I: WHAT? or, the abstract

IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN THE RGA (IFBDTR)is a 45-minute recital about burn out: the state of total exhaustion, both mentally, physically, and emotionally. More specifically, IFBDTR is a cautionary tale about how trying to take on more that you could, despite an overwhelming enthusiasm for everything you’re doing, can result in the near-total destruction of your body.

The vessel for this cautionary tale? Me. Is that a wise choice? Probably not, but I’d rather it be me than someone else, ethically. This recital will be built on the aesthetics and general conventions of experimental and improvised music and theatre. Though it is structured, the actual artefacts of performance will not be pre-determined.

II: WHY? or, the failings of huh? what?

I started thinking about my graduation recital while still in the midst of my junior recital – huh? what?. Originally, I was going to make some nuanced take on being trans or something using a butterfly metaphor and puppets, but I did not have the time to flesh that out with also trying to juggle honours research. I then took the more sensible approach: just do huh? what? again, fix up the things I felt were lacking, and maybe have a moral at the end.

The one note of feedback I got back from that recital is that the RGA was not the space for that sort of music. Immediately, the first thought on my mind was “what if it was?”, like the contrarian I am. This was the first chip of wood in the flame that would eventually become IFBDTR; I want to do a site-specific performance.

There were two other problems with huh? what? that no one commented on, but stuck out to me personally. First was the limitation in its theming: huh? what? is about language and the obfuscation of language, both in writing and in speech. In order to engage the theme, the musicians needed to read the score as a language, which leaves little space for freedom, creating a rigid structure. As an improviser, that sucked, so when it came time for IFBDTR, I wanted to avoid such limiting scoring.

The other problem with huh? what? is that I went through it quicker than I thought I would, and there wasn’t this definite end. When it ended, the audience stuck around for about 5 minutes, because people thought I was up to some antics and there would be secret last song. Alas, they were wrong. Therefore, IFBDTR needs to have a definitive ending, and it needs to be timed to perfectly fit the time limit, which is where the video comes in (see part V).

Now to answer some questions that the existence of IFBDTR poses:

Why is it called IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN THE RGA? – Burning down the RGA has been an ongoing joke between me and fellow composers for about the entire time we’ve been here? I think it originally came out of a joke discussion about text scores that are outrageous, another one I remember was cutting out the back of a cello and fitting a dead body in there, for the “acoustics”. So, when the time came to think about a recital, I thought what both would encapsulate my feelings and memories of this place better than a four-year inside joke. Another reason is that it is attention grabbing, and the idea of a minimalist recital poster was compelling.

How did the themes of burn out come around? – Originally it was all about shock tactics and danger music, and then I got a hard no on pyrotechnics in the RGA.

As an artist, getting a hard no is very helpful because it allows me to refocus on what I want out of this recital, and after pondering for a bit, finding the word relation between metaphorically burning the place down with my awesome music or whatever and burning out became really alluring, and became the focus.

Why experimental music? – I’m an improviser within the experimental music scene in Perth. My entire practice is built around that sort of sound world. It’s my recital, it’s going to be experimental and improvised. It also gives me freedom to move around a lot of different genres, simulating the want to do everything.

III: THEMES

There are a couple overlapping themes throughout the entirety of the recital that coincides with the whole burn out thing, which I feel like I have explained thoroughly already.

The tortured artist (is bullshit) – Something that has perpetuated my life as an artist is this willingness to destroy myself in order to make good art. This isn’t from nowhere, “struggle” is such a permeating idea throughout all artistic communities, and there’s an all-too-common-yet-entirely-wrong opinion that artists need to struggle. It’s wrong, demonstrably so, and ever since going to therapy about it, I’ve been meaning to explore and proclaim that art should not be from struggle. I aim to demonstrate this through simulating struggle within parts of the recital, and having them be boring and meaningless in the face of absurdity.

You can’t do everything – Throughout the recital, I will try my darndest to do as much as possible. Obviously, this is going to exhaust me, which will make my performance over time worse technically. This is the point, if you don’t pace yourself, you’ll become exhausted. Take time to enjoy the process. Take breaks. This is directed at myself (i.e. you shouldn’t curate and run an ALT show at the Bird the night before your recital, dumbass).

The university experience – On a meta-textual level, this recital is the result of four years of education (and $29,307 of debt) and is supposed to show everyone what I’ve learned from these four years. Inherently, IFBDTR is a celebration of my time here, and that is furthered by incorporating my friends into the ensemble, by physically using the space and the property of WAAPA, and making references that only WAAPA students will get (threatening the Fazioli or calling Tim White, for example).

Breaking the conventions of classical music listening – Technically, what I’m doing is classical music. The RGA is a space for listening to classical music, it was designed so. Thus, the RGA is a horrible space to enjoy music in. The way it’s laid out makes audiences passive listeners. That, in my opinion, sucks. I want people out of their seats (if they want to be), I don’t want people to feel restricted by the space they are listening to music in. So, throughout the performance and within the scores, I have incentivised a demolishment of the conventions of classical music listening. One might even say that that’s what I’m burning down! There are three things being metaphorically burned down in this recital whaaaat. Look I’m tired.

