"New Music From An Older Tradition"

Australians might appear to be at a loose end when it comes to questions of artistic conventions. However, instead of being confused about it they seem to make use of the opportunity to turn things topsy turvy in a classical Down Under fashion. Nowhere is it more evident than in the Australian Art Orchestra which performed at the Siri Fort Stadium last week. Conductor of the orchestra, Paul Grabowsky, walked on in a white Kurta-pyjama, with a shawl over his shoulder. The members of the orchestra, with its emphasis on jazz were again dressed in casual black(!). It was a clear sign that the classical orchestra is being presented in a 'cool' manner.

When the orchestra, or rather the ensemble, played the first composition by one of its members called 'The Ferryman', the unconventionality was complete. The music moved through strange alleys. The violinist touched the screechy end, and the cello murmured loudly. The trumpet struck a lonely strident note. It was all different and all new. It pulled in the listener with a gentle push. But it was all strangely enjoyable.

The Lithuanian Jewish dirge harked back to unforgettable roots as the saxophone sounded sad and loud. It was a prayer and a lament as Grabowsky described it. There was no way of disbelieving it. It was not as untethered as it promised to be. The mode of jazz with its unpredictable and even shocking turns, recreated the old memory almost in a strange tongue. It was as if you were retelling an old experience in a totally new tongue. The old but new, "One Two Three" provided room for fun and rhythm.

When the Carnatic percussionists with their mridangam and ghatam joined the ensemble, it was again a strange blend of rhythms where the mathematical subtleties of Carnatic beats did not seem out of place. The 'wild notes' of jazz seemed to go very well with the overtly over organised structures of Carnatic music. As the mridangam player and the ghatam man played out the inner variations, it was a composition called the Vasantha Pravaham, the members of the ensemble were keen and rapt listeners. And when they joined the percussionists in the final movement it was a crescendo of surprising melody.

The final composition played by the orchestra was an innovative piano piece, again by one of the members, which retained the playfulness of jazz and boldly strayed into bumpy terrain stretching the limits of musicality. But it is not the minimalist kind of modernist music which teases the listener with its silences rather than with its sounds.

What is impressive about the Australian Art Orchestra which was set up only in 1993 is its confidence and verve. The variety of compositions and the willingness to play along with other traditions like the experiment with the Carnatic percussionists, proved that it is possible to create a repertoire almost out of nothing if one goes about in in an open and unassuming fashion.

Unlike the fusion experiments attempted by the Hindustani and Carnatic musicians in the country, the Australian Art Orchestra experiment is less ostentatious and also less cumbersome. The Carnatic composition for the ensemble was built around a mode of rippling rhythm which was more than a mere piece of inspired improvisation.

The sphere of music offers undreamt of challenges of creation, something new from an 'empty' atmosphere. If there is to be an Australian music which has an identity of its own, the experiments of this orchestra will be the foundational notes on which the others may have to build something monumental.

There is the apprehension that the European traditions will find a faint echo in the vast spaces of the island continent and all that it has to offer is a variation on remembered notes. But Grabowsky and his players seem to want to do something more than that. They appear audacious enough to create a new music of their own culled from all the older traditions. And somewhere in all those passages of sometimes crowded notes, there is a touch of the Australian - feeling alone like primeval man at the far end of the world and trying to reach down to something lying unheard beneath all the encrustations of all cultures.