Professor Cat Hope

Produced by Chelsea Wilson

TRANSCRIPT 

Chelsea: Hi Cat! Welcome to the Control Podcast. 

Cat:  Chelsea, it's a pleasure to be here. I've been a fan of your podcast for a while. 

Chelsea: Oh thank you. Really thrilled to have that feedback and thanks for listening. I've got so many things I would love to chat to you about, but firstly, I'd like to start with your work as a composer and an artist. You're a classically trained flautist, but much of your work as an artist has been in the avant garde and experimental sector. A signature part of your composition builds on a drone. Can you tell us about what piqued your interest in drones as a foundation for your composing?

Cat: It's a great question because once I completed my degree I left Australia and worked overseas, mostly playing in bands as a bass player. And I ended up spending quite a lot of time in Sicily, in Catania, which is at the foot of a, or actually on the side of an active volcano.

And that's when I got really interested in low sounds and this concept of hearing through your body rather than necessarily just through your ears. So, and listening, um, and these sounds were constant, right? And as a flute player, you always had to breathe and that made it. So, I don't know, like, connected to the actual physical body as a maker, not a receptor, if that makes sense.

Then I went on and did a PhD, which was entitled, Possibility of Infrasonic Music. This idea that music that you don't necessarily listen to through your ears could be understood as music at all. And I guess that led me really down, well, further into electronic music. And what I love about electronic music is, as Robert Ashley said, it can go on for as long as there's power coming out of the wall.

And that's a really big difference to, like, wind or string playing where you've got to move the bow, or wind playing where you have to breathe. So I got interested in, well what if we can overcome, what if we can make music where it feels like that flute part is going without stopping, or we can raise that motion of the bow which is so tied to traditional concepts of metric measurement, uh, of time in traditional, let's say historic music.

And I've been following that path, this kind of interrogation of really low sounds, both as a physical vibration thing, but also as a concept for structure and form. And drones, so things like glissandi, what happens when Sounds or pitches connect without bridges or gaps. And I think it really challenges the way we understand music and its relationship to time.

And that's why it's such a fruitful place. And so that those interests really shaped my notation practice then because traditional notation just didn't cut it. And I was doing improvisations where I'd do the same thing over and over again, making them not improvisations  anymore. So I kind of found this place where I would draw scores.

And then transfer them to the computer and put them in motion, which was a way to bring people together to read this music in a coordinated way. So with my group Decibel, which has been going for about 13 years now, we kind of as a team look at this project as a, you know, we all work together and use these systems for all of our own music, not just for my own interests.

So it's kind of a good confluence of a lot of different aspects of interest. collaboration, but also as an academic, like working as a composer, I'm really interested in innovating the idea of music. So that's really always been behind my practice. 

Chelsea: Going back a little bit, going from flute to bass, it's almost like a sonic rebellion. How do you go from flute to bass?

Cat: I wanted to play cello, but my mom went to the school when I was in high school, because I started learning, um, flute quite late, I guess. I'd been playing guitar and other things, but they saw we need flute And then, so I was in that band,

The music teacher, who was a rock guy, said, you know, Oh, can you play bass guitar and a couple of things? And I was like, sure. And I loved it, but it was kind of too far down the track. You know, when I went to Europe, I started telling people I could play the bass, which wasn't really true. Um, but I was like, I'm a classical musician. How hard can it be? And so kind of, I was so lucky to be in an environment. I was in Berlin in the late eighties. I knew some of the Melbourne people there, I'm originally from Perth, and Mick Harvey lent me his Squire bass and I started playing bands with um, a group of Sicilian guitar rock band, uh, a group of Sicilians.

And really that's, I kind of dropped everything and went down that path. But I guess now I specialize in bass flutes, so it kind of came around 360! 

Chelsea: you mentioned a moment ago, Graphic Scores, you're also an international partner on DigiScores. Can you tell us a little bit more about what a graphic score is, and how it works?

Cat: A graphic score is really... any type of music notation that uses predominantly graphic shapes that aren't used in what we'd call traditional or common practice notation. So I think most of your listeners would be aware of what music notation usually looks like, right? The black dots and white circles on a stave.

Um, notes on a page that... You have a time signature, subdivided, and so on. So graphic notation, I guess, it's had a couple of significant moments in history. You know, before the printing press, it was much more common. You'd have color, beautiful hand drawn scores in the shape of hearts and, or circles, you know, in the 14th and 15th century.

And then, I guess, when the printing press standardized the reproduction of scores. Things like color and drawing became quite difficult to make on the press, whereas a standard system became, I guess, more normal. And then in the 20th century, it kind of exploded again through experimentalism and the avant garde.

And now, with computing, we've got a whole new era of possibility with alternative notations for music. And so that DigiScore project you mentioned, um, which is a European Research Council project with... researchers worldwide is looking at what does the digital offer us for music notation and is music notation still relevant if it's not What are the ways in which people engage with notation because most people don't read any form of music notation Um, they, you know, people are still listening and making music more than ever before, but in different ways.

So we're kind of looking at, well, as graphic notation has enabled my practice. So right. These drones and glissandi and focuses on sonic texture and, and certain areas of the frequency spectrum. Graphic notation has helped me express these ideas to other musicians so that we can play it together. So what other things can digital notation offer?

And so we're looking at things like robot arms drawing notation, or projections, code, interactivity, it's a whole kind of variations of ways. So for me, graphic notation is really using color, line, shape as symbols that engage musicianship. So I'm particularly interested in working with Developed musicians rather than emerging musicians like children, for example, which is people think, oh, graphic notation is good for kids to play.

Uh, I'm really interested in what if you take a really highly developed musician and give them a graphic score that's not completely open and free, but actually has quite a lot of rules and regulations around how it's followed and interpreted. What happens to music and how can we enhance the experience of the performer?

Given that music is now developing. With electronic music, there's like, more sounds than you can even imagine, right? We don't even know what half the sounds out there can be. So I actually believe that graphic notation is something that might help us to incorporate electronic artists into the music reading paradigm, which I really appreciate.

