
Oriana Chorale’s emerging composer in residence, Aija Draguns, whose new work is part of the coming Musica Domestica concert, seems well and truly to have emerged.
A graduate in composition from Sydney Conservatorium of Music where she has studied under Paul Stanhope, her vocal compositions have been performed by The Australian Voices, Sydney Philharmonia choirs, Sydney Conservatorium choirs, National Youth Choir of Australia, Konzertprojekt, Trinity Grammar School choir, Coro innominata, The House that Dan Built, and Melbourne’s Latvian choir, Daina.
Her first orchestral piece, Lavender Paper Cranes was performed by Sydney Philharmonia Orchestra at Sydney Town Hall, her children’s opera Max and Moritz at Sydney Opera House and her short opera drama In Cosmic Utero at NIDA’s Parade theatre.
On the side, she’s an orchestral arranger and has written for the shows Queen Orchestrated and David Bowie Orchestrated.
When I catch up with Draguns, she tells me her current focus is conducting and she’s busy working with groups such as the Latvian Men’s Choir and the Leichhardt Espresso Chorus, the latter billed as a “caffeine-fuelled choir with a difference”.
Brought up on the northern beaches in a family of Latvian immigrants, she spent much of her youth at Latvian House in Strathfield practising dancing and music, and says the Latvian diaspora “has its own songbook”.
Unlike the enormous Greek and Italian communities in Australia, she believes, the relatively small Latvian cohort (she notes that Latvia is smaller than Tasmania) has, through music and culture, been able to hold its own despite political changes in the motherland.
She read on Facebook about Oriana’s plans to prepare for its 50th anniversary in 2028 and applied by setting some recent works and was chosen, she presumes by artistic director Dan Walker and the curator of Musica Domestica, Canberra-raised composer Sally Whitwell, now living back in the ACT.
“It’s harder to get funding for big orchestral works,” Draguns says, “but the voice community is very supportive in terms of commissioning.”
She has been engaged to write three pieces this year and so far she’s just done the present one, part of a “really cool concert” titled Musica Domestica (or Diary of a Remote Worker in Thirteen Chapters).
According to curator Whitwell, it picks up on the working-from-home experience of the freelance creative.
”Tasks are set around the rooms in which they occur, kitchen wake-up, bathroom self-care, working in the study and relaxing in a favourite armchair in the living room,” says Whitwell.
“There are even some household chores.
“We move through the zones of the creative worker’s home, sunrise to sleep, so you can see how and where we make our stories for you to consume in your leisure hours.”
And as well as three pieces called Caffeine Kick by Whitwell herself, there’ll be segments by notables such as Henry Purcell, (Rounds and Catches on Drinking) Stephen Hatfield (Three Ways to Vacuum Your House) and a bathroom song by Michael Nyman.
“Mine is about the study,” Draguns says, “and my task was to reflect the struggle with the computer, so it is called One More Email: A Tragedy.
“It was quite a specific brief so I was a bit nervous at first, but it was really cool to push myself as a lot of my music is war-oriented, in line with what is happening around the world, very dark, so it was fun to look at this piece.
“As a freelancer I spend a lot of hours in endless piles of emails so this music becomes quite comedic – sitting at the desk, setting up rhythms, intermittent sounds crackling through, and pop-up ads.”
Most irritating of all to Draguns is “that circle that keeps going around and round”, so her music, written for soprano, alto, baritone and bass, mimics the slow internet as the chorus sings: “The wheel of death will be my demise.”
Oriana Chorale’s Musica Domestica, The Street Theatre, June 29.
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