//SOUNDCIRCUS_

AN INTERVIEW WITH JOANNA MacGREGOR
with Morgan Soames

Q You had an unusual childhood, I believe...
Well, my childhood was a mixture of idyllic / off-beat / plain eccentric. Until I went to school at eleven, I was fairly cut off; as a result we all grew up pretty independently minded. My mother was - still is - a creative person, so we picked it up from her.

Q Are your parents musical?
My mother studied piano and singing for two years at the Royal Academy. I was her first piano pupil.

Q Did you yearn to be more conventional?
The concept of being conventional only hit me at school - I was very good at toughing it out, but my totally doomed attempt to be conventional was when I was at the Academy. I failed miserably.

Q Could you have become seriously involved in another art form?
Yeah, drama was always my thing. Not as an actor (though I once played all seven Deadly Sins in Marlowe's Dr Faustus) but I was very closely involved with theatre companies (like Cheek by Jowl, Oxford Playhouse), writing music, until concerts took over. I also thought about being a painter when I was sixteen.

Q Seriously? What did your paintings look like?
Large, abstract, thick paint.

Q What was the first music that really moved you?
Gospel music at church. Playing Bach on our honky tonk. The first LP I ever bought was David Munrow's Renaissance Dances. Pop music and soul.

Q Did you sing and play much?
Yes, I sang solo at church (We are climbing Jacob's Ladder, Ain't no grave gonna hold my body down), played the guitar, was the world's worst violinist. I still have anxiety dreams about playing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. I loved pop music. I discovered jazz when I was about twelve. I entertained my friends at school by playing the hits of the previous night's Top of the Pops.

Q When you looked forward to your adult life, did you dare to imagine yourself as you are now?
Er - no. I though I'd maybe be playing the piano in a band, or MD-ing songs I'd written in a theatre pit.

Q Did you have a role model?
Charles Ives.

Q So why aren't you an insurance millionaire, knocking out symphonies at weekend?
My relationship with my bank manager is too stormy.

Q Do you still have role models?
Charles Ives, Thelonious Monk, John Cage. I admire people who have an idiosyncratic outlook - they're genuinely original. It may take the world a few years to catch up. My favourite film is Night of the Hunter, because it's a very dark mythic fairy tale. People weren't very keen on it when it first came out.

Q But you're a concert pianist who interprets other people's compositions - don't you have an early hero/heroine who's a player?
I remember seeing and enjoying Daniel Barenboim on the telly when I was younger, but I only grew truly aware of other concert pianists when I was a student. There were plenty I loved for their artistry and intellectual outlook: Svyatoslav Richter, Dinu Lipatti, Glenn Gould. I didn't actually want to be any of them.

Q Or do you really want to get on with your own improvisations and compositions?
Well, I've noticed that some of my programming is getting so 'creative' that the next logical step is to weave in some of my own music. I sometimes wonder if concert pianists expend so much effort and energy finding new ways to 'interpret' that what they really need is some more direct form of self-expression...

Photo courtesy of Aldo Belmonte

Q Are you competitive?
No! To be that you have to compete in the same race. I decided piano competitions weren't for me when I was twenty.

Q Did you have a bad experience with one?
No; I absented myself from gladiatorial combat very early on. But I watched friends of mine trawl around the world, hoping for a lucky break. Two friends did extremely well in a big American competition; one has a good, solid career now, the other doesn't play at all. But nobody should worry about what everybody else is doing (though sadly that's how instrumentalists are trained, which is why they're so neurotic). It's a complete waste of creative energy - just find your own voice and believe in that.

Q So is there something deeply wrong with instrumental training? Or is neurosis good for some music?!
We all know of musicians who are labelled 'neurotic' when actually they're individualists, they don't fit in to what society thinks of as 'normal'. Underneath they're as tough as old boots, and you need great physical and mental strength to keep going. But to go back to instrumental training, in general (there are always exceptions) I don't think students are nurtured, made strong, encouraged to think for themselves. It's to do with the exam system . . .

Q You have an almost missionary zeal in the way you champion contemporary music... yet some musicians just concentrate on their own career.
The piano is a weird instrument - it can be totally self-sufficient. A lot of great repertoire is for solo piano. So it's perfectly possible to live a broadly satisfying life all on your own, communing with high art, being a lonely heroic figure that walks that long, dramatic path to the piano centre stage. This all works fine as long as you cling to the notion that the music you're playing is written by dead, distant gods. On the other hand, it all blows apart when you start integrating living composers, as all the fixed points get swept away; all composers take on a human face, the church-like reverence disappears, and suddenly audiences become a collection of individuals who may or may not like what you're doing. Promoters start getting nervous, so you, the performer, have to start communicating fast. That's why I get so involved in so many projects.

Q How do you deal with all the composers who want you to play their music?
I have a 'hmm... that may be interesting' attitude; things pile up in the 'scores for future reference' corner of my studio that I go back to, over a period of time. I get pissed off if I'm hassled by someone I don't know. It doesn't persuade me to play their piece.

Q And how do you deal with composers (perhaps friends) whose work you don't like, or with commissions that haven't worked out right? Have you ever got to the stage where you have mastered a difficult piece, performed it... and then decided it's not good enough?
These are questions about failure! Journalists are obssesed by it! You have to accept that sometimes things may not quite end up how you expected - it doesn't mean it was a waste of time. I can't make snap decisions about new pieces I play. The only thing I don't change my mind about is grey music. Also you don't always get great critical acclaim or audience reaction immediately; the music establishment was very unconvinced by Birtwistle's epic piano concerto Antiphonies when I premiered it with Boulez in 1993. Five years later, at a South Bank festival, after we'd fought to make a recording and play it many more times, they gave it their blessing.

