In Focus: Michael Kieran Harvey

Widely considered one of the foremost interpreters of contemporary piano music, Michael is a champion of Australian music as a performer, composer and commissioner of new Australian music.

We talked to Michael about his career, how he rejected the typical concert pianist path, how he finds meaning in what he plays, how he battles stage fright, and what inspires him in the world of science, literature and music.

You talk about coming upon Carl Vine’s music, namely his Sonata, as an “Ah-ha” moment, where you realised that this was the type of music you wanted to perform. Do you recall your early ‘Ah-ha moments’ when you learned to play that helped you carve out your musical pathway?

One of my early ‘ah-ha’ moments was the realisation that the energy in music happened in the joins, between the notes, underneath the radar, as it were. It was the Stravinsky sonata, and it might have been a competition when I was about 11 or so: desperately experimenting prior to the performance, I decided that the way to an exciting reading of this fairly dry neoclassical piece lay in contextual contrast, actually playing inhumanly, like a machine, and resisting organic processes like rubato in favour of ‘cut-film’ contrasts. It is the negation of your ego under pressure. That may not make sense to people who consider me an idiosyncratic or even histrionic player, but performance is not about me, only the music.

My ‘ah-ha moments’ as an adult were times when I could see a point in continuing professionally with music. I know that seems pretty grim, but I also know that many young people, in particular, find it hard sometimes, so I think it’s important for them to realize others understand; that music’s not all about fake cheerfulness, effortless talent. I’ve been lucky so far – these ‘ah-ha moments’ had come just when I needed them. I haven’t strategized for them, though. Vine’s Sonata arrived in my letterbox at a time I was ready to pack it in: I’d just returned from overseas incredibly disillusioned with the European competition music scene. Vine’s music was strong and didn’t sound mawkish or cute and pastoral like so much marketed Australian music just then (the late 1980s), and it restored my faith in Australian music. It represented something I felt I could contribute to and, hopefully, make a difference.

I remember when I was very young, about 7, deciding to do something about my sight reading. My grandmother, a music teacher, had all these old AMEB books. I remember sight-reading through all the grades until the sun set through her Venetians, making stripes on the music. I kept reading till it was dark, hypnotized. Then I just kept improvising. I was engrossed and happy. That was an ‘ah-ha moment’ when I realised listening to, exploring and preferably playing unfamiliar music was fascinating to me. That, if you like, is a direct connection I have with the AMEB: if it wasn’t for the fact that all those books were hanging around my grandmother’s music room. My family were relieved I was finally occupied and not terrorizing them, so they left me in peace; I might not have been turned on to a lifetime dedicated to contemporary music!

You’ve mentioned that you can sometimes have terrible stage fright. How do you battle your stage fright? What tools (so to speak) work best for you when you prepare to go on stage?

Any performance is nerve-wracking because it’s in front of my harshest critic – me. However, ‘me’ is also playing and psychologically vulnerable; ‘me’ is doing his best, so lighten up, will you?

I think the only attitude one can have to feel nervous is that it would be a sign of serious death or major psychopathy if you didn’t feel nervous, so aren’t you lucky? I also think, “what’s the worst that can happen?” Perhaps a bomb in the theatre or wherever – so if it doesn’t happen and you’re still alive by the end, you’ve done a lot better than a number of unfortunate people.

Other situations like exams etc. – well, world history isn’t exactly a catalogue of exam results, is it? Will people be interested in your results for a year, a week hence I wonder? A lot of musicians resort to drugs for nerves – I don't condemn them. Still, I do think it paves the way for roboticism, as it emphasises approaches that promote comforting routine over flashes of inspiration that might upset the applecart. A failure is an option, a very human option, and this risk should be much more a part of our culture because it defines our humanity and stimulates innovation. It’s all we’ve got left come to the rise of the machines.

You’ve said that for you, finding meaning in what you play is one of the most important parts of why you choose a particular piece or project. Can you talk about how you’ve sought this sort of meaning and whether finding meaning happens early on or as you get to know the repertoire more intimately?

Hermeneutics, the interpretation of notation and symbols, the metaphorical unleashing of the imagination, and the overlaying of almost fractal-like meanings that occur and seemingly can ONLY occur in music keep me engaged with this art form irrespective of prosaic career considerations. Interpretation has always been my most important and personal aspect of musicianship. I couldn’t understand the desire to conform to existing interpretations, or even worse, the desperate search for definitive interpretations that obsessed the teachers and institutions I grew up with. I always wanted to find my means of artistic expression. Why bother otherwise?

Plenty of mechanically perfect renditions of repertoire are available as demos on electric keyboards and reproducing pianos. A score or even a recording of improvised music is like a palimpsest, a multi-layered map. The score has undergone these various distillations beginning with the composer trying to get the initial sound in their head down as notation, right through to the edited publication. Back to Urtext editions as all the encrustations are removed, then added again as teaching suggestions, paraphrases, arrangements etc. Recordings of great improvised performances are similarly condensed (look at Miles Davis’ Bitches brew, for example), then mashed up, sampled, turned into icons, cultural memes, smug references, ironic signatures etc.