I love making music together through reading music, um, which it might sound like a classical music thing. You know, I've done a lot of pop, played in pop bands. I love making music, improvising songs out together or. Doing free improv. This is another part of my practice. But there's something about music, reading music notation together that I really love.

And I think that it's worth preserving. But I do think it needs to adapt to suit the kind of  music that we're making right now. 

Chelsea: I’m really interested in the idea that just because we've had this form of notation for hundreds of years doesn't mean that's the end of the story. And I guess coming across your graphic scores struck me in that way that I went, oh, I hadn't even considered that there was a kind of a different language or a different way we could do this because it's just been set in stone that you learn music and this is the language that we use on paper to present it and that's it. So it's quite an exciting proposition. How do you find some of the professional artists that you've worked with when you give them those graphic scores? What are some of those reactions like?

Cat: It's a great question. So traditional music notation is really good at what it does, right? So if you want to play a Bach sonata or charts, a jazz tune from some charts. It's quite, it does the job, right? But what if I want to play chamber music with an electronic musician that might be using Ableton or Max?

Or I want to do these really long drone sounds that don't have any pulse? Uh, what if I don't want to choose the chord structure? I, I'm really not interested in that, but I am really particular about how loud it is and what color it is. So I would argue that while graphic notation isn't necessarily good for playing music that's already been notated in other ways, it might be of a more forward looking nature.

So generally for the kind of music I write, I think musicians get it straight away. Oh, right, I see what you're trying to do here. This looks like it sounds. So once they get a hold of that idea, and that it's a coordinated practice, so a lot of graphic notation in the past, it's got a bit of a rep, right, for being, oh, here's a picture of a leaf, play it, or, um, it's not, I'm not looking at that kind of thing.

This is more. A kind of, it shares a lot of principles with traditional notation. It's designed to coordinate groups of musicians to play together, which is how music notation came about in the first place, um, but where the focus has changed, uh, away from harmony and rhythm towards color. dynamic, structure, and perhaps more freedom for performers, so where the composer doesn't choose every different aspect of the piece of music, but actually a few more decisions are shared with performers.

Some performers love that, others don't, they want to just do what it says on the page. So you really have to work with the right types of musicians, I think. But I have to say, I've been working overseas in the last year and most, you know, musicians are used to dealing with digital stuff now. So that, that used to be a bit of a, at the beginning, 12 years ago when I started working in this space, the, the, you know, software thing used to freak people out.

I think now most people are used to that. And once they understand the principles of the piece, right, going back to the actual music that you're trying to create. They realize that this is the best way to notate it, and they really go for it. And, you know, realize that just like normal, you know, traditional notation, digital notation still requires ensemble, you know, you still need to, when there's something appears on the screen, you still have to react to it as a group.

You can't just all, like, have your heads in the screen. Conducting, for example, works really well with my graphic scores, um, for large ensembles. So these are things that I... I'm testing and exploring all the time and I'm doing that with performers. So music notation is actually quite political, especially in Australia.

Chelsea: Can you expand on that notation being political in Australia?

Cat: Yes. So this is, I guess, my opinion based on the experience I've had of someone who, I guess my composition journey was enabled by the notation, right? And when I did start making, you know, notating pieces like this and kind of made that journey to being a composer rather than a performer focused musician, I got a lot of pushback about how, Oh, this is just when you don't know how to compose, this is what you do.

Chelsea: Wow. That's so shortsighted. 

Cat: Maybe. And I, I guess I've never, you know, claim that my system is ideal for everyone. It really works for me. I've written 70 pieces or something like this in the last I don't know 15 years or something, but I also noticed that Australian music classical music does tend to be a bit more on the conservative side when you compare it to other places There's a you know, there's a few of us that are really pushing to get like an Australian identity Which is that maybe?

It shakes off some of our colonial European past and kind of looks forward to something completely different that is built on that, but it's not the same or needing that as part of its definition, but also I guess in a low funding environment where Music doesn't have the same amount of support, perhaps, as other places.

People get very defensive and protective. I think people are worried that we're not going to teach music reading in schools anymore because there's all these associated benefits like better maths and so on. But this idea of what music notation is, is very much wedded to something from the past. It's quite a complicated landscape, I think, in Australia, and typical from a place where maybe music reading or classical music playing or music learning is not a part of everybody's life as adults or children, like it is in other places in the world.

And I really, I guess, have noticed that there's a, you know, like a competition or like, yeah, a defensiveness, I guess, around preserving a certain legacy, but also defining what a musician really is. So graphic notation has got this reputation as being something really, it's almost like a type of improvisation and kind of pushing back against that and saying, Oh, it doesn't have to be like that.

It can be a whole bunch of different things. And actually. You can combine graphic notation and traditional notation together to get the best of both worlds. So, it's really, I guess, a protectionist attitude, perhaps, around preserving the way we've done things and what we think is best for learning and teaching, teaching music to young people.

And, you know, as someone who works in the university sector, I understand that. And, you know, one of my pieces is in the curriculum kit for New South Wales, and it's used as a kind of exemplar graphic notation piece. So I think it's great to use it as an option. And given that, you know, most students coming through are not playing classical or jazz instruments, they're really interested in electronic music.

They're all fiddling around with Ableton and GarageBand or whatever. So what about them? You know, I think it's great to have an option for them moving forward and collaborating with those students who are playing perhaps more traditional instruments and following a more traditional music learning path.

Chelsea: Last year, you embarked on a nine month residency in Europe with work in Germany as a research fellow at the Hamburg Institute for Advanced Studies, an artist residency at the Artzoid Studios in France, a research fellowship at King's College. and new commissions and performances. This sounds like a massive period of work. Was this the first long kind of residency you've done since the pandemic? What were some of the main learnings from this trip?

Cat: Yeah, so I was away for a year and so my, my fellowship was nine months and I managed to pack all these other things around them outside. Beginning and end of that look it was amazing.

I really needed to get out of town I you know first world problems, but I did suffer with the whole border closure thing not just Within it you know within Australia my family still in Perth and my collaborators in Melbourne half in Perth So I found that really difficult And my engagement with musicians overseas is a really important part of my identity as a composer.