Q So do you read reviews? Take them seriously?
When I'm on tour I avoid reviews, even if I'm told they're good - they're distracting. Otherwise I read them if they're there. Bad ones hurt, good ones are encouraging. You have to remember that reviews give a pen-portrait not just of the event, but of the reviewer... I feel I know some of them quite well...

Photo courtesy of Nick White

Q What were the factors that led to you setting up SoundCircus. Was it a sudden decision?
No it was very natural, very obvious. I'd made about fifteen recordings for Collins, so I had a solid weight of recording experience behind me. Because I'd collaborated with a lot of musicians, either through running festivals or series, there were lots of things I wanted to create that a conventional label didn't seem able to cope with. So it seemed the right time to make my own.

Q Can you explain your "diversity, speed, surprise" slogan?
I think 'New Sounds for Open Ears' is more interesting. It covers a multitude of sins.

Q How 'sinful' might it get? Would you make a synthesizer record? Or use turntables? Or complete noise terror?
Complete noise terror . . . now that's an appealing idea. Some people would say I've already done that... well everything you mention is common musical currency. I'm interested in expanding work with computers, as Conlon Nancarrow has been a hero to me for years . . . his multi-layered music really excites me.

Q What has been the reaction of your friends and colleagues in the classical music world?
A mixture of incredulous and positive. Quite a few people have got in touch saying that want to do the same thing, because everybody has had bad experiences with the major labels. It does involve a huge amount of work, though; you need a lot of determination and energy to carry it through.

Q Isn't it risky setting up your own label? The big guys spend thousands on state-of-the-art recordings; the little independent dance labels make records cheaply and aim for hits. Arts bodies very occasionally subsidises not-for-profit recordings... Where do you fit into this?
Well, the notion of risk doesn't cut much ice with me, as you'd expect. It's more a matter of looking for an alternative, creative route out of an impasse that is the classical recording world at the moment. I don't fit into any of the scenarios you describe; I'm determined to make innovative recordings that sell well, not 'record it because it's there' CDs that delight Gramophone magazine but reach three punters. If SoundCircus is similar to anything, it'd be a vibey independent label that knows its constituency quite well; I'm aware of a large, badly served music-loving public that doesn't fit into acknowledged marketing categories. I've seen them at gigs...

Q Is the SoundCircus route the obvious way for everyone to go eventually?
I've no idea... I'm sure younger musicians might try it. I do think that classical music became very bloated in its ambitions - big fees, big open air concerts, big hair. This manipulative attempt to crash into mass marketing has got the excitement quota of stamp collecting. I suspect most sussed musicians want to work on smaller, more original projects that have a degree of flexibility and can move around the world.

Q In your wildest dreams, what would you like to do with the label?
Ha! Take it on tour (well that's happening in the Autumn), create club nights internationally, have great musicians to come and play. Collaborate with other art forms. Try and get the distribution right...

Q What do you plan next?
We recorded Lou Harrison's Piano Concerto in Sydney with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra earlier this year. Also Birtwistle's magnificent piano pieces Harrison's Clocks will be coming out. But as with the first three SoundCircus recordings, it's important to me that a lot of other creative musicians are involved, so I've been talking to various ensembles and composers. I'd like to do something more with Talvin Singh, and record Django Bates' concerto.

Photo courtesy of Nick White

Q Why did you agree to serve on the English Arts Council?
Because I have a voice that can represent a lot of like-minded musicians and because it would have been too easy to say no.

Q Do you think contemporary music in a healthy state worldwide?
It depends what you mean by 'contemporary' music. There's a good music scene in Amsterdam, where different musical genres seem to flow together more naturally, and play to large audiences... everyone's musical heritage is different, so that can (and should) affect promoters' and performers' thinking. In Norway, where I've just toured, there's a great tradition of amateur music-making and it makes sense to work with amateur, as well as professional musicians there rather than trying to make divisions. In Ireland contemporary/classical is vibrant, and Irish traditional music is huge. Why try and impose one type of music against another? I'm currently commissioning a piece for piano, bodhran and uillean pipes! The same goes for South Africa, where I'll be working with musicians in Durban and Cape Town later on this year. It's all contemporary music, made by contemporary musicians. I think the problems really begin when a small group of powerful people decree what's acceptable and subsidise it to the detriment of other music. Musicians don't work like that; they're curious and generous, coming together in unique combinations, sometimes producing something so successful it proves very influential... and so it rolls on.

Q But you spoke of the establishment giving a piece 'their blessing'... do you still have to please these people to survive?
No, but I feel a responsibility with a new piece to give it a good send-off. With published composers, it's useful to get a good critical reaction, it'll encourage future performances. With other composers - jazz, improvising musicians, critical reaction is only part of the picture. It's essential to create the right environment for a new collaboration to grow and develop.

Q On the other hand, some people might see you as just another power-broker yourself, serving on the Arts Council and so on...
Well nothing's gonna change if you don't infiltrate these power bastions...

Q ...might the next wave of 'acceptable people' be Talvin Singh, Django Bates and Nikki Yeoh?
They're key people anyway, whether or not the establishment recognises it. The world is full of stunning musical minds, making the music of tomorrow.

Q You have written radio plays and children's books and all sorts of other things. Might you head off in a totally new direction one day?
No, all these threads are connected for me. I'm interested in the idea of a complete musician, which involves being creative in a lot of different areas... I always come back to the piano, to playing, which can be quite a meditative experience for me. How I play and what I choose to play is very influenced by what's going on in other parts of my life.

Q I've heard great reports of your compositional and arranging skills in ventures such as the Mystery Plays and your adaptation of The Magic Flute for the Unicorn. Are you going to 'come out' as a composer one of these days?
Yes. Very soon now.

interview by Morgan Soames