Australian
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Teacher’s notes

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This clip shows contemporary Australian composer Ross Edwards talking about the stifling effect of London on his creative process when he lived in England in the 1970s. In a voice-over and speaking directly to camera, Edwards discusses how he overcame this creative paralysis by developing a new relationship with nature that began when he moved from London to Yorkshire. The clip includes scenes of London, a sepia-toned reconstruction of the London lodgings in which Ross Edwards lived and worked, a black-and-white photograph of the young Edwards and footage of the composer being interviewed for the documentary in rural England. The soundtrack contains excerpts from Edwards’s piano work Monos II, composed in 1970.

Educational value points

• The clip introduces Australian composer Ross Edwards (1943–), who began his music studies at the University of Sydney and later completed his degree at Adelaide University before studying overseas. Edwards’s teachers included pre-eminent Australian composers Peter Sculthorpe and Richard Meale and English luminary Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. Edwards was awarded two Keating Fellowships in the 1990s. His work has won numerous awards, most recently Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA)/Australian Music Centre (AMC) 'Best Orchestral Work for 2005’ for his Concerto for Guitar and Strings. In 1997 Edwards was made a member of the Order of Australia for services to music as a composer.

• Questions about the effect of environment on the creative process are raised in the clip. Edwards comments that the pressure of living and working in a gloomy London environment drew him into an obsessive spiral of work, resulting in his use of sedatives to sleep, and the feeling that he was not composing productively.

• The viewer is given an insight into Edwards’s creative process. Edwards expresses his belief that nature can provide a source of solace and inspiration. The healthy mind–body relationship is a theme that finds expression in his later work. Edwards claims to have pursued an ideal of wholeness, a reintegration of mind, body and spirit in his Maninya pieces (1982). In more recent interviews, Edwards has spoken of the inspiration he draws from uniquely Australian conditions, such as the heat, the light, and the sounds of native animals.

• Edwards’s move to Europe was part of an established tradition as many Australian artists had studied and worked in Europe in the preceding decades. Europe was perceived to offer greater artistic opportunities than Australia and a richer cultural environment in which to work. Writer David Malouf and, until their deaths, artists Arthur Boyd and Sir Sidney Nolan spent much of their working lives in Europe.

• Fragments of Edwards’s 1970 composition Monos II are included. Edwards’s later compositions have attracted worldwide acclaim. His Dawn Mantras was performed on the sails of the Sydney Opera House, heralding the arrival of the new millennium on 1 January 2000. The Heart of Night premiered in April 2005 with the shakuhachi master Riley Lee and the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. Bird Spirit Dreaming, commissioned for the Sydney Symphony, premiered in the USA with the New York Philharmonic in 2005.

• The scene is taken from a documentary directed by Don Featherstone. Featherstone has specialised in documentaries about artists, including poet Les Murray (The Daylight Moon, 1991), dancer Sir Robert Helpmann (Tales of Helpmann – Robert Helpmann, 1990), choreographer Graeme Murphy (Astonish Me: Graeme Murphy,choreographer, 1989), singer Robyn Archer (Robyn Archer, 1993), actor Ernie Dingo (Oondamooroo, 1992) and film director Fred Schepisi (Right Said Fred, 1993).

This clip starts approximately 5 minutes into the documentary.

This clip shows contemporary Australian composer Ross Edwards talking about the stifling effect of London on his creative process when he lived in England in the 1970s. In a voice-over and speaking directly to camera, Edwards discusses how he overcame this creative paralysis by developing a new relationship with nature that began when he moved from London to Yorkshire. The clip includes scenes of London, a sepia-toned reconstruction of the London lodgings in which Ross Edwards lived and worked, a black-and-white photograph of the young Edwards and footage of the composer being interviewed for the documentary in rural England. The soundtrack contains excerpts from Edwards’s piano work Monos II, composed in 1970. The scene opens as the camera pans up from the rocky shores of the Thames to the London bridge.
Ross Edwards In the early ‘70s, I went to Europe to continue studying composition.

As Edwards’ narration begins, we hear an excerpt of his piece “Monos II” play over images of the dockyards before moving to the scene of a small dark basement flat with only a piano, single bed and writing desk.
Ross Edwards I was living in a dank basement in Notting Hill, and I was composing compulsively for 12-hour stretches, and I, I, um, used to have to take pills to make me sleep because I was so hyped up from the activity.

We see a photographic still showing a rumpled-looking Edwards reviewing a piece of music in a shabby room. The narration continues.
Ross Edwards I clearly remember the moment when I started to question this course of self-destruction.

We cut back to the flat and see a figure working furtively at a writing desk.
Ross Edwards I’d been working on this piece which now just seemed like a hollow exercise in futility. I came to the conclusion that what my music was suffering from was claustrophobia. I needed a peace and quiet to get work done.

The scene changes to a remote Yorkshire farmhouse and we see Edwards walking down a lonely-looking dirt road.
Ross Edwards In order to find that, I moved to a remote Yorkshire farmhouse. A most unfortunately, however, this seem today have a paralysing effect. The landscape was so bleak.

We cut to an interview with a current-day Edwards sitting on a stone fence in Yorkshire.
Ross Edwards One thing that did happen during that period, however, was I learned to appreciate nature. Uh, I began gradually to acquire an external focus, and I found myself looking and listening and this helped to release me from the rather torpid inner world in my head that was dominated by my work.

Music swells and the scene pans over the top of a stone fence pausing on the lone figure of Ross Edwards framed through desolate tree branches.