Resonate Magazine | Australian Music Centre

Image: Louise Devenish  

Dr Louise Devenish has firmly established herself as a contemporary percussionist, collaborator, and artistic researcher. She has commissioned over 50 works for percussion, performed internationally as a soloist and with ensembles including Decibel and The Sound Collectors Land, and has collaborated on award-winning recordings with Speak Percussion, Synergy Percussion and more.

Stepping beyond the boundaries of a performer, Louise has begun to present her own original works among other artistic collaborations. Hot on the heels of an abum release and a series of performances of Alluvial Gold in Australia, Louise was selected as one of Classical:NEXT's Australian Fellows - an opportunity to propel her work and profile internationally.

Here, Louise shares with us a peek into her first experience at Classical:NEXT and her advice for other artists taking the leap into the international new music scene.

You've been in the new music scene for a while as a performer, and now a creator of your own original work. What pushed you to take the leap to head to Classical:NEXT this year?

I had heard great things about the event from friends who have attended. I applied to pitch Alluvial Gold - the timing seemed right as the work has been performed a few times and Classical:NEXT was happening a couple of months after the album release.

The Classical:NEXT schedule is jam-packed. What did you get up to when you arrived in Berlin?

I arrived a few hours before the activities started, so went straight to the Fellowship reception. After Classical:NEXT however, I had time to catch up with other musicians and presenters in Berlin who I had worked with before, and it was a great opportunity to do that in person.

Can you tell us more about your Project Pitch for Alluvial Gold? What is the premise of this presentation format and what did you set out to achieve for this particular work?

Project Pitches are strictly 7 mins, plus 2 mins of Q+A. I was given all kinds of advice about what to include in the 7 mins… much of it conflicting! In the end, I decided to focus the pitch on the music, the ideas surrounding the music, and the audience experience. My last slide had a QR code linking to the practicalities of schedule, costs etc, for people who might want to know that stuff to look up in their own time. My main goal was not to be that person who went overtime (!), so I planned for a 6 min pitch.

As one of the Australian Fellows this year, you were primed with a bit of information ahead of the conference and had contact with a mentor to guide you through the experience. What was something you learned first-hand about the Classical:NEXT experience?

There are so many great people organising and supporting Classical:NEXT - and all of them were very generous with advice for first-timers both before and during the event. I would particularly like to thank and acknowledge Cath Haridy at AMC, Paul Mason and Tura, and Philippa Allan who was assigned as my fellowship mentor. There was also heaps of information provided by Classical:NEXT themselves. One tip to pass on to others attending in the future is to listen to all the advice, but know that you don't need to follow all of it. Be organised and be as prepared as possible of course, but remember that this will mean something different for everyone. Approach Classical:NEXT in a way that works for you (which might be different from how others approach it).

What about any new learnings about the international new music scene at large? Has your perspective changed since attending Classical:NEXT?

I was blown away by a couple of the performances, that have definitely given me some energy for new work at home. On a specific practical note, it was so interesting to see all the flyers, cards, presentations created by other musicians (or for those lucky enough to have them, their producers) - and what not to include. That was incredibly useful, just to see and hear how musicians from a range of countries/contexts talk about their work in a market/pitch environment.

What advice would you share with other artists who are planning to attend for the first time? (Or what would you do differently next time?)

Be ready to introduce yourself and your work in 1-2 sentences - you will do this dozens of times every day. Next time, I'll arrive the day before!

What's next on the horizon for you?

I am at the beginning of a new project called Sonic Vocabularies: Climate, Weather and Music, with a wonderful team of musicians and scientists from The Sound Collectors Lab and the ARC Centre of Excellence for Weather of the 21st Century. We are making a new work for three percussionists and electronics, informed by climate modelling systems.