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WASO, Ben Northey and Claire Edwardes play Dances with Devils, by Iain Grandage, at Perth Concert Hall

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David CusworthThe West Australian
Claire Edwardes joins WA Symphony Orchestra and Ben Northey at Perth Concert Hall for Dances with Devils: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, by Iain Grandage.
Camera IconClaire Edwardes joins WA Symphony Orchestra and Ben Northey at Perth Concert Hall for Dances with Devils: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, by Iain Grandage. Credit: Nat Cartney

A quote in Claire Edwardes’ biography calls her a “Sorceress of percussion”.

“Meaning that I am like a magician or a sorceress when I am playing percussion, I guess,” Edwardes muses.

“I sort of like the concept of that because the reason I play music is to conjure up the imagery and feelings and reactions from people, so I like it when people feel that I’ve transported them to another world through my music.”

The Sydney-based soloist and artistic director of Ensemble Offspring will front WA Symphony Orchestra on Friday to play Dances with Devils: Concerto for Percussion and Orchestra, by WA composer and Festival maestro Iain Grandage.

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It was inspired by a tour the duo undertook of the Dampier Peninsula 15 years ago, and took shape when the Melbourne and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestras joined forces to commission the piece in 2015, under the baton of Ben Northey who conducts this WASO performance.

“We haven’t performed it since that first year of premieres, and I’m excited to be playing it in Iain’s home town,” Edwardes says.

Claire Edwardes.
Camera IconClaire Edwardes. Credit: Nat Cartney

“There’s a plethora of percussion along the front of the stage and I have what we call two set-ups. On the left hand side I have marimba, drums and tambourines, temple blocks and a few cymbals, and that’s the bulk of the instruments I play.

“And there’s one beautiful movement when I go over to the other side of the stage where I play a special contraption that Iain designed and had built where I join my arms to these pieces of wire which make two tubular bells go up and down into water and I actually pitch-bend the tubular bells, so that’s very metallic and other-worldly sounding, and it’s meant to sound like drowning.”

Each movement is inspired by a bush tale involving women of the colonial era.

The first describes a murder by a swagman; the second a suicide by drowning.

The third is drawn from Henry Lawson’s The Drover’s Wife; and the finale channels the European courtesan Lola Montez on a tour of the 1850s goldfields.

“I almost have to embody each of the women in each of the movements,” Edwardes says.

“The last one is a Spider Dance by Lola Montez, they’re all highly contrasting and that makes for a very stimulating musical experience. It’s visually stimulating because I’m moving around a lot, but it’s also musically very rich.”

Is it feminist?

“In a way what Iain is trying to do through telling the stories of these four women through music is really to empower the stories of women and place them front and centre and I am myself very committed to gender equity in the classical music scene,” Edwardes says.

“So it feels quite fitting of me as a female percussionist, of which there aren’t a huge amount around the place, to be telling these interesting and also important stories from the turn of the century 1800-1900s in Australia.

Claire Edwardes.
Camera IconClaire Edwardes. Credit: Nat Cartney

“It’s not an overtly feminist piece, it’s written by a bloke after all,” she jokes.

“But he works very collaboratively and so it almost feels like it’s something that we created together and that’s also how he works with First Nations musicians as well, he’s a very generous artist.”

Edwardes is an ambassador for Key Change, a European Union initiative seeking 50:50 representation of women in music, not just classical but also rock bands.

“In the group that I artistically direct in Sydney, we’ve really turned around programming since 2017 to be at least 50 per cent female content and I like to inspire other people to do the same, especially with music written by women composers because there’s no reason not to,” she says.

“As a Key Change ambassador I try to get other organisations, for example, Sydney Symphony Orchestra, to sign up to Key Change. All that does is that they have to report to a quota, and while a lot of people don’t think quotas work or are useful, I do think when you are trying to make really conscious change and make it quickly, they are very helpful.

“So this system is kind of a quota system. Nothing happens to you if you don’t reach the quota but at least you’re conscious of trying to do so.”

Edwardes is also keen to promote role models to inspire young women.

“It’s a mixture of composers and conductors and role modelling means the younger generation have role models that we never had,” she says.

“It’s actually how quickly you can make this change, if you know the history behind us.

“We’re hoping that we can get through the gender thing quickly so we can then spend energy on other minorities and underprivileged people and First Nations, of course, because that’s super important.”

It’s an optimistic view, especially after the wipeout of 2020.

“The good thing is that we were able to spend a lot of time documenting activity, that was positive, and I do think personally, as well as a lot of other artists I know, really benefited from just stopping for a bit and reflecting,” she says.

“It’s busy again in Sydney, very busy, and we’re all a bit wishing it could be like last year again.

“Or something in between, if possible. It’s feast or famine around here.

Ensemble Offspring, her future music project, was to mark its 25th anniversary with a series of tours. Big projects, including Dances with Devils, were cancelled or postponed.

“But the benefit of being able to pivot — that word that everyone’s using — and find creative ways of engaging with your audience, I found as an artistic director and also a soloist, I found really interesting,” Edwards says.

“I think I thrived on the challenges of how to do it, how to keep going, how to create opportunities for my colleagues in Ensemble Offspring, how to create practice opportunities and performance opportunities, and so we did go with Zoom concerts online for bespoke, small audiences and they were really popular and I learnt a lot in terms of how to interact with people in new ways and how to be creative with how you support the ecosystem around you. A lot of people weren’t coping and I was able to be a positive force to buoy people up during that time.”

Claire Edwardes plays Dances with Devils at Perth Concert Hall, on Friday, April 9, at 7.30pm. The program starts with Rimsky-Korsakov’s May Night: Overture, and concludes with his Scheherazade suite.

www.waso.com.au

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