Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Nicole Smede  

Nicole Smede is a multi-disciplinary artist of Worimi and European descent. A classically-trained mezzo-soprano, Nicole has broadened her artistic horizons, using voice, song, sound and poetry to explore ideas of landscape, connectedness and ancestry.

This year, Nicole was one of the participants of the Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers programs, pushing the boundaries of her own music practice to capabilities of new intruments, techniques, and working with expert mentors and the adept members of Ensemble Offspring.

Concluding the program, Ensemble Offspring will perform two showcase concerts, featuring works written by the program participants and alumni, including Nicole's work Djeera Gadhu.

We caught up with Nicole ahead of the concerts to find out more about her experience and artistic development through the Ngarra-Burria program.

For any first time listeners, how would you describe your music?

Hmmm that's a hard one straight up!

I guess my music is an interpretation of the melodies and rhythms I hear on Country - the stories and wisdom our environments share with us, and how these feel in my body.

I have a background as a poet and a vocalist, so trying to paint a scene or tell a story through evoking a feeling is my natural approach to creating something.

I like to build layers - use polyphony to imitate musically the many layers and connections between things.

How did you first hear about the Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers program, and how did you get involved?

I was really lucky to part of the first cohort of the Space to Create residency through Creative Australia and ANU in 2022. Through that program I met Ngarra-Burria founder Chris Sainsbury. He came to listen to a few of my recording sessions during the residency where I was composing and recording polyphonic vocal tracks about Country for a play. Later that week I attended a session on the Ngarra-Burria program and heard from past participants Troy Rusell, Will Kepa and Rhyan Clapham (Dobby).

I was so inspired by what the program was doing, and the opportunities provided for First Nations musicians and storytellers to learn ensemble composition techniques, that I wanted to be a part of it! Not only did it feel like an amazing opportunity, but as a graduate of the Sydney Conservatorium of Music as a vocalist it also felt like a chance to pull my skills and experiences together in a more focused direction. So, I let Chris know I was interested (through multiple emails!) and was accepted into the program.

What did the Ngarra-Burria experience look like for you?

It really has been an incredible experience that has pushed me as a musician and opened many doors which I am grateful for. I have learned - and am still learning - western compositional techniques and how to honour story, culture and celebrate my unique voice within that. I have had the opportunity to write for instruments I would not have had the chance otherwise and been encouraged to play, experiment and further develop my knowledge of instrumentation and the musical and artistic possibilities within that.

Being able to write something specifically for Ensemble Offspring and have them record and perform my work is an absolute dream. I am still pinching myself!

Your multidisciplinary practice ranges from poetry and song, classical and rock music, and even film music. Was there a particular aspect of your music practice that you wanted to focus on when you initially began with Ngarra-Burria?

What excited me about the Ngarra-Burria program was the opportunity to pull together all the facets of my practice and former training. Having spent much of my career playing and singing other people's music, I didn't know where to start with my own, if I could even write something of my own that I felt was of substance, and where my creative practice fit. I felt that my perspective, way of creating end expressing myself, didn't fit into the "classical" genre.

What I have learned is that the many strands of an art practice can be woven together and inform each other to create something beautiful and that these perceived limitations and barriers to composing or creating in an unexplored genre can be dismantled - that we can discover, learn and develop new skills at any point in our lives. Its been a freeing experience and allowed me to explore new roads in my artistic journey, which is everything I had hoped for and more.

How has your music practice developed since participating in the Ngarra-Burria program?

When I started the Ngarra-Burria program, my compositional work was deeply personal. I had been writing for my voice only, layering vocal melodies and percussive vocal sounds recorded into DAWs or performed live with a loop pedal. I had never needed or tried to notate or score what I was doing, and I was writing for me with lyrics that were personal stories and reflections, with traditional language woven in. My process was very much a part of my reconnection and exploration of my Aboriginal ancestry and culture.
Musically I am strong aurally and having played in rock bands can improvise and layer harmonies and make sense of music without notation.

Through the program, I have been pushed to learn how to write for other voices and instruments, what the possibilities and limitations are and play with different timbres, and in that, how to notate and (try to) score the musical ideas that come to me.

It has been freeing to write outside my own vocal limits and explore how different vocal ranges and instrument timbres can tell and convey stories. These stories and reflections can then open up - they are no longer my own but are now about sharing our collective stories, and our collective connections to Country, society and relationships. Culturally, it allows me to share on behalf of community (with permission of course) deepening a sense of purpose and responsibility, as someone privileged to have my voice and perspective platformed and amplified. Knowing now how to notate and score means I can share these important stories more widely and that a wide range of musicians can play and tell these stories all over the world.

How did the other participants, mentors, and musicians guide you through that development?

It has been incredible to learn with and from a cohort of people who are like-minded. Culturally we are kin. Through sharing, yarning and listening to each other's work and unique expression, we are also learning about our own skills and the great possibilities music can offer in sharing story and creating connection.

Chris Sainsbury has been a gentle and generous mentor, sharing his time and knowledge so that we have felt very supported by him throughout the program. Ensemble Offspring have also been fantastic to work with too. Not only are they phenomenal musicians but they have offered feedback and suggestions which has enabled our work to grow stronger and develop us as composers. It is not lost on me how privileged we have been to work directly with such skilled musicians and have those conversations in real time as you are composing the work.

Ensemble Offspring will be performing your work Djeera Gadhu as part of the upcoming Ngarra-Burria concerts in Sydney and Canberra? Can you tell us more about the work and what it means to you?

Djeera Gadhu means "Ocean Stories" in Gumea Dharawal, one of the traditional languages of the South Coast of New South Wales. I moved back to Dharawal Wodi Wodi Country at the beginning of the year, where I was born and raised and where this language is held in Country, and have been honoured to be welcomed to sit with Elders and Custodians and learn some of the Dreaming stories of this place, of the connections between land, sea and sky Country and how the great womb of water - the ocean - holds story and relationship between our non-human kin and all our communities. I was inspired by these stories, and the time I have spent sitting on the beach listening to the waves, to write a piece, that goes some way, to sharing this.

The ensemble instrumentation of flute, clarinet, cello and vibraphone I felt was very conducive to painting a musically evocative picture for these stories as well as charactirising the different voices and themes within. And so Djeera Gadhu is a piece composed of four short sections that introduce the themes of land, sky, ocean and Country and tells musically some of the stories I have learnt and observed.

Do you have any upcoming music projects that we can look forward to?

I recently finished a commission of a choral acknowledgement for Sydney choir Macquarie Singers which will premiere on Saturday 23 November at an afternoon concert in Turramurra. It was a joy to work with them, and I have started work on a new choral commission for the 2025 Canberra International Music Festival (CIMF) which I am very excited about. I wrote a piece for mezzo-soprano and looper for the 2024 CIMF, premiered by Lotte Betts-Dean, and am thrilled to have been invited back again by the new Artistic Director Eugene Ughetti.

I also have some live performances coming up with a solo gig of vocal loop compositions in Canberra at Smiths Alternative on Sunday 24 November and Hinterland, a Sydney based indie chamber ensemble I sing with, touring February 2025 along the east coast.

You can also catch me performing with Yuin based Koori women's choir, Mudjingaal Yangamba.

The showcase concerts for the Ngarra-Burria First Peoples Composers 2024 are taking place on:

• Wednesday 31 August at the Eugene Goossens Hall in Sydney. Book tickets.
• Friday 1 November at the The Street Theatre. Book tickets.