Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Jakob Bragg (Photo: Anna Moretó) and Zakiya Leeming (Photo: David John)  

This month, the London Philharmonic Orchestra will perform the world premieres of five new works from this year's cohort of the LPO Young Composers program in the Debut Sounds: Where to Begin? concert. In fact, the concert program is filled with Australian representation. Two members of this year's cohort are Australian composers Jakob Bragg and Zakiya Leeming. They have participated in the program under the mentorship of Brett Dean, who will conduct their new works, marking the end of his three-year residency with the LPO. The concert itself will begin with an arrangement of Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition by Julian Yu.

With the concert's dedicated focus on rising talent, we spoke with Jakob and Zakiya about their experience with the LPO Young Composers program, and the creation of their new works, each inspired by a non-musical artform.

What led you to the London Philharmonic Orchestra Young Composers program?

Jakob Bragg: There are few opportunities for young (emerging? early career?) composers to write for orchestra, less still for a year long mentorship with a composer such as Brett Dean, alongside try-out sessions, workshops, and multiple rehearsals (yes, more than one!). Without revealing an inner fan-boy, it goes without saying that the chance to work with the London Philharmonic Orchestra (LPO) is truly an honour. This is an orchestra that features a new (or recent) work in almost every programme, this season programming under-rated 20^th century epics such as Schoenberg and Dutilleux alongside premieres by Agata Zubel (including a new piano concerto), Heiner Goebbels, Vijay Iyer, and Tania León to name just a few.

Zakiya Leeming: I have been fortunate to work with some fantastic ensembles such as Ensemble Recherche (Germany), Explore Ensemble and Riot Ensemble (UK), but I also have a longstanding love of writing for the orchestra, which I first experienced during my time with the Launceston Youth & Community Orchestra in Tasmania. The LPO scheme offered to bridge a gap between workshops with professional orchestras such as the Hallé, as well as the performances I was lucky to receive by the orchestra at the Royal Northern College of Music during my postgraduate study, to a commission by a professional orchestra for a work in a public concert. The scheme also included an amazing professional development programme that aimed to equip us with the tools we need to make those vital next steps in our careers.

Between composer seminars, workshops, seeing concerts, and sitting in on rehearsals, what have been some of your most memorable and valuable experiences from the programme?

JB: There are so many, however the most valuable aspect of the programme is probably the Spring Workshop. This is the rare opportunity to bring in sketches, ideas, drafts, and try out different strategies with the whole orchestra well before the final score is due. I genuinely don't know another orchestral programme that does this and it's incredible valuable! I had the chance to try out how some tutti sections of my work sound, playing around with the voicing of some microtonal vertical sonorities, and feel the sense of movement between key structural moments within my work. This also allowed me to get an idea of how my rather dominating percussion section sits with the more exposed oboe, bassoon, and harp lines. This is all with the freedom to spend the next two months shifting material around and making changes before the final score is due. I must also add that the chance to work with Brett Dean and to see the inner workings of how the orchestra is run, including meeting the artistic director Elena Dubinets, was equally fascinating and insightful.

ZL: The many points of contact throughout the year have been invaluable, as it allowed us to work closely with both Brett and the musicians at all stages of the programme, and to really get the most out of every aspect. Hearing from industry experts about publishing, programming and other aspects of the business-side of being a freelance composer has been immensely useful. But what I think will be most memorable is the sense of camaraderie with the other composers, the team at the LPO, and the Foyle Future Firsts - the young musicians who have been on their own year-long programme with the Orchestra and joining us in the concert. Being able to share this year with others on the same journey and support each other on the way has made it even more impactful.

As a key component of the programme, you've composed a new work for chamber orchestra, inspired by other art forms. What artform (or artist or artwork) have you chosen and why?

JB: My work, Through Gates Unseen, takes Australian artist and descendent of the Yawuru people Robert Andrew's Tracing inscription (2020) as a departure point to explore the dialogue between control and decay. Andrew's work uses suspended charcoal, branches, ochre, and stones, each connected to a moving plotting machine at the far end of the gallery space. Over time, the plotting machine and suspended strings gradually move each piece of organic matter, slowly marking the white wall behind, smearing, decaying, breaking apart, and bumping into each other. I've been fortunate enough to see this work twice, and spend a good hour watch this work slowly evolve and transform. I find this work aurally and visually fascinating, the intermittent cracks and crumbles of wood and stone, the rubble littered across the gallery floor, the shadowed engravings left upon the wall, and materials that speak of an earth in pain but in constant evolution - with or without us.

ZL: My work has been inspired by circus arts, a performance art I've immersed myself in since I took it up a few years ago to support a physiotherapy programme. I started specifically with aerial arts such as trapeze and hoop, the apparatus I had most experience with, before broadening the scope to include many aspects of the art from its origins, to the innovative performances of today. My piece also loosely follows the format of a circus performance, with acts that come and go, interspersed with consideration of other elements such as the pain and difficulty experienced by performers in pursuit of this challenging art, as well as the more playful and characteristically colourful aspects of the medium.

What elements of that did you express into music, and how?

JB: Through Gates Unseen translates the plotting machine into a custom-built percussion 'staff' as a force that dictates the unfolding of music activity. Sheer blocks of sound echo the separated but interdependent panels of charcoal and branches that gradually erode over time, while the smearing of line and ornamentation resemble the blurred black and ochre shadow left by the organic material upon the white gallery wall behind. Assertive and highly activated chordal figures cry out while meandering and awkward solos hint at a local level of crumbling and decay.

