Emily Sheppard is confronting ageism and invisibility through this new Tasmanian album

BY STEPHANIE ESLAKE


In 2021, Emily Sheppard was announced as one of the recipients of the ABC Classic Composer Commissioning Fund. The Tasmanian composer and scientist chose to produce a new work called Age-old, collaborating with singer-songwriter Claire Anne Taylor and a group of musicians from their island. The resulting album takes a deep-dive into the experience of ageing, and the way different sides our identities interact with the arts industry itself.

Emily sits down with CutCommon to talk about her new ABC Classic release, and why she conducted a series of interviews with people of diverse ages, genders, and cultures to inform her musical narrative.

Emily, thanks for taking the time to chat about your music! Tell us the story of Age-old.

Age-old was sparked a decade ago when I was involved with the Conversations with Ghosts project while studying at the Australian National Academy of Music. This project featured songwriting and singing by Paul Kelly, with settings and orchestrations by James Ledger and poignant recorder additions by Genevieve Lacey.

It was an inspiring experience, and one of the first times I had been exposed to the ‘folk’ genre. It was highly experimental yet also grounded in older traditions; a powerful colliding of different musical worlds.

I decided to try to recreate that idea with my dream team of Tasmanian musicians: Claire Anne Taylor on vocals, Michael Kieran Harvey on piano, Danny Healy on clarinets, and Aurora Henrich on double bass. 

Since moving to Tasmania almost a decade ago, I’ve explored many different musical genres through jam sessions, playing with various bands, and listening to a wide range of music. I wanted to create a piece that started at the intersection of these different genres; something of liminal genre that couldn’t be tied down to any one thing. I asked the classical musicians to play swing, and I asked the folk and jazz musicians to play within a classical chamber context with highly specific notated scores. I think we were all a little bit outside our comfort zones, but that was the point!

I collaborated with the singer and lyricist Claire Anne Taylor from the early stages of the project, and together we decided that we would like this suite of music to explore different experiences that humans experience over their lifetime in relation to their age, gender, and culture. 

Why did you feel moved to explore that confronting theme of ageing, and the invisibility that grows alongside it?

This theme was close to both Claire and my hearts. We had both grown up aware of some of the issues mothers faced in feeling invisible as they grew older. This experience seemed to be exacerbated by being a mother — for example, job seeking becoming harder after having children given a perception that they would inevitably want to go part time to have time for children caring. Additionally, the role and work of being a mother is often ignored or not valued as highly as other types of work in our society. 

I have always had a wide age range in my group of friends, and had heard about the challenges of invisibility and ageism. It felt like an important topic to engage with — something that will in fact touch all of our lives as we will all hopefully one day become mature-aged. 

When you reached out to CutCommon, you said this music addresses the interaction between ageing and the arts industry. How would you describe this interaction?

It’s complex! We began to research this topic and interviewed several people [recorded by the ABC] to understand different perspectives more deeply. Throughout this process, we realised there are many things that intersect with ageism, and we started to grapple with how gender, place, and culture interact with ageism in the arts industry and beyond. 

For example, we spoke to Pairabeenee, Trawlwoolway visual artist Mandy Quadrio who experiences both invisibility and racism. She said:

‘Quite often what we think as women gets dismissed, and this invisibility increases as we get older. But also for myself, my invisibility also stems from my indigeneity. Because as a Palawa person, I have lived under this inaccurate myth that Tasmanian aboriginals are extinct, and this mythology denies me my contemporary existence.

‘I also feel invisible because I’m a fair-skinned person, and don’t fit the stereotypical image of what an aboriginal person should supposedly look like.’

For another interviewee, non-binary opera singer Quin Thomson, they perceived their age impacted their ability to procure professional singing opportunities on mainland Australia, despite having a hugely successful career in Europe as a younger person. They said:

‘I’m at the top of my form as a musician. But I’m heavy and I have grey hair. Those things are a deal-breaker; it doesn’t matter how well I sing.’

However, on the flip-side, Quin has found that living in Tasmania, their age, and the fact that they are incorrectly read as being a female, hasn’t impacted their opportunities as much; that something about living in this place and society means innovation and flourishing is possible, even in spaces that have traditionally been male dominated — for example, composition and musical direction. 

We will be releasing these interviews later in the year, and we highly recommend listeners of Age-old to check them out. They add a wonderful breadth of complexity to these issues that we couldn’t fully capture in the lyrics. 

Let’s break down the music itself. Some tracks such as Sandstone Cliffs Surrounding Me contain long, slow lines that are filled with warmth. Others like Into Mist, Almost feel tense and hurried. How does the pacing of this album represent ageing or time?

Age-old follows a lifetime from birth to old age, which allowed us to reflect on the stories we were hearing from our interviewees, as well as our own experiences as young-ish artists. The first tracks, A Leaf at Sea and Sandstone Cliffs Surrounding Me, start at the beginning of life — a sense of nourishment and exploration.

The next track explores an emerging artist going Hell for Leather to prove themselves before it’s too late — a relentless, anxiety-ridden piece.

Into Mist, Almost is from the perspective of a middle-aged person experiencing invisibility for the first time. Reverence is from the perspective of a mature-aged woman in full acceptance and pride of her skin.

Finally, Old Friend is inspired by someone nearing the end of their life, reflecting on what it is to live well. 

We heard about invisibility increasing with age from our interviewees. The other side of this coin is the perception that as a young person, we need to ‘prove’ ourselves and our art now, as we won’t be taken as seriously or be as supported later. There are so many more opportunities in the arts world – grants, scholarships, mentorships, competitions — that are only open to young people. Once you outgrow these opportunities, there’s a perception that you will be out on your own, and that if you haven’t already built a large following, then good luck! 

Of course, this varies across genres and artforms, and I think it was a lot closer to home for Claire being a singer-songwriter than it was for me working as a composer in a classical industry where perhaps ageism can sometimes go in the opposite direction, where it can be hard to garner respect as a young, especially female,) composer. 

Tell us more about that relationship with Claire, who wrote the lyrics for your music. Why was Claire’s voice the one you chose to share this story?

I have been a huge fan of Claire’s voice and lyric writing as soon as I first came across her at a folk festival several years ago. Her voice is unique. She has so much power in her performance, yet at the same time she can sing with such incredible vulnerability.

Even though all the musicians in this project came from quite different musical backgrounds, I felt that we all shared a heartfelt approach to communicating music, and I was very curious to get us all in a room together to see what might happen.

Claire is such a wise ‘old-soul’ herself, and she was already exploring some of the themes in Age-old in her own practice. It seemed like the perfect fit from that perspective. 

This music gives the chance to connect with a difficult concept. What feeling or thought do you hope to leave with your listeners?

I hope to leave my listeners with a renewed reverence for the mature-aged people in their life. I also hope that this music continues the conversation around these complex issues, and that people start to become more aware of them.  

I also hope to leave my listeners with a sense of playfulness and joy that came through in some of the interviews and interactions I had throughout the project. Just look at Gaby, our lovely model for the album art. Is that not a picture of how to live life well? 

I will leave you with a beautiful quote from Claire’s mum Anne Willis [recorded by Claire]: 

‘I’ve been here this long, I may as well bask in it. Because every day is a bonus, and there is a lot to be celebrated.’

Emily Sheppard’s ABC Classic commission Age-old is now available to purchase or stream.

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Images supplied. Additional supplied quotes published with permission.