Building a Collaborative Creative Team - Tips for Working with Living Composers with Rachel Howley

The Conductor's Podcast

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗶𝗳 𝗼𝗿𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗕𝗲𝗲𝘁𝗵𝗼𝘃𝗲𝗻'𝘀 𝘁𝗶𝗺𝗲 𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗲𝗻'𝘁 𝗶𝗻𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗳𝗼𝗿𝗺𝗶𝗻𝗴 🅽🅴🆆 🅼🆄🆂🅸🅲?
One of the great advantages of performing works by living composers is that we can ask them questions. A conductor’s job is largely deciphering the composers’ intentions, translating the knowledge into our gestures, and conveying to the musicians to realize the music together. However, the composers’ intentions are not always clear from the score. It can come from editorial mistakes or the composer’s own inconsistency, and of course, the more we know and learn about the composer’s own personality and background, the better we can speak the language for them.

However, not everyone loves working with living composers. There are many reasons -- some might feel that the newly composed works haven’t made it through the test of history, as we say in Chinese, that they are not as worthy. Some people simply don’t enjoy working with composers as the score and parts might not be as readily engraved in some cases. Some conductors do not like having another dictator to the rehearsal process, and there will be people who just tell you that they don’t like new music -- it’s not their taste.

My guest today Rachel Howley and I will share our experience working with composers on premieres and beyond, and we both found this process really rewarding, especially when you are working with educational ensembles. Even if you work primarily with professional groups -- remember all music was once new. If orchestras in Beethoven’s time weren’t kin to programming new works, we wouldn’t have had so many masterworks now.

Rachel Howley is a music educator, conductor and researcher. She is the founding Director of Grace Academy at Grace Lutheran College, a leading educational institution in Performing Arts in Queensland, Australia. She is also a conducting staff with the Queensland Wind Orchestra, and regularly guest conducts throughout the area.

Rachel is a current Doctor of Musical Arts candidate, studying conducting with Dr. Peter Morris at the Queensland Conservatorium Griffith University. Her research explores the role of the conductor in championing the wind band works of Australian female composers. She is also an active advocate for encouraging diversity and fair gender representation through the selection of repertoire. Through her research, she has commissioned several new works and facilitated partnerships between emerging composers and Australian publishing companies.

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