EXSULTATE! | Media Interview

ABC Illawarra Interview | David Vance & Jeremy Boulton

David Vance (Conductor) & Jeremy Boulton (Baritone) appeared on ABC Illawarra with Lindsay McDougall yesterday.

​Lindsay McD.:
... when the time is almost 11 minutes to 6.

VOICEOVER:
Time to relax,

Lindsay McD.:
It's time to relax, but is also time to rejoice, and exsultate, because this weekend The Church on the Mall will be filled with glorious classical music, including Mozart, Bach, and apparently the Australian debut of a piece by Michael Haydn, presented by the Opus Collective Orchestra. In the studio right now, Jeremy Boulton, who will be singing, and who helped organize this, and David Vance, the conductor. Hello Sirs.

David Vance:
Good afternoon.

Jeremy Boulton:
Good evening.

Lindsay McD.:
Welcome about this. Welcome about this, gosh, sorry. Traffic mind. So tell me about it. This is the debut concert for the Opus Collective. What is the Opus Collective? What is this made up of?

Jeremy Boulton:
Yeah, so the Opus Collective is just a new group, and we've put this together with local musicians, and David's a local conductor, and a longstanding musician down here. And so, yeah, just looking to do, obviously a new work for Wollongong, and for Australia actually, in the Michael Haydn.

Lindsay McD.:
‘Haydn’. I prefer ‘Hayden’. It's more of a football. Not football, a cricket player. Haydn.

Jeremy Boulton:
There's Matthew Hayden!

Lindsay McD.:
Haydn.

David Vance:
Or a Governor-General, for that matter.

Jeremy Boulton:
Yeah, that's right.

Lindsay McD.:
Oh yes. Very good point.

Jeremy Boulton:
Yeah. So just a new thing we're trying out down here, and trying to get more gigs going.

Lindsay McD.:
And it's called ‘Exsultate!’. That’s the first piece we shall play. Tell us a little bit about ‘Exsultate, jubilate’.

David Vance:
Okay. This is a piece that Mozart wrote when he was about 16. And it's like a concerto for voice. So it's in three sort of little distinct sections. It's accompanied by strings, and two oboes, two horns, bassoon, and we have a chamber organ. And the soloist is a soprano. And basically it was written for a counter tenor that Mozart admired, and the counter tenor performed this piece. It's in sort of Latin, but sort of says-

Lindsay McD.:
Oh, the lyrics?

David Vance:
The lyrics. But we've got translations in the program [and surtitles]. But it says, "Let's rejoice, and sing." And while it's sort of classy religious, this absolutely is not really religious. It just seems like it.

Lindsay McD.:
But it will be performed at The Church on the Mall.

David Vance:
Yeah. It will be performed, but it's a constant piece, and it's spectacular for the soprano. It gets to sort of, show off her glorious voice, in doing all sorts of virtuosic things.
                                    …

Lindsay McD.: 
On ABC Illawarra, Mozart and ‘Exsultate, Jubilate’. I was conducted there by David Vance to turn that down. He will be conducting at The Church on the Mall this Saturday, from 3PM, for ‘Exsultate!’. And tell me about this piece that's going to be played, that hasn't been performed in Australia before, by Michael Haydn, Franz' younger brother.

David Vance:
Well we think it hasn't been performed. It's quite likely. The score arrived in Australia when my partner, who's a soprano, returned from her 35 years in Europe, singing. And she would have sung this piece in Salzburg, where the manuscript was found. And there's an ensemble called Collegium Vocale Salzburg, in which she was singing. And the director of that, I think, transcribed the manuscript, which he'd probably found in an archive somewhere. Quite a lot of Michael Haydn's music was never published, because he was overshadowed by his brother, who was much more famous.

Lindsay McD.:
He was a mate of Mozart's as well though, wasn't he?

David Vance:
Yes, absolutely.

Lindsay McD.:
They were sort of friends. Yeah.

David Vance:
And so one day we were talking, Jeremy and I, with Pamela. And she said, "Oh, you could do this." And so she dragged it out.