What is and what isn’t the performance – Due to how some plants in the audience might do plant things, other non-plant audience members might start to question what is the performance? Where does it end? Who is in on the bit? This theme is less thought provoking than the others but not everything needs to be deep and impressive. Make the audience think it through more than I have to. I have a whole recital to write, I’ve gotta leave something for the audience to do.

IV: INFLUENCES

Sonically, this is no different from my solo practice, it is just extended to an ensemble, so my regular list of inspirations is the same here. Robert Ashley, John Zorn, Jennifer Walshe, Solomon Frank, Ember Knight, and Sage Pbbbt are the main ones that stick out right now.

Performatively, while the musicians listed are still very influential, I’m predominantly taking cues from comedians and live skit groups. Sam Campbell and Aunty Donna were especially important because that’s what I was watching when I was writing and conceiving of this whole ordeal.

V: PIECE ZERO – FIRE STARTER (aka the video)

As stated before, to help with the timing of the recital, I came up with using a video with a backing track. But what to put on the video? Say, I can’t actually use pyrotechnics, but what if I had a video of flames throughout the entire recital? Maybe even some flame sounds? So for the entire runtime, a low quality gif of a flame repeating over and over (about 700 times) while the sound of a soft roaring flame follows through, achieved through taking a 30-second sample (thanks Audacity) of those 12 hour fireplace videos on YouTube, looping the sample in two different sample players in Bespoke playing at different times in the recording to disguise the cut, adding a 40% mixed granulator to create a sense of randomness and a distortion effect to get rid of the spaciness that the granulator makes.

Funnily, the video doesn’t start when the recital starts, it starts when the doors open. Having it be a constant for the audience I think is fun and works into the whole “where does the performance start and end?” I did consider using the ads that they play before movies, but I don’t have the time and it’s not even that funny.

As the five-minute mark approaches, the flames fade to black, and a pre-recorded welcome to country plays. Pre-recording is primarily for reducing stress; one less thing for me to do. After the welcome to country, a fake phone skit with Tim White plays. Why Tim White? Because I don’t have a relationship with Jamie Oehlers or David Shirley. The general gist of the phone skit is to communicate what the recital is going to do: talk about burn out in a light-hearted manner. When conceiving of the bit, I knew the general structure was introduction -> emotional wellbeing check-in -> change the name of recital, which gets cut off for humorous effect. Talking about humorous effect, the use of the Nokia ringtone was done for two reasons: (theoretically) no one has an old Nokia so (theoretically) no one should check their pockets, and it’s a joke for the shallow (“that ringtone is going off but no one has that ringtone so it’s unexpected haha” I dunno man).

The introductions for everyone is reminiscent of what I was going to do before the idea of using a video came up: introducing everyone like they were professional wrestlers with fanfares and electric guitars. I recorded it because cutting off Tim White is funny, and also to reduce the amount of stuff I have to do live. The guitar sample is ripped from the Homestuck version of Megalovania that I kept pitch shifting up, underneath a huge number of effects. The 3D text is a built-in pre-set in Davinci Resolve (what I used to make the video).

The majority of the video is just flames, but there’s some other things in there too. About 28 minutes in, there’s a reference to a certain genre of TikTok videos where they use clips of the popular mobile game Subway Surfers and clips from Family Guy to hold audience’s attention. It’s especially good for neurodivergent people who have a hard time concentrating on one thing for a particularly long time, and I thought “hey this might be actually handy for something this long.” The other bits that aren’t especially linked to a piece is the sounds of a baby crying, which is the cue to have Jaxon go off stage and come back as the avatar of burn out, also cued by the sound of a wrestling bell dinging. I’ll get into that in part VII.

The video also holds the backing audio for IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN (see part VIII).

Another quick thing to note: a planned bit is when my name is announced, August Pope will actually be walking through. This is because August looks a lot like me, and the goal is to hopefully fool a couple people.

PIECE ONE – BURNS DOWN THE RGA

(it’s currently 12:30 on the day the recital is on, so forgive me if I become less verbose)

The most important part about the first piece is that all the scores that happen during this first piece (Burns Down the RGA, Hand Signs, Double, and Heuristical) all happen simultaneously. The idea of scores within scores within scores is something I am conceptually excited about, and was very eager to put into the recital.

Burns Down the RGA is the most typical score of the bunch, displaying as a set of short sentences, reminiscent of Brechtian text scores. The instructions lie on a spectrum from the literal and informative (interact with the audience, change constantly) to the absurd and abstract (engage with arson on a conceptual level, de-evolve), but all of them come together to build an aesthetic for the musicians to engage with.

