A Chat with Composer Robert McIntyre (Part 1)

As part of our series of commissioned works, we are performing Robert McIntyre’s piece ‘When Wind Washes Water Away’ at our final concert for 2022 – On This Earth We Dance. Ahead of our concert, we spoke to Robert about his music.

Robert McIntyre. Photo by Rudi Lorimer

Drawing on nature, important causes and the personal as potential compositional frameworks, Robert McIntyre b.1998 (he/him) is an Australian Naarm/Melbourne-based composer and flautist whose music creates an atmosphere of discussion and reflection. Robert holds a BH-MUS(Honours) in Music Composition from the University of Melbourne (MCM), having learnt under Stuart Greenbaum, Katy Abbott, Elliott Gyger, Miriama Young, Caerwen Martin and Melody Eötvös across his studies.

Described as 'strikingly contemporary' (Limelight), recent 2022 achievements include Composing in the Wilderness 2022, receiving a 2022/23 Wattle Fellowship, co-winning the 2022 NDKC International Art Song Competition, 2nd Prize in the Luna Nova Composition Contest and being awarded the 2022 David Henkels Composition Award.

Hi Robert! We are so excited to bring your music back for our final concert of 2022. Tell us a bit about yourself, and your journey with music.

I started with piano, around the age of 9, with the AMEB Piano for Leisure stream, which allowed me to play lots of different genres. I then took up classical flute in grade 5, but was always interested in new music. I loved playing flute to film soundtracks, delving into them as though they were my own sound world to explore.

Fast forward to getting into the Melbourne Conservatorium on flute, I quickly realised I didn’t want to be solely a full-time flautist or performer. Taking a composition subject, I found myself connecting to it very naturally. I liked the idea of creating something, of being able to reflect on something significant or personal, and then manifesting it in a body of work. Deciding to move into composition in my second year of study kickstarted my journey as a composer.

So how does playing the flute inform your composing?

It has been really useful! I’m glad I learnt the piano because it gives me an important structural and harmonic foundation, but playing the flute helps me write the lines, the melodic features, gestures and motifs.

I find I can balance between writing really flowing or meandering lines, and drawing on my background as a flute player to create specific sounds. For instance, if I wanted to imitate a birdcall – that’s a very basic example – but if I wanted to do a birdcall, I could draw on my understanding of extended technique on the flute to explore those different sounds that you can’t necessarily achieve on a piano. So that has really informed my ability to explore different sounds on other instruments.

Can you tell us a bit about your piece? Let’s start with the title – ’When Wind Washes Water Away’. Where did the idea come from? I’m really appreciating the alliteration as well.

Yes! Sometimes I write really alliterative and perhaps long titles which just come to me. For instance, another work of mine is titled ‘The Ocean is as Wide as your Embrace’, and it’s very much a conceptual piece.

What was the inspiration for ‘When Wind Washes Water Away’?

The commission came to me during a very important period of my life – the acceptance and achievement of a very long career dream of mine. 

It was a moment of huge relief, and a cumulation of years of hard work. So the inspiration for this piece is the idea of a breath of relief, like the wind, washing away the sweat, the tears, and the blood. This piece represents the feeling of finally making it, but also acknowledges the journey you have been on. Because it’s so much more about the journey than the actual moment of arrival.

Oh, and this piece is also subtly influenced by Miley Cyrus’ The Climb!

That’s a surprising reference! Tell us more about that.

The Climb was great for harmonic inspiration!

I happened to be listening to that song at the time. I have a Clavichord at home, and just started playing all the chords in the song but in different voicings and arrangements. I started to explore that harmonic base from a symphonic perspective. And that’s how it started. It feels like a nice parallel, using a song about the journey and infusing it into this commissioned piece.

I think a lot of composers underestimate the usefulness of pop music as an influence.  It’s something seemingly so simple but has quite a lot of depth to it. You can really explore it in so many different ways, superimposing different chords on top of it and creating your own sound with it – like the trombone solo in this piece.  

Speaking of the trombone, you’ve previously mentioned this notion of creating a sense of “fragile strength” on certain notes. Can you elaborate on that?

I like using instruments in a way that is not necessarily in their conventional range. It’s tricky because sometimes that can really backfire.

But with the trombone, the higher register is so fragile and delicate but the trombone is typically viewed as a powerful, strong instrument. So, I like to flip that idea and show different aspects of the instrument. I try to find different ways to bring a bit more exuberance and excitement to the music by playing with colour. Finding those different colours within an instrument, such as the trombone’s really delicate high range, is really exciting to me.

Finally, is there anything you can clue our audience in on? Any easter eggs to look out for?

Well, The Climb! I guess while it’s not overt, I’m wondering if people would pick up on that sound world. And if they listen to the piece afterwards, could they hear that kind of harmony? Also the trombone solo at the start is very lyrical, they might be able to sing along and see what resonates with them.