I get most of my music played by overseas groups. Let's just say that. So as soon as I got there, I just couldn't wait to go and reconnect with all these people and reestablish, I guess, myself there. And that was a really important part of being away for me. But then the other side of it was this incredible luxury of having nine months without any teaching or administration obligations that are part of my job at Monash, where I'm on staff in the music, school of music and performance.

And I produced a version of my opera there. And that was a really rewarding experience because I was able to work with a group of Ukrainian refugees as a choir for that project. And it was interesting to compare, I guess. The way European musicians engage with my music and notation as compared to Australian and long term collaborators that I have.

So that I guess that was a really important learning for me was realizing that actually what I'm doing has a place. It's not considered radical or experimental overseas in the way I feel it is here. People don't think twice about it. They're interested in the results and the methods are just part of that exploration.

So for me, someone like me, that's really affirming. So when I come back to Melbourne, I feel that the path I'm going on is the right one and there is a future for my music to be played by a wider group of people. Um, and just. Collaborating and playing music with other people with it from different backgrounds.

And I think, you know, in Melbourne, we did it pretty tough during COVID, lives were saved. Um, but I think we're still recovering a little bit from some of the, in the music industry, from some of the things we went through. And I think it was important to get away from that and just remind myself of how it can be again.

So. I hope I bring some of that back to the community here in Melbourne. I

Chelsea: think a lot of musicians in Australia, regardless of genre, feel the same way. I think it's just, even though they say we have one of the six largest music industries, it doesn't feel like that. It feels, especially when you're doing kind of something that's not so mainstream. Touring's hard here with our cities being so far apart. There's limited media support for Australian composition, whether that's popular music or art music or any kind of music. I think a lot of musicians feel that isolation of just. Being so far away, um, and having to try and make that decision about where are you going to try and put your art and where are you going to go and how do you juggle, uh, wanting to practice in your home country and where your people are, but knowing that you have audiences elsewhere.

Cat: And I feel like it's been part of my entire life, and I think a lot of musicians would say that. I think a lot of us, when we finished our degrees, left because... You know, there was a feeling of, not hopelessness, but like, nothing was going to happen, especially coming from Perth, right, like, I think maybe in Melbourne and Sydney it was different, maybe not, but it was a kind of, yeah, a validation and an affirmation that, you know, with my group, Decibel.

I feel we're considered to be kind of really out there, experimental, almost risky, like a risky proposition for a festival or something. Whereas in Europe, it's just completely normal what we're doing and, but also unique, right? So accepted as a kind of progression of what music can be, but also not a enormous risk for audiences.

I think we underestimate our audiences in Australia. They really do. They're really interested in innovation and looking for something new and interesting. I mean, I love the opera. I go to operas and symphonic concerts. I love that. There's no reason that one has to be in the place of the other, you know, I think we do ourselves a disservice by underestimating audiences and deciding what it is that they like.

And if we have the right marketing and the right investment. In marketing, then I think you'll find audiences will come, they'll come to it. And that's what I've learned, I guess, overseas that audiences are up for it. And it's just, that's been identified in a much clearer way.

Chelsea: I'd like to talk to you more about Decibel New Music Ensemble. You mentioned the ensemble's been practicing for 13 years. What is the kind of secret or how do you sustain that kind of collaboration long term?

Cat: That's a great question. Um, my, look, this ensemble is very dear to my heart. So when I finished my PhD, I'd spent six years or whatever thinking about all those sound and working largely in isolation, but also with other musicians and multi bass groups.

But I really wanted to try something new and I think that a group has survived because we came together because we're all interested in something similar, which was the nexus of acoustic and electronic sound. And that exploration led us to this graphic notation place, me personally, but all of us I think in the group have kind of engaged with that to some degree.

And then we run like a rock band, so we're like a family. When we all lived in the same city, we'd spend quite a lot of time together. Even when we do concerts, we always make time to spend time together, we eat together, we workshop together, we have this thing called the nerd table, which is just even putting all our computers together and doing whatever work we have to do.

We've all got similar aesthetic tastes, we've all kind of trained each other up in these different things that the group needs. You know, I learned how to become an artistic director by doing it. Tristan Parr, the cellist, has become a really great producer as a result of seeing how terrible I was at certain aspects of that.

Um, you know, we've got an audio engineer. We developed live practice and Aaron Wyatt who came in as a, you know, viola player has expanded his software writing ability. So through that congregation of people, we've all grown as people and I think that's a really great recipe for staying together, supporting each other to grow and do something different or better than you would have if you were just on your own.

But, you know, it's been a real challenge being split between Perth and, and Melbourne, which happened when some of us moved to Melbourne for work and, you know, during the pandemic, that was pretty rough, but we started recording together online, um, and now it just means that it's always a bit more expensive whenever we do a concert because someone has to come from somewhere.

But obviously the fact that we're still going, it's a testament to how much we enjoy being together and playing music together and I think now as a group, we really listen to each other. Differently than maybe a group who just came together, and I think anyone you talk to that's been in a group for a long time would say something along those lines.

And that reading music together, I started writing music for this group. Um, you know, I started writing music for the first time for this group. And, you know, it made me realize how special they are when I started getting commissions for other groups. And I'd ask them to do things, and they would be very challenging, and that's when you kind of realize how special it is, what you have.

And I think everybody in the group would say the same thing about that kind of dynamic. 

Chelsea: There's just something really magical about it, because especially in genres, you know, in musical spaces like this, there isn't buckets of money. Coming for this. So really it's something you're doing because you really believe in the music and as a group of people, you genuinely want to keep pushing boundaries and working together and enjoying those spaces.

And over that, over a decade period, you go through so much in your personal lives as well. Yeah. Um, and it's, you know, quite an incredible thing. Um, not to be taken for granted.

Cat: Oh, yeah. Births, deaths, and marriages, definitely. PhDs, jobs, houses moving, you know, and, you know, the international touring. We've done a lot of international touring, and I think we work really well in that group.

