Anna Clyne

ANNA CLYNE

by Mikhaila Alyssa Smith

"My passion is collaborating with innovative and risk-taking musicians, film-makers, visual artists and, in particular, choreographers. Creating new works through a fluid artistic dialogue has consistently fuelled my music from new perspectives and has maintained a fresh and exciting creative environment. Inspired by visual images and physical movement, my intention is to create music that complements and interacts with other art forms and that impacts performers and audiences alike." - Anna Clyne.

Part of my personal creative process as a composer almost always involves having an image in my mind or having an image quite literally in front of me - whether it be through film, visual arts or literature. I have always been influenced by other art forms and I have always been absolutely fascinated and thrilled by the joining of those worlds to convey a greater sense of meaning in music, so it was an absolute delight having Anna Clyne step into our space and speak about this very thing. 

Anna spoke so passionately and eloquently about working with other artists and drawing inspiration from other art forms, stating that it allowed her to view her creative process through an entirely different lens. 

"Night Ferry", an orchestral work she shared, began with a painting. She decided to draw a timeline so she could visually see the structure of the music before she placed any notes on paper. In her studio, she put up seven pieces of paper - each representing three minutes - and, reading from left to right, she began painting a dark, turbulent wave. After painting the first few minutes of her work, she began writing the music and then returned to the wall to paint - repeating this process. She showed us this painting and it was filled with rich colours, expression, contrast and a beautiful chaos - whilst still maintaining a sense of coherence through a thematic idea visually represented by a red ribbon binding it all together. 

I loved her musical imagery. It was rather fascinating to see the way her music evolved visually through shape, form, colour and texture - her music in physical form right before us! It definitely enhanced my listening experience when we eventually got to hear it, and it personally gave me a far greater appreciation of the work, being fully aware of its meaning and the many layers beneath its creation. I loved the way she managed to translate her painting into music. She compared writing for the orchestra to the process of painting; there is that constant thrill of blending colours and creating textures through the combination of different instruments - and the possibilities are always endless. 

She shared many other pieces with us throughout the evening, but I found "Night Ferry" and her compositional process behind it rather intriguing, along with "Abstractions" - a five movement work inspired by different pieces of contemporary art. 

I thoroughly enjoyed the talk and could very much relate to her connection to other art forms and their influence on her writing. There was so much I could take from it. 

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