Composers Hindson and Meurant talk ballet collaboration

BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE

Leading Australian composer Matthew Hindson has collaborated with emerging composer Cyrus Meurant to create what may be the newest version of Romeo and Juliet in the world.

The National College of Dance and its Junior Academy will premiere the ballet on December 12, with live music from the Nexas Quartet.

Hindson, whose works have been performed across the globe and who has composed for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra, Musica Viva Australia, and Sydney Dance Company, chats with CutCommon about his latest venture.

He teamed up with his student Cyrus Meurant, a Churchill Fellowship recipient, to craft the work, and the emerging composer also shares his own experiences of the collaboration.

Matthew Hindson chats Romeo and Juliet

 

Tell us how you became involved in this production of Romeo and Juliet.

I’ve written a few ballets and had my music set to dance by a large number of companies, including the Sydney Dance Company in 2002. During this production, I got to meet Brett Morgan who was working with Sydney Dance Company and Graeme Murphy. I was asked by Fr. Arthur Bridge of Ars Musica Australis if I would be available to do this new ballet score, Romeo and Juliet, and, of course, jumped at the chance.

One of my students, Cyrus Meurant, has also worked extensively with dance in the past few years. I thought it would be a good chance also to involve Cyrus in the process, especially as dance is essentially a collaborative art form.

I’d imagine you were very familiar with the story before you began composing – did the process of writing the music come as second nature with such a familiar piece of source material? 

Brett has slightly re-envisioned the story, and so he gave me a synopsis. It was very helpful to work in this way. But yes, knowing something of the story certainly did help and made the process much easier!

So how does it sound?

In this piece, I tried to use some aspects of Elizabethan dance forms mixed in with my more contemporary dance responses. It is still always classical music, however. My hope is that the music sounds very emotive of the drama and action implicit in the story.

What are some of the things you take into consideration when following in the footsteps of composers like Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky who took on this story for their own? Do you, and does the choreography, take into consideration the modern context in which this story will be understood?

Yes, Prokofiev and Tchaikovsky left big footprints! In this case, because Brett had reworked the story a little, and because dance is a fundamentally abstract art form, like music, it wasn’t such a problem. Plus, writing for a saxophone quartet was something that I don’t believe either Prokofiev or Tchaikovsky ever did. So that was a different starting point.

Talk us through the process – were you largely left up to your own devices or did you work closely with choreographers and directors to produce the work?

Because Cyrus and I were working on this piece collaboratively, and Cyrus has worked with Brett and his company more recently than I, we did take different roles. It was interesting from my perspective because the music just flowed. Brett’s notes were so evocative and clear in what he was looking for. It made the job easier in that respect.

Cyrus has been working more closely with the company and that’s been very good to get his input and responses, also.

What are some important factors to remember when combining music with choreography?

I have been lucky enough to work with some of the world’s best choreographers. And one common thing they have all said to me is: ‘Just write great music’. Music is most commonly the starting point. It can fundamentally push and pull the drama just as much as what’s happening on stage.

That said, composers also need to realise that unlike a concert piece, it’s not all about the music. And if the choreographer wants things to change, or add a few more bars or beats here and there, then the composer should do their utmost to facilitate this. The composer must be as flexible as possible without destroying the overall vision.

Cyrus Meurant gives his take on working with Hindson, Brett Morgan, and the rest of the team to produce this new work.

What has it been like working with Hindson on this project?

I have known Matthew for many years. As well as having studied with Matthew, I’ve assisted with score preparation and copying on several of his orchestral works over the years. Matthew has an unwavering enthusiasm and creativity. His music is always direct and communicative. I’ve found him to ask the ‘what if?’ questions with regards to composition, and he often approaches musical problems from a different angles.

How did you find the process of collaborating with a second composer to work toward a single body of work?

I was initially concerned with the how one work composed by two composers might stylistically cohere, so early on in the development we discussed possible strategies of approaching the score – in terms of stylistic allusion and the kind of musical techniques that might be useful. We also agreed, however, that the strength of successful collaborations is usually due to the individual qualities that each collaborator brings to the table, rather than one simply trying to emulate the other.

Things became less abstract to everyone once Matthew had composed a large amount of the first half of the score based on Brett’s synopsis.  My music enters the work incrementally, and then takes over later on; my violin is also gradually introduced, first solo, and then accompanied by the saxophone quartet.

Now we’re near the premiere and we’re hearing the completed music, a few people have pointed out to me in rehearsal that Matthew’s music and mine complement one another, and essentially add to the tapestry of the work.

How did you find writing music for a ballet?

I feel that in this context, the music is really there to serve the story. There are such extremes of human emotions depicted on stage, and fundamentally, it’s the death-love or death drive aspect which is archetypal to the Romeo and Juliet story. It is such a primal inspiration for the music.

I would say too that this has been one of the most collaborative projects I’ve ever worked on. Whilst I still most often begin composing with a pencil and paper, in working with Brett I’ve developed a way of composing some of the music in the dance studio; so the choreography and music are conceived side by side. I’ll either be playing violin or piano in the studio, and we try different things. I’ll then return once I’ve honed the ideas further – it’s an incredibly exciting process, but it’s also a rather mysterious one.

I believe, surrounding yourself with passionate and creative people is the best way to find renewal in your own work. I’ve found that choreographers will sometimes hear the music in a way you may not have structurally conceived, and it can open up new possibilities and new perspectives in which to develop your work.

For more information on the December 12 National College of Dance production Romeo and Juliet, or to check out other works on the program for the Civic Theatre concert, click here.

Images supplied.