Hand Signs is a way to ensure a line of communication between the ensemble that isn’t audible while adding a layer of theatrical performance. It also has this Cobra-like element where everyone is thinking on where the ensemble is going, and trying their best to use signs to push the ensemble into their utopian direction. However, unlike Cobra, where there’s one who chooses, everyone must follow the direction if they see it. It’s like Cobra, but socialist.

Double is a way to incentivising interacting with the space. I find that when I’m doing improvisation, my mind is so focused on the music making that I forget about the space, so purposely putting instruments away from each other will (hopefully) incentivise moving around the RGA in creative ways.

Heuristical is similar to Hand Signs, but is about how you relate to your fellow musician on a more holistic view. I purposely didn’t want total cohesion in the ensemble because I really enjoy that Ivesian ideal of two combatting ensembles in order to make a narrative.

VII: PIECE ONE POINT FIVE – IZZY GETS PUNCHED IN THE FACE

I wanted piece 2 to be strangely dramatic, so I needed something to shift the tone. Originally it was going to be a full choreographed wrestling match between me and Jaxon, but with time limitations, getting punched in the face seemed a lot easier.

The script isn’t supposed to be followed to the T, we’re both improvisers.

Jaxon and I both considered just doing stage combat and faking all the fight, but the stand needs to make sound, and the violence needs to be real to combat the frankly silly script, creating this dichotomy where Jaxon, who oozes this on-stage charisma, feels somewhat unlikeable (as he just punched me and beat me with a stand).

The score is a table, which is inspired by Jennifer Walshe’s EVERYTHING YOU OWN HAS BEEN TAKEN TO A DEPOT SOMEWHERE.

The purpose of this thematically is to be obvious with the point of the piece. There is no room for subtlety this late into the recital, it has a point, and the audience is going to recognise it, whether they like it or not.

It ends with me on the floor as Jaxon returns to the ensemble. Is it absurd? Yes. Is it reminiscent of my problem for not finding endings with my bits and instead just abruptly cutting them off? Yes. Look I can’t think I’m exhausted I was supposed to do this before but I have been braindead for the last week and now this is my last chance to rationalise all my decisions and it’s not going great.

VIII: PIECE TWO – IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN

This is the piece where I preform burning out to the fullest extent. I haven’t scored it because I honestly have no idea what space I will be in after I get beat up, but the general plan is to mumble about how I’m not burnt out, and then slowly become burnt out, get exasperated that I’m getting burnt out, pushing my body further, burning myself out more, continuing into this cycle until I can’t play trumpet anymore, screaming as I fall to the floor, and eventually lay down motionless as the words IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN plays.

The voice switches from BURNS DOWN THE RGA to IZZY FRENCH BURNS DOWN very slowly; inspired by Richard Dawson’s Ogre, which switches from the lyric “when the sun is climbing” to “when the sun is dying”.

The ensemble being somewhat statue-like while playing is supposed to be reminiscent of a cult or ritual, but that’s more to add to the horror sentiment than anything else. I purposely don’t want them interacting with me because burn out is a personal thing. If you continue to pursue self-destructive behaviours in your own art practice, there’s going to be a point where no one can help you. The instruction to get more primal in movement for the ensemble is also to flesh out the cult horror vibe.

It ending in silence is also a nod to huh? what?, and my goal is to keep silent until someone starts applauding. I hope it isn’t immediately after, what I’m looking for is a minute, but I can’t control that, and I think that’s fun. I don’t want to know every little thing that’s going to happen. Talking about that…

IX: THE AUDIENCE

One of the main considerations with IFBDTR is that there are some members of the audience who are actors, or more specifically, students from the performance making course. Currently only two have signed up (Henry Kent and Jake Battle), but about 8 are invited to attend, even without my knowledge. I have given them free range into whatever they want. I am very excited to see what they do.

Additionally, I have asked other people to join the cult thing. Again I have no idea on how that will go. Their score is on my website, the link is in the program. It’s also here! https://izfrench.wordpress.com/burns-down-1/

X: OTHER CONSIDERATIONS

The program – is silly. It has a text score for the audience, in order to give them allowance to engage as an enjoyer of art instead of a passive listener, breaking the conventions of listening. Every member of the ensemble has a “badass” nickname because I thought that’d be fun. There’s a track list, which is entirely stacked with a bunch of fake song names. Why? Due to the non-linear idea of the first section and the unknowable way in which the sound could go, I thought it would be fun to make people believe that there is a structure, that it’s all planned, and that improvisation is a myth and everything is scripted.

The costume – I don’t know why but I’ve had this idea for a costume as soon as I had the name of the recital down, which is black suit pants, a black sports bra, and a suit jacket with painted flames, in order to become a mix of Guy Fieri and David Byrne but trans. However, it is currently 1:33PM and I can’t find my sports bra so I may substitute it for something similar.

This writeup – is self-explanatory and done. Hope you enjoyed, Mx. Marker, and please give me 100% thanks byeeeee!