On May 3 Ensemble Offspring launches their new podcast ‘The Offcast’ – In a series of punchy and upbeat interviews Artistic Director Claire Edwardes chats to musical mavericks and pioneers from close to home and across the globe to find out what makes them tick and their inspiration to do things differently as well as their plans for the future. classikON asked Claire a few questions about the concept.
classikON: Let’s start with the title of the new podcast, The Offcast: Conversations with musical mavericks. What’s your definition of a ‘Musical Maverick’?
Claire Edwardes
We came up with the term ‘musical mavericks’ a few years ago to describe ourselves and the innovative work we do at Ensemble Offspring. We felt it was a fun way of describing our progressive, cutting edge nature. After all, a maverick is an open-minded or unorthodox person, and although many people imagine someone on horseback riding around the Wild West, I feel this descriptor is very apt for what we stand for. Likewise, when branding our new podcast I felt this was a light-hearted way to define my eight wonderful guests within a global music context, and to draw a comparison between their trailblazing careers and the core values of Ensemble Offspring. Fostering new music often feels like a very lonely mission with so few ensembles in Australia performing and supporting living composers, so starting this podcast was our way of reaching out to like-minded artists and creating a community around what we find important: championing diversity in music making and musical voices. It could be seen as self-serving in that respect, but actually I really hope this new podcast helps to broaden our community of ‘mavericks’ worldwide in some small way.
classikON: So, how did you choose the 8 people to interview? Was there a criteria you were going for?
As you can imagine, it was quite tricky to settle on our first season of guests. My initial list was very long, but indeed my priority was a diversity of voices and messages from people who are really pushing musical boundaries in their own unique ways. Seven of the eight guests are female-identifying – this was intentional in a way, but also happened naturally because I am inspired by so many women out there. It feels great to break away from the norm of having more blokes than women in a panel lineup or concert program. Diversity is beginning to become more prevalent in the Australian classical music scene, and of course there are many other aspects of diversity apart from fighting for gender equity that are at the fore these days. I’m happy about this because it means the gender equity thing can (hopefully) pretty much take care of itself moving forward, and we can all focus our energies on nurturing and championing other voices such as First Nations, culturally diverse and those from the disability sector. It is a truly exciting time for this growing movement around diversity in music, especially in the USA and the UK. I look forward to speaking with more inspirational folk in Season 2 of The Offcast.
classikON: And you chose…?
In Season 1 I speak to the phenomenally inspirational Nardi Simpson who describes the Dreaming so eloquently and provides us white fellas with ways of better understanding First Nations culture; Jodie Blackshaw who started a similar movement to me in the wind band scene, fighting for gender equity; and Catherine Haridy, the new Australian Music Centre CEO who has an impressive background in pop music and provides insights into how the art music sector can utilise some of the contemporary modus operandi. Then there is our Hatched Associate Artist flute player and female composer advocate Eliza Shephard who hails from Wagga Wagga via Melbourne; Kyla Matsuura-Miller, another Melburnian who fights for diversity in classical music (as Kyla says, “You can’t be what you can’t see”); Aussie composer Julian Day who is currently based in the UK and is a true font of knowledge on all things new music (and normally the one interviewing me and others); the Berlin-based American violinist and music curator Daniella Strasvogel who is doing great things with children’s concerts in the art music realm; and finally my dear friend Jane Sheldon who recently crossed over into the composer world from her roots as a child soprano (most famously singing Elena Kats-Chernin).
classikON: An amazing line up! So, what’s the format for each podcast, it is an interview style? Will there be music too?
The podcast doesn’t feature musical excerpts other than the quirky title music by Damien Ricketson and the peaceful outro by Bree van Reyk – we do enough music making already! This is simply a series of candid conversations – and pretty informal ones at that. The podcast stemmed from my weekly Instagram Live chats with musical friends during the 2021 lockdowns, so I really wanted to retain that sense of freedom and risk. I chose not to be very prescriptive about the questions I asked or the direction I wanted these conversations to go in. For the most part our Season 1 guests are close friends of mine, so I think this comfort and familiarity bred trust from both sides, making for what I hope is a really fun, informative, uplifting and thought-provoking series of conversations, each lasting about 30 to 40 minutes. Upon listening back to the episodes I was often struck by the gems of wisdom that were provided by our guests – moments of true inspiration where they hit the nail on the head in articulating their artistic vision or defining various systemic issues. It was very satisfying for me and I’m sure our listeners will connect with these inspiring sentiments too.
Sounds great… Head over to your favourite podcast provider HERE and start listening.
