ACO Underground

I’d hazard for most people it’s going to be a bust of Beethoven and his Symphony No. 9 (or perhaps Edvard Grieg for the more maudlin among us). But for years now the Australian Chamber Orchestra has been working to take the bust off the mantle and into the light of day. ACO Underground takes this one step further, picking up classical and contemporary pieces and transporting them to popular venues, like at its upcoming appearance at the Factory Theatre with special guests including Violent Femmes bassist Brian Ritchie and guitarist Jim Moginie from Midnight Oil.

Satu Vänskä is the assistant leader of the ACO, and as she and the orchestra get preparations underway, she discusses not only their hopes and motivations, but her own multicultural development as a Finnish-Australian violinist who grew up in Japan and studied music in Germany.

“As always, the things that happen in your life, in a sense you are the worst person to make the judgement of what has made an impact on you,” she says. “But I’m sure there is an element in your life as an artist where the experiences of your life automatically go into your musicianship. I would say something that is probably there [for me] is not being afraid of some sort of rebellion. I was in Germany, playing in the orchestra as a violinist, and – well, let’s just say for a girl in her early 20s and being interested in all kinds of genres, those orchestras then were all male-dominated, very conservative and very institutionalised.

“That kind of world affected me very much, in that it made me decide I would never want to live in a world like that. That led to the ACO, which is the anti[thesis] of all of that. It’s much more modern, and as a young female, I was allowed to be myself. I didn’t have to pretend, I didn’t have to be conservative in my musical interests. ACO operates with a much more explorative nature. But at the same time, there is technical excellence there, and professionalism, which I also love.”

ACO Underground has been breaking the mould of traditional classical music performances since 2012. Here, violin and cello meet electric guitar and bass, Bach meets Neil Finn, all led by Vänskä’s vocals and her 1728 Stradivarius violin (the only Stradivarius in Australia). The purpose of these gigs is not just to introduce new audiences to the wild energies of classical music, but also to remind those dyed-in-the-wool fans that there is more to music than sitting primly in a concert hall.

“We like to turn things on their heads a little, to change people’s perspectives,” says Vänskä. “Classical music you expect to be something very nice and comfortable, something for grannies. But in ACO Underground, we often play classical composers that are from the 20th or 21st century, and though they’re called classical composers, if you put them next to a pop song, you’ll often find it’s the pop song that sounds nice and safe and for grannies. It’s the classical composers like Penderecki that sound punk in comparison.

“‘Classical music’ is a very wide term, and it also includes the avant-garde, it includes so many things. It’s composers like Handel, who I love, but it’s also such a wider world. We often find hardcore electronica has much more in common with Botella [and] Stockhausen than it does with pop music. It’s about letting people come and hear the concert, the gig, whatever you want to call it, in a place where it doesn’t matter what genre it is, but somehow it all makes sense.”

So far, the response from critics and fans alike has been unanimously strong. Vänskä acknowledges that convincing someone to attend their first classical concert can be a tough sell, generally because of the dated conceptions people have with such music; the impression it’s chamber music played while people dance stiffly in royal courts. But the reality is so much more energising and enthused, and with ACO Underground, the atmosphere is even more informal.

“It developed from ACO audiences saying they wish they could go and see the show but have a beer at the same time,” says Vänskä. “Which is a totally fair wish – I think the music sounds better and the beer tastes better. Bach sounds better with beer! I think it’s important to take music out of the concert hall. I think that experience can be daunting for some people, but also, it gives us the opportunity to program something very different to what we would normally do.”

Vänskä’s precious Stradivarius is owned by the ACO Instrument Fund, and for instruments of such history and notoriety, the chance for an individual to become part of their story seems a unique and enviable opportunity – something of which Vänskä is very aware.

“It’s incredibly humbling to be part of the history of such a great instrument. It’s an honour, because this instrument is going to outlast me. Well, hopefully, unless something awful happens. These are things that are alive. They aren’t objects that are still, they have a life of their own, and I am part of that violin’s life at the moment. But at the end of the day, it is still a tool. I’m a violinist, and having a violin that makes all those colours is for me the same as a pen for a writer, a brush for a painter. It’s a voicebox for me.”