The Sydney Chamber Music Festival
Interview by Kathy Hunter

The inaugural Gala Concert from the Sydney Chamber Music Festival is shaping up to be a truly glittering event, with some of Australia’s most internationally renowned musicians taking part. Performers include soprano Jane Edwards, pianist David Miller violinist Kirsten Williams, Yvette Goodchild on viola, Susan Blake on cello, the New Sydney Wind Quintet and composer Andrew Ford, whose new work ‘Domestic Advice’ will enjoy its world premiere at the concert.

I met the Artistic Director of the Festival, Bridget Bolliger, in an Avalon café on a rainy afternoon a couple of weeks out from the event, to find out how the Festival had come about. She has sleek black hair, intent green eyes, a warm but very purposeful manner – and she’s hungry.

Bridget grew up in Newport on the Northern Beaches of Sydney and, after a sixteen-year stint abroad, it was to this area that she returned in 2003, settling with her family in Bilgola Plateau. She joked: ‘My father used to say that Bilgola Plateau was “on top of mortgage hill" … well, I worked very hard in Europe and Brazil, and now I own a house there!  Bilgola is so picturesque, surrounded by bushland and views of Pittwater, and I love it as much as I loved my previous home in La Tour-de-Peilz near Montreaux on Lake Geneva.’

It was the world-renowned Montreaux Music Festival that started Bridget dreaming that one day she might found her own festival, also in a glorious environment, that would provide the setting for her own passions – chamber music and song. As she says, the voice is the oldest instrument, and as someone who studied and performed opera for a number of years, it has a very special place in her heart. The Sydney Chamber Music Festival is unique in being ‘all about the voice’ – the world-class music you’ll be hearing is designed to showcase Jane Edwards’ gorgeous soprano voice.

Bridget is an internationally acclaimed flautist, beginning her training at the Sydney Conservatorium High School. She moved to Switzerland in 1987, and in 1991 was the youngest flute player to graduate with a Soloist Diploma, Switzerland’s highest music award for performers at a tertiary level. Since then she’s been awarded numerous scholarships and prizes around the globe. Bridget has gone back to her early roots at the Sydney Conservatorium now, currently teaching flute and chamber music there, while playing with several Australian orchestras, including SSO, MSO, AOBO, and the Sydney Philharmonia. She’s also much involved with the Northern Beaches Youth Orchestra, and is the founding director of the New Sydney Wind Quintet, which itself is gathering quite a name for itself, having recently undertaken tours of Australia and China. They’ve also performed regularly for the ABC (which is, incidentally, recording the entire Gala Concert). The Quintet will perform at the Sydney Chamber Music Festival.

Bridget is passionate about the intimate nature of chamber music. She draws a parallel between the character and personal nature of her favourite, cosy, independent bookshop in Avalon, as opposed to the huge stacks of a corporate book chain when comparing chamber music to orchestra. ‘Don’t get me wrong’ she says, ‘I love orchestral music and have spent most of my life playing in orchestras, but there’s just something special, almost spiritual, about the communication between performers and public in chamber music which just doesn't occur in big concert halls.’

The modern conception of chamber music may be said to date from Haydn and has been through numerous style changes over the centuries. Bridget’s personal favourite composers are Mozart and Richard Strauss, but Brahms and Beethoven have also been major players in the historical development of chamber music. There’s no great mystery to it, it’s simply any small group of musicians playing together in a relatively small space – your living room will do! Indeed, Bridget would like to invite any music lover who has a beautiful house to open it for chamber music concerts this summer. ‘Just ask me!’ she laughs. She stresses the social aspect of the genre: ‘as the Director I have to take into account the personalities of the musicians and how they will work together; it’s a team effort, with no conductor, so it has to be very linear and democratic. It’s more like a conversation between musicians.’

This is one Artistic Director on the verge of living her dream, but festivals like this need more than dreams and passion to make them happen. Bridget says while she’s been incredibly lucky to find the perfect combination of musicians to work together, of equal importance have been the committed music lovers who have formed the festival committee, without whom none of this would have happened. In particular, Akky van Ogtrop, the president of the SCMF, has been a pillar of support, introducing Bridget to key people to help bring the festival alive. Other indispensable committee members include Libby Greig for Public Affairs, Elizabeth Ramsay, Michael Hedger, Jon Ladbrooke, Therese Kenyon (Director of the Manly Art Gallery) and Anthony Heinrichs. A festival must also have sponsors and the team is hugely grateful to Paul Bekker from 10group, the Manly Council, Manly Art Gallery and Museum, the Damien Minton Gallery and Stuart and Sons, Australian pianomakers extraordinaire.
  
It’s not just about the people either – in this Festival there are special instruments with characters of their own. Stuart and Sons have supplied a 2.2m grand piano that had Manly Festival co-ordinator Sarah Johnson waxing lyrical. David Miller will be playing the instrument, which has been lovingly handcrafted from Blackhearted Sassafras, a wood that has a most unusual grain (see photo). Also appearing in the star instrument lineup is Susan Blake’s cello – it was made by Giovanni Grancino, in Milan, Italy in 1701.

The Festival is being optimistically long-term in its thinking. In the future, Bridget says she hopes it will grow naturally to become a major fixture on Sydney's arts calendar.  She’s keen to keep it mostly Australian, but depending on funding, would like to invite one or two guest artists from abroad each year – she particularly has her eye on German Christoph Genz, one of the greatest Bach tenors today. (Tenor-loving sponsors – see Bridget after the show!) She’d love to expand to other venues as well, and is particularly keen to have larger chamber ensembles performing at the beautiful Cardinal Cerretti Memorial Chapel, where her wind quintet made its debut. Bridget has also performed there as a soloist and loves it so much that in March this year she was married there (her husband plays trumpet in the Sydney Symphony Orchestra).

Further future plans include special concerts for primary school children to inspire the new generation of musicians. The Northern Beaches are, after all, a hotbed of fiercely competitive school bands, and with her own 8-year-old son starting out on trumpet too, Bridget would like to utilise her teaching skills to fan the flames of young enthusiasm. The Masterclass, which will also be making its debut at this festival, will be taken further too. It will involve existing young ensembles performing for, and possibly even with, some of the members of the Chamber Music Festival, who will then coach them on their techniques – a priceless experience. (Please take note that an audience is very welcome at the Masterclass this year, which is scheduled to take place at the Manly Art Gallery at 10.30am on the morning of the concert with free entry.) Also on the drawing board is a competition for composers to present works for voice in a chamber music setting, more concerts at different venues, lieder recitals, and chamber choirs. But right now, with her long-term dream about to come to fruition, Bridget Bolliger is focused on the Masterclass and Gala Concert on the 14th September – and taking things one step at a time!  

• Masterclass, Manly Art Gallery, 10.30am, audience welcome, free
• Gala Concert Sunday 14th September  - $65/55
• Pre-concert talk with Andrew Ford at 5pm, concert 5.30pm
Tickets include drinks and canapes with the artists after the concert.

For more information on the eminent musicians of the festival, please see the Sydney Chamber Music Festival website.

"...there’s just something special,
almost spiritual, about the communication between performers and public in chamber music
which just doesn't occur
in big concert halls."
Bridget Bolliger - Founder
Sydney Chamber Music Festival

Blackhearted Sassafras Grand Piano