Christchurch. How is a wound so deep ever healed? What will give salve? We naturally turn to the common things among cultures — love, of course, and music.
Christchurch has gone through this before. This time the emotional, cultural and community foundations are shaken; last time it was the physical foundations of the city. After the big earthquake in September 2010, then the REALLY big earthquake in February 2011, the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra lost all its performance spaces and all its rehearsal space. Everything. No surprise there — 85% of the city either fell over in the quake or had to be knocked down afterwards. It would have seemed to most orchestras that there was nowhere left to play, but the CSO is not like most orchestras. As their chief conductor, the Australian Benjamin Northey, says — “These people are incredibly brave, and they’re incredibly stoic. The orchestra has become a symbol of resilience.”
In fact, the orchestra didn’t merely find a way to survive after the earthquake; it increased its audience fourfold. The CEO of the orchestra, Gretchen La Roche, spoke to me this week about the orchestra finding “the essence of the orchestral art form” in the months and years after the earthquake. In other words — what was completely necessary for the orchestra to continue, and what could they do without?
The first thing to do without was a dedicated concert space. Within weeks the orchestra was giving concerts in a variety of places, including an aircraft hangar. One still in use. Three aeroplanes and two helicopters had to be removed every time they did a concert. And Gretchen had to check the weather report for each gig, as the hangar has a tin roof.
Another thing that wasn’t completely necessary — standard repertoire. In the months after the earthquake the whole CSO or smaller groups went to schools, old people’s homes, special needs centres, prisons, and responded to what people wanted to hear, what people wanted to play. And they still do, but it is rarely traditional classical repertoire. A school student writes a poem, the musicians help them turn it into rhythm and music, often with found objects as instruments. Prisoners guide a workshop with the music and words and movement they want to make, not what has been prescribed for them.
The CSO listens and responds. It doesn’t dictate. Throughout Western music history, classical musicians have been taught to read an archaic system of black dots and play music which will always end the same way, even if it’s been played for hundreds of years. So, as Gretchen says, this new way of working, where the musicians have no idea what will happen from moment to moment, challenges them to behave in complete opposition to how they were trained.
Gretchen says the work in the community goes on in these days after the attack. This week they are visiting a men’s prison. Who knows what music the inmates will want to work with, knowing they cannot be with their families and help them in this fraught time. Gretchen La Roche and Benjamin Northey are immensely proud of this work; the orchestra now gives half their time to community work, half to concerts. It’s a rare thing in the orchestral world.
The orchestra has such a strong connection with the re-imagining and the rebirth of Christchurch since the earthquake. Once again, but in a completely different way, the people of Christchurch and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra are being tested. But as La Roche says:
“We bring people together. We provide opportunities, through memorial or distraction, for people to find their own ways to process what has happened. Either with big concerts, or through a workshop and one-on-one connection.
We love our community. We want to serve it in any way we can.”
In the weeks, months, years to come, there is no doubt music and the Christchurch Symphony Orchestra will not only help heal the wounds, they will help prevent this ever happening again.
Ed Ayres presents Weekend Breakfast on ABC Classic (Saturday and Sunday 6am – 9am). He also presents The Art Show on RN (Wednesday 10am).