.
Our compositional activity
is centred around a busy
schedule of recitals at which
each composition student is
required to present new works
written while at IU. One of my
solo flute pieces Haiku, written
while I was an undergraduate
in Adelaide, was performed at
an IU recital in October – my
first overseas performance.
The composition faculty are
incredibly supportive and
inspiring and I’m currently
working with Professors
Claude Baker and David
Ward-Steinman.
Opportunities for collaboration
and new creative work are
endless. The composition
school is working in partnership
this semester with the IU
School of Dance in a project
titled: Hammer and Nail,
where composers are paired
with student choreographers
to jointly create and design
new works for dance and live
instrumental performance.
IU has a resident New Music
Ensemble which is devoted to
the performance and premiere
of new works written largely
after 1950. In early December
they will conduct ‘reading’
sessions with selected IU
composers, which is a great
way to get to know the student
performers and hear our music
workshopped in a high-level
performance setting.
Each semester up to four
visiting composers of
international stature are
invited to IU to present their
works and give masterclasstype
composition lessons to
students. In October I had the
chance to work with Lansing
McKloskey and in November
I studied with Bernard Rands,
a Pulitzer Prize winning
composer, currently based in
Chicago.
Upcoming events which we
will be participating in as IU
students include, the Mid-
West Composers Symposium
in early 2007, the IU String
Quartet competition and
the ‘Music for Kids’ project.
The latter involves working
with music students from
a local primary school and
orchestrating some of their
own melodies for symphonic
or wind band ensembles, to be
later premiered on campus.
I’m currently working on two
orchestral pieces; one for the
Adelaide Symphony Orchestra
early next year and one for
the Advanced Orchestration
class. I’m also writing some
smaller instrumental works for
trombone solo and a chamber
piece for the IU Recorder
Ensemble. Amongst an existing
schedule of graduate theory
and musicology classes, this
certainly keeps me busy.
In early November I was
invited to present a seminar,
for the Graduate Composition
Masterclass, on Australian
Contemporary Classical Music
which was an excellent way to
introduce my IU colleagues to
the rich heritage of Australian
composition and speak about
recent trends and emerging
voices down under. The
atmosphere amongst the
faculty is extremely collegiate
and supportive and the staff
and students have welcomed
me as ‘the’ Australian graduate
student for 2006.
The support of the APRA PDA
award has made possible for
me this study and relocation
to North America. Without
this financial support to
cover flights, university fees,
textbooks and registration
costs, it simply wouldn’t be
possible for me to have made
this move. This invaluable
aid has opened up so many
new doors and will enable
me to train at the highest
international level, eventually
bringing these skills back to
Australia.
Thankyou APRA for making
this possible and supporting
my work at this international
level.
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