You know, we've got strengths. All of us have got our quirks, but we've worked out how to... And I think in some ways, being in a new music group, you kind of bond even more, right? Because it's, you feel sometimes us against the world kind of thing.

Chelsea: Well, you're basically, am I allowed to call Professor Cat Hope a punk?

Cat: Well, I, you know. I, I would call myself an anarchist, except I don't think anyone who works in an institution like a university could really call themselves that. But that is my background. I was a, I've always been an activist and most of my music is still related to that activism. Yeah, and I guess I like making systems.

I'm not one for fitting into systems.

Chelsea: Yeah, I love that. That's a quote. We get that on a t shirt. It could be part of the merch.

Cat: If it doesn't work, just make your own and people will come, you know, and, or just make it for the people that you're with, not for some other expectation that's been brought to you.

I think it's a really good way to make a team. I love working in teams and collaborating with people. Yeah. I think that you need to have that kind of. Yeah, that punk attitude about making it work, something like Decibel, I mean, it's such a, uh, you know, that kind of bringing electronics into the chamber music space doesn't sound that radical, but actually when you look at all the workings of things, it does have a lot of unusual requirements, like for concert presentation, for recordings, for notations, for techniques of playing.

Um, patients with, you know, crazy technical setups, things that some musicians just wouldn't be up for. And so I feel incredibly privileged that I've managed to find this group of people.

Chelsea: You were a recipient of the Peggy Glanville Hicks residency a few years back now, spending a year composing in Sydney. Juggling work in academia, gigging, touring, family life. Do you now put into practice going away on residency for composing or is composition something you try and squeeze in daily or in chunks of time through the week? How do you recommend finding time for a composition in modern life? 

Cat: Yeah, well, I've been very lucky in that I had the Piggy Gamble Hicks opportunity for a year and getting out of the city, getting out of my town and into another one was a really great way to break that routine and expectation and likewise going to Europe three years, 10 years later, both very rewarding and valued experiences. But I would say, you know, for budding composers out there who are, how am I supposed to make time for this? And, you know, I do admit for me, it's got harder over time as I've become more senior in academia, maybe some academics that means more time, but for me, it's kind of met less.

More administration and more worrying about other people. Yeah. Or just having people under your care or, you know, that you're mentoring or supporting. So I guess what I would say is, I'm not the type of composer that needs complete silence around me. I like writing music in cafes. I even listen to other records sometimes when I'm writing it.

You know, I'm a very kind of social person and I love being in social situations. I don't necessarily thrive in my studio at home by myself, but I would say you've just got to make the time. It feels like you've never got the time. And, you know, I'm the person who, you know, likes to make sure the house is clean before I can even think about starting that line.

Forget that! Just... make the time and you'll find that you'll still have time to do those other things that you have to do So I have no routine, but I am a late night person and I usually end up writing music at night And when I do I'll know I'll be up for a long time. And I do try to do my admin and stuff in the morning And that's just something that's, everyone has a different system for them.

I've learned to appreciate my family more and try and force myself to have time out. But, you know, that doesn't include going to concerts or reading about music. That's like doing something that's got nothing to do with it. And I think that's helped me keep going. Music is a very unrealistic lifestyle, because it relies on things like networking, which is just being in the right place at the right time for no other reason other than hoping that you'll meet someone that might be interesting, interested in what you're doing. I've never been very good at that side of things, but being social really helps. So I think it's just about making sure that, uh, you've just put that time in, and sometimes that time will be just reading a book about music, sometimes you'll have an idea, and I... I really am driven by kind of real world events.

So usually something will happen in the world and that, that's my kind of point of departure for making a piece. So I spent a lot of time thinking about the piece and about the music that I'm going to make. And the actual making of it is actually quite short, because I've already somehow, magically, got it happening in my head.

And I think for a long time, I didn't count that as part of my process. And I'd feel terribly guilty about being so last minute. But I actually realize now that I do think about it subconsciously for a very long time. Then I start, it kind of comes up to being more front of mind, and that's the moment when you have to...

Get on the page or the computer or whatever it is. And also listening to lots of music. So you're constantly getting new ideas and challenging your expectations of you think you're doing there's so much stuff being made so it can be a little bit overwhelming You can usually find a little thread to follow.

Chelsea: I don't know who said that composing, you know is in your mind, but it's true. That's where it's happening. Not in your hands So you don't need to be in front of a piano or anything. I mean, I'm writing my next record at the moment and I've written a lot of the songs and at the moment I'm working on arrangements in terms of string parts or horns and I'm doing a lot of that while I'm driving.

I'm listening to my demos of me just playing piano and, and singing the lyric and then I'm singing over the top what I want the horns to do. And I just hit record on, you know, voice memo or whatever. And I'm singing those parts. And then when I finally get time in front of the keyboard, then I can try popping them in.

But you need that, that space and time. And I'm not a morning person either. And I read that about you that you're not a morning person. I was like, yes, Cat Hope's not a morning person either. There's hope for me.

Cat: Yeah, I mean, yeah, I have to force myself, obviously, for different situations. Like, I can't always, you know do everything to suit my schedule, but um yeah, you're right, and I think too because I don't compose with I focus really on texture and concepts. I think my mind is a really conceptual practice in a lot of ways. A lot of the music I write is really connected strongly to a concept that's kind of explored in the music.

Um, and I think it would be different if I played, wrote melodies and was really interested in harmonic progression, controlling harmonic progression, then I'd probably need to sit in front of a piano. But actually. I need color and space and, and shapes and a principle, like a, a kind of theme that I'm working to that I can explore with those tools.

So I guess it's different from other people and that's kind of just come out of my own interests. And it took me a long time to write for piano because I almost saw it like the pinnacle of the opposite of what I was. It's like buttons that are controlled to a very tempered scale. At least with a lot of other instruments you can bend those, those pitches, right? Somehow, but, uh, and that, you know, they have a slow decay, you know, all these things I was talking about that I was interested in were almost impossible, but I, I found a way. And now I love writing for piano. Yeah. Um, so I've written a couple of pieces. But again, I didn't write them at the piano.