Jeremy Boulton:
And David was very adamant, "Don't lose this Jeremy, we only have one copy."...

David Vance:
We only have one copy. It's not the original, of course, manuscript, but it's a lovely piece. And so we've transcribed it onto the computer, so we've got readable scores. And it's a duet. So for baritone and soprano, and strings, and continuo.

Lindsay McD.: 
It's lucky you have a baritone right here.

David Vance:
Absolutely, yeah. Couldn't do it without him.

Lindsay McD.:
When did you start singing? Because you've done a lot of things, Jeremy, in terms of doing The Pirates of Penzance, The King and I, scholarships with Opera Australia.

Jeremy Boulton:   
Yeah. So Rachel Bate, who won the Australian Singing Competition, she was from down here and she started teaching me how to sing when I was about seven, or eight, or something like that. And the public school system was very good. Lots of opportunities. And I started just finding my way. And then I got into classical music towards the end of high school, and yeah, met David, which was great. And David played for some exams. And yeah, it all started going that way. And then doing Gong Opera which is happening down here now. So just getting into all of those opera things, and trying to make a career in it.

Lindsay McD.:       
And are you based here, or at the Sydney Conservatorium at the moment?

Jeremy Boulton:     
I live down here, and I commute to the Sydney Conservatorium to study. So I’m doing the commuter life, which… it is what it is.

Lindsay McD.:         
A lot of time on the train to listen to opera, to classical or podcasts.

Jeremy Boulton:           
Yeah. Plenty of all!

Lindsay McD.:             
A little bit of Bach. Tell me about this, because Bach has written this long, long thing called ‘I Have Enough’. But what you brought in is a piece with a different name, which is ‘I Am Looking Forward to my Death’.

Jeremy Boulton:       
That's right. Yeah, that is right. And it's the last movement of that work.

Lindsay McD.:              
Appropriate.

Jeremy Boulton:       
And so basically it's the story of ... It's the biblical story of Simeon. And Simeon, after seeing baby Jesus, and after hearing from God that he will go to heaven, and be forgiven – he can happily die then, at that point. And so basically, he has had all of that happen at this point [in the story]. And we've got to remember these are written in a biblical context, but if we really look at what humans, and people are like, well this is a well sort of oiled man, who's been through life. And it's interesting to try and portray that. And he is happily accepting his death at this point.

Lindsay McD.:              
He is. He's earned his place in heaven, or something like that.

Jeremy Boulton:           
Yes. And he knows he'll be in a good place.

Lindsay McD.:              
It's, once again, at The Church on the Mall, another religious piece. And the Haydn piece, ‘Regina Coeli’, which is-

David Vance:                
‘Coeli.’

Lindsay McD.:              
‘Coeli’. Thank you. That's the name of a bunch of different pieces by different people.

David Vance:                
The ‘Regina Coeli’ is a standard of the antiphons-

Lindsay McD.:              
For the Virgin Mary.

David Vance:             
Yes, absolutely. Queen of Heaven. And anyone who was anyone from about the year dot has written a setting on it.

Lindsay McD.:              
It's like doing a version of ‘Khe San’ if you're an Australian.

David Vance:                
Well that’s right. ‘Hayden’ – I'm doing it now.

Lindsay McD.:              
‘Haydn’.

David Vance:                
‘Haydn’. That's Mick – Michael – wrote about eight different settings of it. So there are lots of settings of this piece, but it's a very short text. "Hail queen of heaven,"…

Lindsay McD.:              
And it will be performed, possibly, its Australian debut-

David Vance:                
We trust, yeah.

Lindsay McD.:              
... this Saturday, The Church on the Mall. I'm going to put on Bach's part of Ich habe genug, which is I'm not going to…

David Vance:                
‘I have enough’.

Lindsay McD.:              
‘I have enough’. But the other bit is I am-

Jeremy Boulton:           
‘Happily anticipating my death’.

Lindsay McD.:              
​‘Happily anticipating my death’. Thank you so much for coming in, Jeremy, David.

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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