There are all sorts of levels to explore once you let go of ideas of the ‘definitive’ or ‘perfect’ or ‘absolute’ and start to think instead of ‘possibilities.’ The trouble is, most people are taught to conform and are constantly looking for ways of being pleasing to others. Music is sterile and boring under these mindsets. I wonder if we would have a canon of music in any genre if the musicians thought this way. Everyone, from Bach to Liberace, Hildegard to Marilyn Manson, Gesualdo to Joe Zombie, Paganini to Cecil Taylor, Beethoven to Michael Frante, was a rebel, a non-conformist.

One of the many things that make you unique as a ‘classical’ pianist is your love for rock and roll and experimental rock. Who are your favourite artists to listen to these days?

With respect, I don’t think I’m anywhere near unique in my interest in more histrionic forms of music. We’re a predominantly visual culture, so all musicians have absorbed visual images, especially pop musicians, at some stage in their lives. What I like about some rock acts is their ability to send themselves up along with the whole ‘industry’ while still managing to make a living. That’s very clever and healthy. I tend to be more impressed by the ones that can play their instruments – that’s my ultimate benchmark. I like my music instrumental, virtuosic and abstract.

There are so many musicians I admire, it's hard to know where to start, and always I wouldn't say I like lists because you always miss out on someone important. Still, I have to say some of my favourites are Australians like Anthony Pateras, Eugene Ughetti and Slave Pianos. I admire the musicianship of Tasmanian musicians Brian Ritchie and the Tom Vincent trio tremendously. John Zorn, DJ Spooky, Living Colour, John McLaughlin, anything with Terry Bozzio in it, Charles Wuorinen, Sepultura (especially Eloy Casagrande – astounding!), to name a few off the top of my head: the contemporary scene is exploding with an oversupply of extraordinary musicians all busily vying for attention. It’s an exhausting time to be alive, as every musical genre bursts at the seams with people trying to make a living.

You’ve often rejected the typical repertoire, standard gigs, and traditional ‘concert pianist’ career journey through your career. Instead, you’ve insisted upon following your interests in new music, rock, Australian composition, and other areas. What challenges did you face when making these decisions, and what support did you find along the way?

Again, with respect, people may be unaware that I have played and recorded a lot of traditionally notated repertoire. I will continue to do this occasionally, if only to prove how far one can reinterpret it. I certainly don’t reject it, and I feel it doesn’t have much to say to me as a 21st-century Australian, except the historical perspective of museum pieces from imperialist countries. It’s a question of what I want to spend my very limited lifetime doing; where is the area of most need? I’ve always felt a great responsibility to Australia, and my musical colleagues, who are all struggling to be heard against the tsunami of imported music. There's a great deal of talk about not identifying as Australian and simply being a global citizen. Still, the fact is in classical music, Australia lacks the positive chauvinism, philanthropic support and public pride of other countries in its classical music, so it needs a lot of help, just like our film industry, to even begin to be heard.

I'm not a great fan of the concert pianist concept, which is why I have spoken out against training kids with this expectation (my views are quite well-known and accessible on the web). I don’t believe in a “traditional ‘concert pianist’ career journey”! Please, what IS that? I think piano players should be versatile enough to adapt to any situation. As a young boy, I thought concert pianists were terribly old-fashioned, like orchestral music and opera, and was convinced that they couldn't possibly still be around when I was grown up. I never understood why some pianists (and most classical musicians) were regarded as ‘artists’, with all the original creativity that term implies, when all they ever did was play covers. A garage rock band playing their own charts displays more originality and independence. I remember being interviewed on the ABC before my Sydney Opera House debut in the ‘80s and being asked, “You're not just going to sit at the piano and play, are you?” That really floored me because, of course, he was right. How dull. I determined to always find something new at least to present to an audience, even if I couldn't be a great popular performer like a Barry Humphries or a Tim Minchin.

I always thought it was normal doing what I did, playing new stuff, as did my boyhood heroes Liszt, Bartók, George Duke, McCoy Tyner, John Lord, Jan Hammer and Beethoven. Even Glenn Gould, who played repertoire but also composed, presented unheard-of travesties like the Goldbergs on piano, or Beethoven sonatas with retrograde dynamics, and recordings of Schönberg and obscure Canadians like Hétu. I always tried to avoid snobbery and situations where the hegemony was on display, especially after my international competition-circuit days.

Mine has been a heuristic path. So inevitably, I've upset a lot of old conservatives. I’m proud of that. The poor things can’t understand how someone like me would feel equally at home playing keyboard in a quagmire in freezing rain (as I recently did for MOFO) or playing synth in a rat-infested concert hall with a punk band and gamelan ensemble in Yogyakarta, as playing the Ravel Left Hand with the SSO (there’s not much difference in the atmosphere actually!). I've received a lot of support from people outside of classical music, like Brian Ritchie (of the Violent Femmes), Graeme Murphy (Sydney Dance Company), Jon Lord (of Deep Purple), and organizations like La Mama and Astra, both in Melbourne, interestingly.