I really kind of wrote them conceptually and I've just been lucky to work with pianists that understood what I was trying to do and were on that journey with me. 

Chelsea: I couldn't interview you and not ask you about music education. When did you first enter academia and what was that experience like? Were you always planning to move into research and teaching?

Cat: No, but I was always a kind of academic kind of person. So I, you know, I did well at university, always read a lot. And I actually wrote a couple of academic papers just for fun. I thought I was going to be, you know, I was really interested in film music. That was my thing. I wrote about the music in Ralph DeGere's films.

And I think J. G. Ballard adaptations, so yeah, I was kind of interested in noise music and how that was featured in films. Anyway, and I was quite happy to go along as an independent artist. It was a hard life, but a rewarding one, and I had colleagues who were in the university and I was always, like, jealous of all the gear that they had, and they were always jealous of how I was able to, like, just leave any time I felt like it, um, with funding that I'd, you know, in their mind, magically got from somewhere.

But then when I had my second child, and one of my colleagues said, I'm leaving the university, I'm worried, I've got to get someone to fill my space, you'd be great, but I guess you're having a baby, and I was like, no, no, no, can I try it out? So I kind of accidentally fell in, which is... Sorry to all those, you know, early career academics out there trying to get jobs, but sometimes that's just how these things happen.

It's all about that networking thing. Of course then my job was advertised, I had to apply and I was fortunate to get it. And as soon as I had enrolled, I started my PhD because I was kind of thinking about doing that anyway. So I did my PhD part time and worked full time and tried, you know, channeled all my practice into the PhD subject and that, I guess, looping back to what I said before is why I had such a kind of different project at the end.

Um, but I loved it. I loved being in the university. This was in 2004 when I first started. It seemed like a place where I could really experiment with ideas in an intellectual way as well as a creative way. That time wasn't really notating music, and I was teaching composition, and I felt a little, definitely felt underqualified.

So, I guess that's how I came to the notation thing eventually. But I loved revisiting all that stuff that I'd done as an undergrad, with a little bit more insight maybe, I'd garnered from being out in the world for seven or eight years. Traveling and playing in bands and all these other things and being an independent artist.

I think that really brought a lot to my academic experience. I was able to design programs that were relevant and interested young people. I like to think that anyway, and I love the research side. I loved teaching. I love being with young people and helping them kind of realize their dreams. I'm a subscriber to the Morton Feldman teaching practice, which is you're there to support people, not tell them how to do it.

Support them to find their way. Show them yours and expect them to follow it. So that just kind of was my teaching principle for a while. But the research stuff, I really loved it. And I loved being involved in the development of artistic research. So art as research and being recognized in the university environment.

So I've been involved with that a long time. And then in 2017, I moved to Melbourne as head of school and professor. And that was a whole new journey for me. where I could really get involved in developing a program that I thought was right for the time and place. And that was a three year appointment, which went a little bit longer than that.

Um, and so now I have a much more regular university job. But universities have changed. Students have changed. I've seen quite a lot of change in the 20 years I've been working in the university sector. And I think it's getting, you know, it's, for me, It's a real challenge to kind of keep remembering what young people that are coming into the university want to do.

It's changing all the time. Schools are changing. High schools, primary schools. Our society is changing and it's hard to keep across all these things. And also the research frame is changing. Practice research now is much more accepted, but it's still not accepted by everyone. So I don't know, I always seem to find myself in places where there's something to push back against or, or campaign for.[00:38:00]

Um, and, but I love it, so, you know, I'm very fortunate to be in, in this environment.

Chelsea: What responsibility do you think music programs at universities have in terms of contributing to the culture of the music scene?

Cat: I personally believe they have a huge role to play. I don't subscribe to the ivory tower concepts, um, I don't think universities can afford to have that concept anymore.

So what I mean by that is, we have to be thought leaders and develop concepts and new approaches, but we also have to do that with whom, we have to bear in mind with whom are we applying these new ideas? How, you know, who are they for? Where do we see them going? One of the good things about music, you know, universities is that we have a lot of, I know casual staff has been, you know, there's been some terrible mistakes made in universities over in Australia in the last 15 years around the treatment of casual staff.

And in many areas of the university, casuals are exploited, but I think in music universities, we have this opportunity because we have all these amazing practitioners that come in and teach our students and then go back into the industry, right? They don't want to be full time teachers. But they love that, that supplement to their income, but they also love seeing what's happening in the young, with young, with young upcoming artists.

So I think that's a really special environment, right, where you've got intellectuals and practitioners kind of constantly interacting and moving around together with the next generation of people. that are coming up. So there's an opportunity to try ideas out with them, learn from them about what their hopes and dreams are.

And then, you know, I really believe that music academics should be involved in the industry. We should be out there doing stuff. Even if you're a musicologist, somehow involved in that practitioner community, because you're writing about them, right? It's, we've changed our ideas about the way the university interacts with the population.

And I think these are good things. So I think the role is really important. I think that our role is to support the industry so we can leverage our facilities and skills to support the industry. But I also think this, the industry can gain from engaging with us, you know, new ways of doing things, trying out different technologies in my field, for example, or, you know, thinking about music differently when, you know, we have a lot of people from the industry come in and do PhDs with us.

So they're thinking about their work differently, they're using theory as an underpinning principle to their practice, and then they go back out in the industry with quite a different approach. So I think it's like a circle, an iterative circle, that when it works it's really good for everyone. Yeah, I think this kind of, I think we're at an all hands on deck situation in the arts and education in this country right now.

And I think there's a lot of opportunities through that.

Chelsea: What kind of responsibility do you think universities might be able to play in inclusivity in music practice? Because we know in so many genres, the construction of bands is often a monoculture. There's so many bands that are just. All male bands, and if that's something where at every, you know, say in the jazz school, for example, if every jam session, there always were, if every ensemble is with an all male ensemble, if there's more male instrumentalists in the program, then that's who they are developing with in their youth and that's who they're making those networks with it. Then they're going to keep on working with ongoing. So, you know, people like to point quite a lot of the industry and go, you know, there's gender issues in the industry and it's the fault of the record labels or it's the media or it's these other people.

