A Chat with Composer Robert McIntyre (Part 2)

This is part 2 of our conversation with Robert McIntyre. We spoke with Robert about his creative process and his experience composing for VYSO.

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.

Robert, you’ve written ‘When Wind Washes Water Away’ for VYSO. Can you give us some insight into the practicalities of composing for an orchestra like VYSO?

It’s definitely a different challenge than writing for an orchestra like the MSO. On a practical level, it’s great to meet with the orchestra early on in the process to understand what players are able to do, where their confidence lies in playing solos, and understanding the procedural elements of how this ensemble operates.

It’s important to understand the strengths of an orchestra, as well as spending enough time with the orchestra to get a sense of their character and sound – in terms of what music they like to hear and what they like to play. It’s really important to me that we all connect with the music, and that we can grow and create this piece of music together.

Can you talk a bit more about your creative process?

I tend to compose from a macro level, starting with the full score. It’s a really useful way to see the big picture of what you have available to you.

I have found that for my process, anything worthwhile that I’ve done has started with me improvising at the piano or flute. It’s also great to get musicians together to workshop things. While I’m not really a vocalist, I try to sing different melodies as part of my process; it’s really an organic way of verbalising what’s in my head. I do sketch things out on paper as well as on the computer because it’s good to have a mixed medium approach.

What are some of your musical influences?

It’s a bit of a mix. There’s always the classics; I’m interested in a lot of the French influences like Debussy, Ravel, and the impressionist period. But I’m also influenced by film and soundtrack music (the Hunger Games soundtrack, Moana, and Thomas Newman’s work, such as Finding Nemo). I love the idea of creating a sound world.

Also, I’m influenced by minimalism, post-minimalism, and musicians like Ólafur Arnalds, as well as other Australian and new music composers. I’m often inspired by my contemporaries and the people around me.

And of course, pop music has influenced ‘When Wind Washes Water Away’.

You were selected to be part of the 2022 ‘Composing in the Wilderness’ cohort where you ventured into the Denali National Park and Preserve in Alaska with other composers. Tell us about your experience.

It was a once in a lifetime experience! I never thought I would ever go to Alaska. The purpose was to reconnect with nature alongside other composers, and reflect on the awe-inspiring experience. Just being in the wilderness for a week with no service, hiking and getting inspired by the beautiful mountain ranges, it was so significant and liberating. You realise how quiet it is, and you’re just surrounded by the beautiful, lush forest and alpine tracks. After that, we had a three-day intensive, composing in this idyllic, beautiful campsite by the lake.

Being unplugged, it enabled me to write this mixed quartet piece in three days, and it just sort of happened naturally.

What did you discover in Alaska that influenced your writing?

It inspired the piece ‘the distance between’. The overarching idea for the piece is based conceptually on a specific hike up Cathedral Mountain.  You start the hike at the beginning of the day, enter this mist, and then leave at the end of the day.

The piece was about the experience of witnessing so much raw beauty, and experiencing this other element that is so far removed from our daily lives. But then it all becomes a hazy memory quite quickly.

And just visually, there was so much to take inspiration from as well. I took this picture from beneath the ice, refracting all these colours, and on one hand, it was just ice on the mountain, but it was so striking.

So in the music, I’m trying to emulate that sound world and that colour within a five minute piece.

Yes, there is something so specific about that sound world when you are in the icy wilderness. For example, that very specific sound of water running under a layer of ice. And in the quiet, your ear gets so tuned to differentiating the sounds around you.

Yes, we had an acoustician on the hike with us and he would point out the different sounds. And you can literally hear the sound of a lake hundreds of meters away because it was so quiet.

There is just infinite inspiration. I’d be inspired by this trip for a long time. And in the future, I want to write a piece inspired by our encounters with the wildlife. We encountered the willow ptarmigan, which is this little bird with feathered feet! I also met with a local poet and talked about their written work on the native Alaskan flowers and the role they play with climate change. I would like to set that to music.

I’m looking forward to hearing what comes of it! Do you have other upcoming projects that we should know about?

As part of my University of Melbourne Wattle Fellowship, I am working on a sustainability-based action project based on Sharma v Minister for the Environment [2021] FCA 560 to be performed by Amelia Jones and Solstice Trio, with commissioned text by my regular collaborator Savanna Wegman.

I am also working on another commissioned piece for a Year 12 student at my old school as part of the 100th year for the school.

Join VYSO at On This Earth We Dance, featuring Robert McIntyre’s piece - ‘When Wind Washes Water Away’.