What is one of the best pieces of advice you received while studying piano?

Hearing the story when I was about 12 of an Australian pianist touring the outback: he was playing something ponderously slow with a constipated expression. It might have been the Moonlight. Some poor guy dragged along to the concert by his CWA wife couldn't take it anymore and yelled out, “have a go, ya mug!” Moral: Never bore your audience. It doesn't even matter to me if the story’s apocryphal.

What inspires you?

Science – especially the ramifications of the Large Hadron Collider and the aftermath of the Singularity. I'm hanging out for the unified theory; I'm so lucky to be alive. Aubrey de Grey and the SENS institute freak me out (they’re researching immortality), as does the MIRI (Machine Intelligence) institute. My favourite writers are Dawkins, Dennett, and A.C. Grayling, whom I've all met. I'm proud to say.

Currently, I’m undertaking a PhD in composition with Richard Vella, who is visionary in his embracing of new science/arts interfaces.

Family – my super-intelligent and gorgeous wife Arabella; my extraordinary parents, who still do outrageous and creative things; my three siblings, ditto; my two headstrong and amazing children; they’re all musicians! Crazy?!

Bob Brown – in my opinion, our greatest human.

Tasmania – the still relatively cool climate, the inspiring wilderness areas and gobsmacking MONA make it the best place to live in Australia.

Shaun Micallef – his generic pianist and André Rieu impressions are superlative, on a par with his Milo Kerrigan, the apogee of Aussie sport.

Literature and philosophy – you are never without inspiration! Several of my compositions have been inspired by Science Fiction: my current project, The Green Brain (Frank Herbert), a re-appropriation of earlier ensemble work, Kazohinia (Sándor Szathmári), and also recent collaborative projects with Slave Pianos based on The Lepidopters (Mark von Schlegell). Earlier science-based works such as my Toccata DNA, which gets played quite frequently around the world, are musical analogies for processes in the natural world. My first piano sonata had literary and socio-political themes: the Dutch cartoon debacle juxtaposed with the libertarian stance of Voltaire and the Marquis de Sade. My Psychosonata (piano sonata #2) is inspired by my association with psychiatrist Saxby Pridmore and alludes to Auerbach’s paintings and Brett Easton Ellis’s novels. My 48 Fugues For Frank, a homage to Zappa, is inspired by my work with yoga master/concrete poet Dr Arjun von Caemmerer – rock meets Avant-Garde meets the Enlightenment philosophy of Rameau, all crashing together. Music has unlimited possibilities and is always an inspiring way to interpret the universe.

Who are some Australian composers you enjoy playing and are looking forward to seeing more of their future work?

I have enjoyed playing all the Australian music I have had the privilege of performing over the last 40 years, even when the going might have been tough. It would be unfair of me to single out names as I have premiered more than 300 works, some of which are huge piano cycles or concertos, some of which are miniatures consisting of a single page or even a sentence of instructions, some of which exist only as graphic scores or illustrations. All are unique, fascinating, and equally valuable, irrespective of their ‘marketability.’ I look forward with curiosity and wonder because, in my experience, you never know where the next gem is coming from. In the last year, I’ve performed five Australian piano concertos, three of them brand new! I’m constantly astonished at the compositional talent bursting out of this country, despite the awesome challenges and indifference it faces.

If you were the piano teacher for Michael Kieran Harvey at age 10, what repertoire would you suggest, and what advice would you give yourself?

What repertoire? The toughest possible, and dare the little ADHD rascal to play it. Perhaps offer him a bribe like an afternoon off to go bodysurfing. What advice? Stick with cricket and Aussie Rules, don’t read Asimov or Bertrand Russell, stay Catholic, and get a trade. Sure to end up like me then (by doing the exact opposite).

What was the most challenging performance you ever gave? How did you prepare for it?

The most challenging? My recent project for MOFO January 2015, which was an original hour-long piece for two keyboardists and percussionists with live yoga āsanas, entitled Patañjali, named after the ancient Yoga Sūtras. I devised, wrote and performed this project, which involved about two years of preparatory work, researching, transcribing and composing, providing parts and a computer mock-up for the yoga master, Arjun von Caemmerer, to prepare his postures, finding funding for the performance, organizing and making percussion instruments—then learning my multiple keyboard part which was virtually impossible! Luckily the other keyboardist was my wife, Arabella, who expertly prepared her part and offered me invaluable advice, so we were able to at least pre-rehearse the keyboard parts. However, the percussionist, Eugene Ughetti, was interstate, so this involved some pretty frantic logistics in getting us all together a few days before the gig. Again, luckily, he's a genius and a wonderful calm person, so nothing was too difficult or too troubling for him! Fortunately, it was well-received, and there’s now even a DVD of the premiere. Comparatively, playing Messiaen’s Vingt Regards from memory in the Concertgebouw before an audience following with the score (which I did in the late 1990s) seemed like a walk in the park.