As anyone who composes for a living will tell you, getting a new piece performed for the first time may be difficult, but getting that same piece performed a second and third time is by far the bigger challenge. As the world fills up with new pieces of music – often commissioned for very specific events – they jostle for space amidst the existing ‘classics’, even though the number of concerts that can be held in any given year can rarely be increased to compensate.
On a related note, now that all of The ANAM Set works have been written, and well over two-thirds of them have been performed, I’ve been asked a few times whether there remains anything to continue to write about on this blog. I realised that if I replied ‘no’, I would be feeding into this idea that a commissioning project ends once the piece(s) have been written and premiered. But, these pieces - all of them - deserve more. As has already been mentioned here, the first performance of each piece is only the first step in their journey and, in some ways, it’s also the most predictable one.
Now that over 50 of the works have been performed in front of a live (and virtual) audience as part of our ANAM musicians’ recitals we can now, in a manner of speaking, stick 67 GPS trackers on our ANAM Set pieces, and see how their lives evolve from here. We already know that Brett Dean’s Byrdsong Studies has had another performance in London, and that violist Dasha Auer, who finished training at ANAM earlier this year, is getting ready to premiere Luke Altmann’s work for her in Finland next year… so The ANAM Set is already going international!
Additionally, in what must be some sort of (un)official record for breath-taking efficiency and ambition, 44 of the Set works were recently recorded over three days at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Our huge thanks to the MRC crew for creating such a welcoming and warm environment in order for our ANAM musicians to present their professional best. I had more than one moment of overwhelming pride as I watched wonderful performances of wonderful pieces, one after the other, and I arrived home at the end of it all feeling well and truly over-indulged. These recordings will be yet another vector for these pieces to make their way through the world.
Emily Su recording her ANAM Set piece at the Melbourne Recital Centre. Image: Laura Manariti
So, at least until our ANAM Set Festival in May 2022 (when all the works will be re-united once more), this blog will continue. The difficult thing will be to choose what not to write about, as we observe these works making their way into the established classical canon.
One last thing remains to be said – there is no point in new works being performed at all if there is not an enthusiastic audience to receive them. So, our huge thanks to everyone who has tuned in to hear an ANAM Set work, who has supported our musicians as they learn ‘their’ work, or who have even just followed this project with keen interest. Your presence on this journey has been invaluable, and I hope you have found it as fascinating as we all have. To be present at the ‘grass roots’ moment of creation is always special. Imagine a concert, 20 years from now, where an oboist performs Ross Edwards’ Windsong for Sacred Earth, and you can turn to the person sitting next to you and say, “I remember in 2021 when…”
To be continued.