But if that's starting in. education from those early periods, then that's going to continue on. I mean, there's also a lot of conversation around students at university studying music, where we say things like, these are your contacts. These are your networks. These are the people you're going to keep working with forever and nurture those relationships.

And a lot of bands that you see around in. Especially in contemporary music, well, all genres, really, people are still collaborating with people they went to uni with, but if those universities aren't made of diverse or inclusive groups in the first place, if they're quite, you know, very white, middle class groups of students and mainly male, then that's going to be reflected in the creative output or the, that generation's group of recorded output.

Can you talk to us a little bit about that and also the blind auditions and how blind auditions affected the intake of students in some of those tertiary programs?

Cat: Yeah, sure. And you know, you kind of answered your own question there when you said about the groups that are formed in universities going on to be a kind of lifelong career long.

So that's why it's so important and as you probably know, I'm a big, I'm very passionate about gender equity. And when I arrived at Monash, made some big changes that were, you know, hard for some people to, not everybody agreed with how they went. But I really, With how they were implemented, but I really thought that was the only thing and that was quotas, because no amount of talk about oh yes, we appreciate women or, you know, if they're good enough they'll get in.

How many times are we going to say that and then still see the same results? So I introduced a system of quotas and we signed up to the Key Change Initiative, which is a British 50 50 program. But, you know, 50 50 can mean a lot of different things, right? You can have 50 percent of women in your program, but none of them are bandleaders.

You could have 50 percent of staff, but all the men are, are senior. So that's, you know, in some ways a very blunt and not very nuanced approach, but it was a start, and now we're getting into the nuance. So, I think the university sector... Has an obligation to set the scene for equity across gender, socioeconomic status, and you know, the government in the past has been attempting to address that by making, trying to make universities, uh, available and approachable for everyone, culturally diverse, try at Monash to hire people that are, you know, really from a broader range and, you know, really understand that everybody's skills look different in different Thank you.

From different backgrounds and different situations and we really haven't looked back since we've started to make these changes. It's just made it such a better place, much better place to work, for our students to be. Students feel more empowered. I think we have challenges in reaching a broad socioeconomic and cultural diversity.

Um, Monash talks, you know, where I work, talks a lot about being a, you know, first in the family university. So I was the first person in my family to go to university. But I still, you know, if you look at all the, you know, the reports tell a slightly different story than most people that do go to university, still wealthy, middle class, white Australians, so there's a lot of work to be done in that space.

So, yeah, and I think if we're not modelling these things in the university, the students that we produce or that graduate are not going to model it. In their careers either, but I did learn early on that just showing, you know, like being a woman who's working in composition is already, well, it was unusual when I started, let alone being a noise musician, which is one of the things that I pursued.

Um, and I realized quick, quite quickly that that's really not enough just being seen doing it and saying, well, there's one person, how likely is it that I'm going to, you know, so it's really about mentoring and supporting making. Platforms that highlight women's achievements, um,  having a real intersectional attitude around pathways.

So it's not just about women, but you know, intersect that with socioeconomic status and culture and background. And also look at the way we think about music. So you know, I'm not a jazz artist. That I can see this kind of, um, pressure to be extraordinary and have good chops and to kill it. And all these, you know, terminology, um, you know, really like, it is, it's so masculine.

Chelsea: It's totally like, you killed it, you smashed it, I

Cat: smashed it. You know, it's like, so a lot of women, you can put them there, but why would they want to be there? You know, why would you want to work in a, you know, in a department with, with, where this is how everyone's talking and, you know, so I think, um, equity, you know, quotas is part of a puzzle, but doesn't solve it, you know, it's something I guess I could say I learned.

We're starting on a much better base now. We're doing a research project at the school on gender in jazz and improvisation in Australia and it's you know we're just going through interviews right now and you know that everything and more that you would expect is coming up So now it's time to think about How can we take these learnings and implement them as change?

And I think there's a real gender equity problem in Australia, particularly. There's awareness of it. So since I wrote my, um, I wrote a keynote for a conference in 2018. It was called Women in Music or Women in Creative Arts and Music or something. And it was called Gender Equity in, you know, Music or something like that.

It only recently came out, but I've seen so much change since that time, for the better. It's been painful and there's been a lot of, there's been a few trips and stumbles along the way, but I think there's a lot more awareness. A lot of people are just hoping it'll go away and that, you know, as it has done in the past, feminism comes in different ways and, but I think that there's, this time is something different, but it falls on our colleagues, male colleagues, particularly.To ensure that it keeps going, it's not up, it's not up to the, you know, no white middle class person, male or female, is going to stand aside to make a path for someone else, yet that is what I think we need to ask people to do. I just hope that we don't, you know, as someone who works in experimental music, that's definitely a minority of practice, don't penalize, you know, don't use the money from experimental music to support these programs.

Take it from a established organizations that do have these problems embedded in their very structures and use that. So that we can really kind of work together to improve, I guess, the environment for everyone that's hopes to be part of it wants to retain because so many women leave the industry is, you know, Chelsea, you probably know, cause I feel that it's not compatible with having a family.

Well, it's interesting because fathers are part of families quite often too, but that doesn't seem to have any problems for them. So. You know, there's, there's these issues here that are, I think, really need a lot more examination, and there's something unique about the Australian situation. Um, two, I think we do, we're still grappling with our colonial past, and you know, the timing of this interview, we're really showing how much we really do need to grapple with that.

Um, we've had a very hard lesson in the last couple of weeks about that, about the awareness and the preparedness of Australians to take on to confront. Our past, we love forgetting, uh, we don't like to think about hard stuff, we just like to look at our future maverick space, you know, but actually we need to really look at ourselves now.

And um, if we really want to compete on the global stage, we really do need to deal with these problems. Um, because we've got a long way to go, and I think a lot of the work around gender and education is... It's happening in the younger, more adventurous areas. It's not happening in the well established philanthropic spaces.

