Career development

[Music: No Aphrodisiac by The Whitlams performed with the Sydney Symphony Sinfonia]

Freya Lombardo (interviewer): Ben, can you tell us a little bit about the difference between the Sydney Sinfonia and the Sydney Symphony Orchestra?

Ben Northey: Well, the Sydney Sinfonia are the orchestra that we used for the concert today, the Education concert, and they are kind of like a training orchestra for the Sydney Symphony Orchestra. They’re made up of very, very talented young musicians who are aspiring to have a career in orchestral music and be a part of a professional orchestra and they’re assisted by mentors who are players from the Sydney Symphony Orchestra who also play in the Sydney Sinfonia and assist these younger players and give them lots of tips and advice on a career and how to play in an orchestra. So the most important thing is the experience of playing a concert that’s outside their normal experience of what they present and the reality is that the orchestras right around the world are presenting concerts of this kind more and more. It’s one of the things that they’ll face when they’re having a career as a professional orchestral musician and they have to learn how the concerts are different and what the various challenges are and how they can best overcome them I suppose.

Freya: What does the Sydney Sinfonia gain from the experience of working in collaboration with The Whitlams?

Tim Freedman: When they’re not amplified they can all hear each other, but when there’s a guitar and drums up there it’s a lot harder for them to hear each other. It’s almost like there are some hurdles they have to get over that they don’t have to get over in normal concerts just in terms of the acoustics.

Ben: Yeah, see the orchestra’s self-balancing acoustically. That’s the biggest challenge I suppose, and issue with these concerts, is that traditionally we have to concentrate on directing our ears across the orchestra and that’s a very subtle art. And of course when you have an amplified concert with rock band, that obliterates the art of self-balancing. And so that’s why you have to work out other ways in which to be able to direct your ears, where you need to direct your ears, what you need to lock into in terms of ensemble. But all of the things that you’re used to doing, like listening across the orchestra, they are completely gone and so you’re left feeling a bit sort of helpless sometimes up there.

[Music and applause]