MUSIC @ APA EXPO 2017

Faith James chats with Professor Aidan Chamberlain, Programme Coordinator-Music about his plans for the 2017 edition of APA EXPO.

Asked about the idea behind APA EXPO, Professor Chamberlain explained that it's about showcasing the students' work-in-progress as a performance and promotion exercise.  Precise and to the point in explaining his role and responsibilities, the Trombonist of the UTT Ibis Ensemble who also teaches arranging and harmony as well as serving as Programme Coordinator for the B.F.A. Music Programme shines light on the meaning of the word "Coordinator" at the Academy for the Performing Arts.  As one of two coordinators for the music area (the largest at APA), he organises students, faculty, rooms and timings in everything pertaining to performance, while his colleague Dr. Mia Gormandy organises the same for academic matters.

APA EXPO is designed to give the students a platform [from which] to perform…

"This year, we're showcasing some ensembles seperately and we're combining others, but overall we're trying to show all the different aspects of music performance at the APA."

Adressing the possibility of this year's EXPO following a theme, he explains that four conerts on EXPO Saturday are divided by genre. A string concert, a jazz concert, Praisefest which is an elaborate vocal concert illustrating the musical traditions of different religions, and finally, Evolution of Pan,  a concert showcasing compositions and arrangements by student of the APA Pan Studio.

"APA EXPO is designed to give the students a platform [from which] to perform, and it's also aimed at the public and potential students. We're very keen for people who might be interested in coming to the Academy to see what we do and this is supposed to be our best work so that we can encourage and entice people to come to the APA in the future."

With seven APA music studios, there is a lot to offer…

In preparing this musical feast, Professor Chamberlain works with other members of the music faculty: Simon Browne, Anthony Woodroffe, Mia Gormandy, Seion Gomez, Roger Henry and Leah Browne to name but a selection.

"The music department divides into studios by grouping a family of intruments; strings, wind, brass, percussion, voice and piano and pan. So there are seven studios in the Department and each studio runs an ensemble which can combine with others."  He cites the APA Big Band as an ensemble composed of multiple individual studio enembles.

"With seven APA music studios, there is a lot to offer, so getting that to fit into two days is a challenge. The challenge on the first day is that school kids get to come in and initially we thought we could offer all seven (7) studio performances but then we realised, with so many students coming in, they really would only have a chance to see three or four things.  We would be giving them seven music studios, plus Acting, Dance and Theatre Design and Production (TDP).  Ten things seemed a bit too much and also heavily weighted towards music, so we decided to combine it into one music show."

The challenge is that we're doing five consecutive concerts…

On EXPO Saturday, with the entire day to play with, time, he went on to clarify, will not be quite as tight, but the sheer quantity of different music on offer will place Chamberlain as the coordinator under considerable pressure.

"The challenge is that we're doing five consecutive concerts, so we need to have a setup in the theatre that can accommodate all those different groups. If we decided to have different setups for each group, that would be a lot of stage changes, which would take a long time to execute."

In wrapping up this in depth look at the EXPO machinery as seen from within the APA Music Department, I ask what makes this second showcase different from the first.

"[This year]…everything is happening in Theatre 1, where as we were all spread out last year into several different studios and classrooms.  A lot of students felt that they didn't see many performances, so [this time around] we'll have [fewer] performances and students can see …everything."