Musica Viva Australia is proud to introduce the newest FutureMaker, Matt Laing! Along with the Partridge String Quartet, the Melbourne-based violist is part of the fourth iteration of Musica Viva’s acclaimed leadership initiative, FutureMakers. The program is designed to discover brilliant, early-career artists destined to be the musical leaders of tomorrow, providing them with the support to continue to grow and evolve as musicians.
Matt Laing recently sat down with Musica Viva to discuss what being a FutureMaker means him, his first (digital) intensive for the initiative, musical inspirations and innovation within the chamber music world.
What inspired you to first pick up a viola, and why have you continued playing it to this day?
I started on violin as a child like most viola players but I saw the light, switched and haven’t looked back! I love the sound of the viola, and it’s great from a composition perspective when playing in an orchestra or quartet because the viola chair is a great vantage point to enjoy what’s going on around you and learn how a piece works.
How did you first begin composing?
I dabbled a bit when I was young, and while I was studying at university I was sketching ideas for different works but it wasn’t until I finished my viola studies and was working professionally that I started to complete works and get them performed. I always felt at some point composition was going to be a big part of my musical life, and a lot of my compositional opportunities have come from developing artistic relationships through playing the viola.
Your music is described as being ‘fundamentally driven by an interest in storytelling through sound’, what is it about telling stories through your music that is important to you?
I see it as fundamental to the art form itself, whether the story has some external influence or is the development of purely musical ideas, music is a temporal art form that needs to evolve to say something and be impactful.
What kinds of stories do you typically like to tell through your music?
It varies, it’s usually a response to the time or something I’m reading or listening to, or a personal observation about nature or society. I try to keep the subject matter deliberately pretty vague, and write in a way that allows an audience to bring themselves and their own lived experience to a work, I feel like art/classical music is uniquely able to do that, and playing with the context of that experience is something I want to explore in the future.
What have been some career highlights for you to date?
The opportunity to write for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra through the Cybec Young Composer program was really special having worked as a viola player with the orchestra for years, and I’m really looking forward to hearing the bassoon concerto I’ve written for them in mid-September. I had a work premiered overseas last year just before COVID hit which was a great milestone, but looking back it’s the opportunities that have been given to me really early on when I had little compositional experience from groups like Flinders Quartet and Ossicle Duo that are really special. For early career composers there’s no substitute to professional groups playing your work back to you to develop and learn, so I’ll always be grateful for that