ZL: Initially, I focused on the idea of fundamentals and physicality, such as the rapid but unseen firing of muscles in opposite direction to keep a performer balanced, which I explored through the use of microtonal trills, as well as clusters that almost imperceptibly drift upward or downward through these very small changes. These become larger and smoother as I considered the actions of swinging, which later progress to tumbling and rolling actions depicted with rapid descents and spiralling motions across the orchestra. From these initial, internal feelings of movement, the piece begins to broaden outward to consider the history of the circus through its characteristic sounds, such as its origins in trick riding which I set through interplay of whistles and whips, as well as the sense of both drama and danger evoked by the expectant roll of the snare, paired with harp and celeste for a hint of sparkle. The finale employs long glissandos and high, teetering tremolos to invite a sense of precipice, before finishing with flourish, alluding to the unabashedly bold quality and characteristically theatrical aspect of the art.

The LPO Composer-in-Residence this year is Australian composer Brett Dean. What was it like having him as a mentor, and working with him to conduct your new work? Any words of wisdom that has stuck with you?

JB: It has been such an honour to work with Brett Dean. Brett is incredibly supportive, perceptive, and understands the orchestral medium so well. Having worked with the LPO for many years he has a great insight of the ensemble and the previous iterations of the Young Composers Programme. Having a mentor who is both a composer, performer, and conductor is exceptionally useful. Brett is able to comment intimately about string writing, provoke interesting conversations about compositional formal structures and the manipulation of materials, and then address practicalities of execution, balance, and how the orchestra will respond, all the while championing each of our ideas throughout the entire process.

ZL: Brett has been a wonderful mentor. In the most supportive way, he pushed me to identify where I'd got in my own head early in the composition process, and encouraged me to really go for it, giving me the space and confidence to let loose where I wanted to. Brett is a very insightful conductor, I think due to his experience as an orchestral musician, composer and conductor, making him the ideal conduit for communication. I think this is what made it such a positive and constructive experience.

Do you have any advice for young composers planning or preparing to commence a creative development programme like this?

JB: Composer programmes such as these are incredibly useful. They allow you to experiment, take risks, forge new relationships, and provide a crucial stepping stone in building a career. It is also important to remember that first and foremost, as composers and musicians, our art and profession is about people - our fellow collaborators, our friends, new friends, other people also trying to make music. Listening and learning from those around us is so important - whether they perform Mozart, hyper-experimental music, improvise, or wave a baton, I feel I learn more from those I work with rather than the music itself.

Lastly, it's a slog! I've applied for so many programmes, so many times, and have been knocked back countless times. Some I've given up on, others I keep trying. For one programme I'm up to my fifth attempt - I know colleagues of mine that have even more! It takes a certain stubborn resilience, maybe stupidity, to pursue music as a career. Keep trying, keep writing, keep trying. If it's an obsession, it'll likely happen.

ZL: Take the time to reflect at each point, such as after a session or workshop, and try to make a note of everything. There are so many small moments and exchanges that provide just the right piece of information you might need in the future. Being able to quickly find or recall these bits of wisdom in the moment they're needed is invaluable.

Do you have any new projects in the works that we should listen out for?

JB: An older work that finally gets its premiere. In 2019-20 I composed a 25-minute plus work for Melbourne's Ossicle Duo and Rubiks Collective, commissioned by the Melbourne Recital Centre and University of Melbourne with the support of Majlis Pty Ltd. As well all know, Covid-19 happened in 2020 and as such the premiere of this work was cancelled in 2020 and postponed in 2021 and 2022. Almost four years later, Ossicle and Rubiks will premiere Displaced bodies, weapons of action at the Primrose Potter Salon, Melbourne Recital Centre on the 6^th of December (2023). I am really looking forward to continuing this work with both ensembles and can't wait to finally see this work out in the world. With a double-bell trombone, bowed piano, an ondomo (a mini ondes Martenot), a significantly detuned cello, all the flutes, and an army of raucous ratchets, it's sure to be a monster of a work!

ZL: Following this concert, Riot Ensemble will be premiering my work 'Meanwhile. In other dreams…' at Southampton University and King's Place London, on 17^th and 19^th July respectively. This work includes samples from a machine-learning process trained on the ensemble. The samples have been used to program two keyboards which are accompanied by a drum kit, so the ensemble is effectively playing an AI version of itself. I am also working with an ensemble based in New York for a concert in 2024 building on my work in AI, as well as a chamber opera with Oxford Immunology Professor Paul Klenerman on the topic of immune memory and music, which will be staged in 2025.

Find more information about the London Philharmonic Orchestra's Debut Sounds: Where to Begin? concert on 13 July 2023 here.

Jakob Bragg has developed a compositional practice that engages in unconventional approaches to acoustic instruments, nurtures ongoing artistic relationships, and navigates the exploratory, ritual, and ornamentation. His works has been performed across Australia, Europe, Asia, and America by artists including ELISION (AU), International Contemporary Ensemble (US), Arditti Quartet (UK), Cikada (NO), Quatuor Tana (FR), Meitar Ensemble (IL), Zöllner-Roche Duo (UK/DE), BRON (NL), and orchestras including the London Philharmonic Orchestra (UK) & Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra (AU). Jakob is currently a PhD candidate at the University of Huddersfield, UK.

Zakiya Leeming is currently Artist and Producer in Residence at the Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM). Leeming received an Examiner Newspaper scholarship for her undergraduate degree at the University of Tasmania before completing her masters and PhD at the RNCM. Selected for the Royal Philharmonic Society's Composer Programme 2021-22, recent commissions include Ensemble Recherche, Explore Ensemble, Riot Ensemble and Psappha. The composer specialises in interdisciplinary collaborations, and her work has been featured by The Guardian and BBC Radio 4.