I think we really, there's a lot of work to be done. And unfortunately, a lot of it falls to the very people that are affected by it. So I'm a real advocate for getting behind these people, being their allies, not making it up to the people that it affects, but actually having a little bit more generosity of spirit in our community.

Working on behalf of others, not just for our own preparedness. And that just means that at the moment, that falls on a lot of men to do that work. And they really need to not be asked. 

Chelsea: That's such a good point. It is often the labour of the marginalised to try and push the boundaries. And it is really exhausting.

I mean, frankly, I'm really frustrated with some comments in the industry that are... Almost tired of having a conversation around gender. Like, didn't we talk about that already? We had Me too. Aren't we over this already? Everything's good now. There's heaps of equality. Everything's fine. I mean, I was told by somebody very senior at ara, oh, gender isn't a problem anymore.

And I just kind of think, uh, well, if you look at the top 100 singles. In the ARIA charts of last year, I think Tones and I, there's one Australian woman in the whole top 100. It's across the commercial sector. It's in the art music world. It's, it's across everything from boards. We're really still not there yet.

When you look at that hard data, we've had, we're having a conversation. Sure. We had one a few years ago. It comes in and out of fashion, but each time that conversation comes up, it's like we nudge a little bit. Um, but we're nowhere near gender parity and the conversation needs to keep happening whether people want to hear it or not.

Cat: That's right. People get sick of it. They just say, can't we just talk about the music? Which is kind of like the merit argument. It is. So if, if, if you really believe in merit, are you telling me that 50 percent of women are not good enough to be in your band or in the ARIA charts? Is that what you're saying here?

Cause that's what it looks like to me. So you know. Like I said, I'm quite political, and yeah, this is a political topic, it shouldn't be. It is. But it, it's um, it's like democracy. If you don't tend it, it will break down. And for me, the foundation of fairness, fairness is not looked after by people who are privileged, right?

But it should be. Fairness is everybody's business. Whether you're, whether you've been subject to unfairness or, or not. It's really everybody has to keep an eye on it, not just those who are suffering from it. Not just those who have never fallen victim to an unfair decision, and I think that's why our industries and institutions This needs to be a constant kind of thing that we return to or things like having it embedded in your strategy as an organization and having benchmarks in that strategy where you do check in to make sure it's going ahead.

Any organization who hasn't got gender or socioeconomic issues in their strategic plan really Aren't living in the contemporary world and it will come back to bite them because they're missing out on so much. That diversity brings so much wealth, both, um, cultural and financial wealth to organizations as heaps of data showing it.

So what's your excuse? There's no excuse. It's not finished. It's an ongoing project. It will never end.

Chelsea:  I love this line in your article and I quote. “Now is the time to ensure we go beyond merely pointing out the issues and endeavor to make tangible changes at every level, whether that be to shock the system, change our language, or enter a conversation.”

You just touched on how important it is for organizations to have diversity and inclusion in those strategic plans. What are things that you think artists can do and audiences can do to. Change the state of play and how do we continue to ensure that people understand and see the issues? 

Cat: Yeah, these are great questions tricky ones too.

So in terms of artists, you know We think of a strategic plan as something an organization has to do to get their funding. What if we all had our own strategy, right? So, this, this is who I am, these are the things that are important to me. How am I realizing them in my practice? How am I living these things?

What am I able to do? You know, what, what, what does, what do I have the capacity for? And if something is really important to me and I don't have capacity, how can I engage others? So these are things we can all think about. So when we put a band together for a gig, just check our privilege a little bit, and think about, well, who am I asking?

Why am I asking them? What if I ask someone that I don't know? I, you know, I can see there's trying, you know, just, it doesn't have to be complete remaking of everything, but just steps. And just, like I said, tending this concept, tending to it like you would a garden, right? Different seasons, different aspects, it's all kind of working together through into the future.

For audiences, I think actually audiences are sick of going to see bands with all blokes, you know? And as a woman, I probably wouldn't go to it. Uh, gig, which is all guys, because there's a dynamic going on there that I'm not particularly interested in and I feel it's really out of date. And anyone who tries to tell me, but they're really good.

Like, really? Like, from what perspective? You know, so I guess audiences are kind of self selecting in a way. And I think it's also about how you sell yourself. You know, do you... You don't have to make a big deal about the way you bring things together or shape your projects, but you can definitely market them in a way that shows this process at work in some ways.

You know, audiences tend to look after themselves, I think. You know, they see diverse lineups of people. Diverse music being programmed and senior leadership roles being untaken by First Nations people, young people, women, people of different backgrounds. They see the changes that they bring and they're good changes.

Um, so there's always a place for this. I'm not saying let's blow everything up. You know, there's still a place. For fantastic groups that have always been together. But I think there's no excuse for the way we shape new things to be, to not have learned these lessons. I think it has to be part of everything.

Like I said, audiences have, can have conversations. How hard was it? Like, I, I know the referendum is still very much on my mind here. And those conversations were hard. In fact, a lot of people didn't have them because we're kind of in our... Groups of, we all kind of think, we all know what we feel. It's not until you go out on the street with a pamphlet or something, you end up having conversations out of your circle that you realize these are hard conversations to have.

And I think we all have to learn how to have them and how to have open fortuitous debate about what's good and bad. And a lot of people at the moment, like you're saying, your colleagues saying, oh, that's over. That's just a, they don't want to talk about it anymore, because somehow, it doesn't, they, maybe it, it, it's embarrassing for them, they've got nothing to add, but I think it's, it's, it's an evolving space, and.

We've all got to just take some time out and talk to each other, you know, about how things are going and check in on the people that we know are doing it tough. And some of those people are people who've always had it easy and now they're like, Oh, what's happening? Why am I getting gigs anymore? Because I'm not the right identity.

They, we need to talk to them too. Right. And, and talk about why it's like this and what the benefits of this. You know, maybe, well, it's time to change your role a little bit. You might want to give something back to the community to support the people that are coming in, in the gigs that you would normally have.

