The Fractured Orchestra Project, a collaborative composition by members of the 550- strong Sydney Youth Orchestras, will be available online from 28 September.
The Fractured Orchestra was a part creative composing educational program, part music film project commissioned by the Sydney Youth Orchestras. Over 3 months in winter 2020 during the height of COVID-19 lockdown in Sydney, Australia the musicians of the SYO were invited to respond to creative prompts to make their own creative work. These were recorded and filmed with smart phones. This resulted in over 800 submission of short musical compositions, images, spoken word and drawings.
The musicians were asked; What does an orchestra do when social distancing means you can’t be an orchestra?
It’s a question hard enough for the professionals to address; harder still for young student musicians who have seen their ambitions and their future look increasingly uncertain in the wake of the 2020 pandemic.
The Fractured Orchestra is their answer: a dazzling mix of musical improvisation, self-filmed images and spoken observations that are moving, penetrating and humorous – part journalism, part-prediction, part-musical composition – created in bedrooms, backyards, and even a wardrobe, on whatever smartphones or tablet devices they had at hand.
Initiated by SYO Artistic Director Christopher Lawrence, The Fractured Orchestra brings together the exceptional creative team of composer and media artist Damian Barbeler, film-maker Sophie Raymond (whose music documentary Recorder Queen premiered recently on ABC TV’s Compass) and multi-award-winning editor Lindi Harrison.
“SYO is thrilled to give our musicians the opportunity to continue their creative journey during the COVID pandemic,” says CEO Mia Patoulios. “Not only connecting them to one another, but also these exceptional artists”.
Barbeler and Raymond curated the Project by soliciting creative mini-pieces through the SYO’s internal online classroom site SYOnline, set up to enable continuing teaching and rehearsal during COVID restrictions. Requests were specific, ranging from closeup ear selfies, facial reactions to another family member singing badly, and musings on the future of music and orchestral practice, to dialogues with their dormant instruments, creating new melodies, and much more. All material uploaded to the classroom was accessible to SYO musicians who responded to their friends’ work in turn, making a vast creative feedback loop.
It was then the task for Barbeler, Raymond and Harrison to take these musical and visual cells and bring them together into a cohesive structure. Two early edits – dubbed Phase One and Phase Two – were circulated to students as demonstrations of work in progress. These will also be posted publicly in October, after the finished piece’s 28 September release.
The result is anything but apocalyptic in tone. “It was such a joy to see those submissions,” says Barbeler. “There’s truly inventive, moving work by the kids, so we ended up dealing with a rich and fascinating seam of material. For instance, watching young Edward speak about the promise of the future from inside his wardrobe, holding a tent lamp, is such a great metaphor for where we are, how we feel right now. In these tough times he inspires us to reflect on something positive.”
Barbeler also hopes to create a live performance version based on the musical soundtrack that emerges from The Fractured Orchestra. “There’d be a certain poignancy about what started as an online lament to the demolition of orchestral culture turning into a repertoire piece of the future, composed by kids who never doubted their future would survive,” he says. “To have the kids play what sounds a pretty avant-garde piece back to their parents would be kind of epic!”
The Fractured Orchestra is about healing and hope – a celebration of creativity and energy that drives us into the future.
A companion online project by Sydney Youth Orchestras, composer Alice Chance’s Comfort Music, will be released in November.
A final version of the project can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRwJcbnxwms&feature=youtu.be
Sydney Youth Orchestra (SYO) is the leading provider of orchestral training for young musicians aged 5-25. Over the past six months the SYO has continued to operate through all lines of restrictions via the new SYOnline platform.