An interview with Dr Erin Helyard
Dr Erin Helyard, one of the new board members at Music in the Regions, is an acclaimed conductor, a virtuosic performer of the harpsichord and fortepiano and a scholar who is passionate about promoting discourse between musicology and performance. As Artistic Director and co-founder of Pinchgut Opera and the Orchestra of the Antipodes in Sydney, he has forged new standards of excellence in historically informed performance. Here, Erin reflects on the opportunities and challenges ahead.
Q: Before we discuss the cultural landscape of NSW in the twenty-first century, let's turn back a few hundred years, and to Europe. You're a musicologist as well as a performer, so you're well aware of the circumstances available to performers and audiences alike. I wonder if you could make some observations about access to music in Venetian society around the time of Monteverdi. We throw around words like "elitism" these days but I imagine most performances back then would really have been presented for a select few?
A: Like many of my colleagues in the industry, I am highly skeptical and critical of the idea of elitism when it is used as a derogative term for arts audiences and performers. Many sports and popular music events, which we would never claim as evidence of “elitism”, are way more expensive for audiences than any classical music performance, opera included. So I never understand that logic when it relates to ticket prices. That being said, performing classical music is very hard! It takes years and years and years of training. I’m certainly still learning! So there is certainly “elite” skill that in no way should we be embarrassed about. We need to acknowledge the enormous amount of thought and effort and practice that goes into our training and preparation.
I don’t know where the idea of an “elite” audience comes from, because back in the seventeenth and eighteenth century anyone who could afford an opera ticket was able to attend (and did!). It was the cinema of its day. Of course, we are talking about the merchant class and the aristocracy, or then the bourgeoisie in the nineteenth century. I suspect that many people feel like they don't know how to enjoy or appreciate classical music, even if they like it very much from hearing it as the soundtrack to many films. And that is where the “elite” moniker has snuck in, I guess—that somehow if you had an “elite” education then only then can you appreciate classical music. But that is bullshit.
Just like there are different levels of wine appreciation, there are different levels of art appreciation. You don’t need to have an “elite” education to “understand” or “appreciate” classical music, just as you don’t need to take a wine course to enjoy a good chardonnay. I think organisations and institutions need to do more to help people better appreciate and enjoy an enormous body of art that is just so wonderful and awe-inspiring and life-affirming. Sometimes the simplest of cues can help us understand a particular kind of music, just as you can start to differentiate the varying qualities of white wine, and particularly so if someone is passionate about it and leads you to appreciate those qualities.
Q: From the Baroque to the present day: you’ve spoken before about growing up in Gosford, and the difficulty in finding your place from a cultural point of view. The Central Coast is a lot larger than, say, Wilcannia, but it still can feel a long way from Sydney, Melbourne and so on. How hard was it for you in Gosford to track down the music and art, let alone other musicians, that really spoke to you?
A: When I grew up on the Central Coast, the Mooney Mooney bridge had not yet been built. I still remember the red rattler trains with the smoking carriages, and the winding car-sick-inducing road (now the old Pacific Highway). So Sydney felt like a long way away—even if nowadays with new highways and improved trains it feels so much closer. There was a wonderful local conservatorium called the “music centre” (now the Central Coast Conservatorium) and it was here that I had my first lessons with my first teachers (all wonderful women). I had access to music thanks to ABC Classic FM. I subscribed to 24 Hours, which was their radio schedule, and I remember highlighting music I never knew in order to tape it and listen. The local library (Gosford Library) also had a huge source of recorded music (cassette tape!). If I didn’t have access to public libraries or publicly-funded radio I would have never have been exposed to this extraordinarily rich and diverse and rewarding world of this highly sophisticated and fascinating art-form. I was obsessed.
Q: When you moved south to the Sydney Conservatorium of Music, one of your first teachers was Paul Dyer, now best known as the artistic director of the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra. But your experience with Dyer can actually be traced back to the time he visited the Central Coast on tour. What can you remember about that performance, and the effect that it had on you as a young musician?
A: I listened to many, many recordings as a teenager, but my memories of live music are the most redolent. There are two very strong memories of live performance at the Laycock Street Theatre when I was around 13: the Australian Brandenburg Orchestra and The Australian Chamber Orchestra. I can’t recall ever seeing anything as electrifying as these performers. Recording music is great, but live performance is something else entirely. It really made me want to pursue the life that those people on the stage were doing.
Q: We're talking here because you’ve joined the board of Music in the Regions. What is it that you would like this initiative to achieve in NSW?
A: I guess I’m so passionate about the regions because I do think about all my seminal experiences as a teenager and how formative they were for me as a musician and also as a person. And my hope is that music in the regions will lead to a greater exposure and appreciation for classical music and music-making. It is very expensive for groups to tour away from our major cities, simply as the cost of accommodation and travel are so very high. My hope is that Music in the Regions will help musicians get outside the cities but also help generate audiences in these beautiful places as well, in some of the ways I have spoken about.
Q: There's been a lot said about the need to boost opportunities for audiences outside the major cities, but I wonder if you could reflect on the value to performers as well who are given the chance to tour more widely.
A: Repeating a show or a concert is one of the most valuable experiences for artists, as you get the chance to refine your technique and your approach and also perfect your craft. Often we only do one concert and then move onto the next one. When I toured NSW with Musica Viva in schools I really honed my craft, and had a great deal of fun as well. I toured extensively through North America too when I was living there, and that was so invaluable to me as a developing professional.
Q: This initiative is designed to boost access to music in the regions as well as to build connections throughout the state. It’s hard to measure but do you have a sense of the appetite for greater cultural offerings outside of the major cities?
A: There is an enormous appetite for live performance outside the major urban areas. I know this whenever I’ve worked up on the Central Coast with some of the local groups there. Audiences love live performances! Seeing talented people go through their paces is just one of the most wonderful of human activities: it is fundamental to society.
Q: The majority of major performing arts companies in Australia are based in the big cities, and even then most visibly in the two largest cities. That is, after all, where most of the audiences can be found. Touring regional areas beyond Illawarra and even the Central Coast can be prohibitively expensive. How can we encourage more organisations to look beyond their immediate environment when planning performance schedules and so on?
A: I think part of the solution is creating and shoring up infrastructure (in the form of bricks and mortar, places where we can perform) as well as building networks of people and artists who can support each other in their endeavours. The more tickets we can sell, the more viable the touring model becomes. It is about building that model in a sustainable and strategic fashion, I think.
Q: Finally, we have to ask: can we expect to see Pinchgut out bush anytime soon?
A: We are touring Bermagui, Newcastle and Armidale in 2022!