Yeah, it's a, it's an interesting time, right? And as a white, straight woman over 50, you know, I feel that, I felt almost like somehow things were just getting better for me, and then all of a sudden, they've got, backed off again, because now making this space, we need to make space. For a whole bunch of other people, it's so great what's happening, right?

Like, much more First Nations people, we've made opportunities for them. And they're, and, for that community, and they're going for it, it's fantastic. And so some of us have to step back, or step aside, or start redefining their role, right?

Chelsea: Yeah, absolutely. I'd love to chat to you about content within tertiary music education in terms of repertoire and how universities build and contribute to creating a canon.

One of your articles state that despite almost half of tertiary music students in Australia being women, the canon, most tertiary music students are taught features little, if any, compositions, software arrangements or songs created by women and the performances of works by female composers are also rare in student recitals and staff performances.

I mean, this was definitely my experience when I did my bachelor degree in three years of studying contemporary music. There was only one class where we ever looked at, uh, a female writer, as an example, and it was Madonna, where the lecturer just talked about her use of You know, sex in film clips in her books, et cetera, the rest of the entire three years was just exam after exam, week after week of, um, male songwriters and performers.

Can you talk to us a little bit about this? Do you think we're getting better, um, at developing a kind of canon that retroactively puts women composers into collective consciousness?

Cat: I think there's pockets of activity, but not at a, at the top level of curriculum design. So I mean, I'm going to, I've been talking about Monash just because, you know, I was head of school there for a while and part of our 50 50 strategy was not just staff members and performers in our concerts, but it was also a repertoire and exams.

So when you did your final recital, you had to do a piece. By a woman and by Australian could be the same person, but, um, just to shock, like I said before, it was like a shock the system technique and there was so much pushback. Um, but you have to have the infrastructure in place. So, you know, we got the library to order a lot of music by women.

So that it was available, um, we encouraged our staff to familiarize themselves with the repertoire and look a little bit harder so that when students were asking, you know, asking them or when you were teaching them, you knew what to recommend and you didn't roll your eyes and go, Oh God, you know, we have to do this music.

And, but the reasons why not were just quite something like, Oh, you know, if someone's auditioning for Juilliard, they have to play certain repertoire. I was like, well, no, they don't, you know, they, you can play a piece, you know, if you've got everyone playing the same repertoire, cause they're the standards and you have some upstart from Australia playing some kick ass piece by a woman, you know, and they play everything else just the same.

I think you've got a better opportunity to get in there actually. And people are looking for something different. So, yes, it really does have to change. So, the problem, the reluctance is, oh, but the canon, you know, this is the canon. And unfortunately in universities, most of us... I came to the university as practitioners.

We didn't come as teachers, right? We didn't do any teacher training. We bring how we were taught to our teaching. So I'm a, not a fan of that strategy. So look back at how you were taught and think, how can I adjust that and improve that for the, for the now? So I'm not into the master apprentice model, as I said earlier.

So that means you're supporting your student. You're looking at them and trying to understand them and, and what they want out of life. And if I look forward into the career and say, okay, how, you know, how can you work in that space? Then I think you would immediately decide to have music from a big cultural gender diversity base.

Um. Because that will enable you, I guess, in the current climate. But I think we need to question the canon and change the canon. As a university, that's almost our job. We design the canon. So let's make the canon represent what we think our industry is. And the canon has deliberately left out lots of things.

So let's go back, as academics and intellectuals, let's go back and put them back in. Um, you know, I was looking at Carla Bley having passed away recently, what an incredible legacy. You know, and if that's not in the canon in a hundred years from now, there's something desperately wrong. And there's a lot, there were Carla Bley's before that, that just never made it in.

So, I think we have a role in the institution to change the repertoire. To, you know, in pop music, it seems to kind of sometimes slide under the radar, you know, cause the songwriters aren't as visible as the performer. We need to address that. We're looking at who's writing the songs, not just who's performing them.

In music tech, who authored that software you're using? Most people don't even know. You know, software's got its own problems. It's a product that's marketed, it's trying to shape your behavior. Some great writing about the hegemony of the digital audio workstation. You know, these are things that as academics we should be interrogating, not just taking on face value.

So in terms of the canon, it's up to us. When our students come to us, they may not have had The benefit of a diverse experience. Now and then the university, you know, we're world leaders in this space and this is what's leading the world right now. Here's the canon that you should be learning. So we really have an opportunity to make lasting change that shapes students and teach them how to find, not just how to, you know, do what they're told to do, but how do you find this stuff?

How do you make relationships with other musicians? That are fair and sustainable that you will go on to serve you for the rest of your career. I mean, in Decibel, one of the members I went to uni with, like, and that was a long time ago. I'm telling you now. Then, then there's other people in the group who were my student.

So, I really love that, that we've supported in each other through that period and meaningful relationships come from a more fair and equitable approach, I think. 

Chelsea: Cat, I have one more question for you. Which is, what do you still want to achieve?

Cat: Well, I've never been a look I've heard people describe me as ambitious and I'm always surprised when they say that because I've never really planned it much I mean, I've planned in my job, right?

That's my that's that's what I do is in the job, but for my own career I've never really said in 10 years time. I want to be X. Oh, I want to have done Y so for me now I want to keep learning and I'm a lifelong, I'm a big fan of lifelong learning. I'm really looking forward to the next composer I've never heard of, or the author that I've only just discovered, you know, in these last couple of years, a lot of my long term favorite musicians and bands.

Ended or passed away and that really brought home to me how important it is to always be looking. Always be looking. So I guess I'm looking forward to my next discovery, but also for the next collaborators. I just love meeting new people and working with new people and I guess I love working in large scale and that's been really challenging in the last couple of years.

So I guess I'm looking forward to that, but in the short term I'm writing a piece for the Melbourne Town Hall organ. And with some of my collaborators. So that's a really great adventure for me. So as long as those kind of adventures keep coming, I'll be thrilled.

Chelsea: So lovely chatting to you, Cat. Thank you so much for joining me on the Control Podcast.

Cat:  Thanks Chelsea. Thanks for such great insightful questions and the work you're doing in this space. It's really great to have the opportunity to talk about ideas and um, respond to such great questions.