Vivid Live Curator Ben Marshall On Why Music is a Style Rather Than a Fashion
Vivid Sydney, the Southern Hemisphere’s leading multi-platform festival, will transform Sydney into a hub of creativity from May 24th to June 15th, 2024. A few days before the festival begins, we spoke with Ben Marshall, Vivid Live’s at Sydney Opera House's curator, who is responsible for bringing artists like Underworld, Air, Arca, and Devonte Hynes to our shores. Marshall shares what first attracted him to these artists, how he discovers “work that matters,” and why he believes music is a style rather than a fashion.
Rachel Weinberg I wanted to start by asking what drew you to each of the artists on the Vivid programme? I often think about the balance between international and Australian artists and wonder whether that was a consideration for you?
Ben Marshall What drew me to everyone in the programme is a really big question, and I have varying answers. It's a huge mix of international and local work, as you've alluded to. But the unifying thread is that it's all work of immense artistic integrity, and it's all trying hard to land its own singular voice. And the local and international distinction dissolves, in my view, when you think of these things as global artistic conversations. We happen to be located in Australia, so it's just a question of joining up all the voices that matter in that space. That covers Tinariwen and Thelma Plum. What drew me to Karin Dreijer is exactly what drew me to Arca.
RW A lot of music festivals, on both large and small scales, have faced cancellations or postponements in the last five years. Why do you think that Vivid has been able to sustain itself?
BM I'm not sure I'm the best person to answer why Vivid is doing differently than other festivals. I think we're all affected by festivals not working as they did. We are almost on budget and to target. We're thrilled with how it's gone, but we absolutely do not take that for granted. Costs are a massive issue. The exchange rates are a very big issue. I think changing behaviours have affected the festival climate, as people really want to see the exact thing they want to see, whether that's Fred Again or Taylor Swift or Snoh Aalegra. We are not a festival in the sense that you pay $200 or $300 to come see everything. Everything is individually ticketed so we've always had to live or die on the line-up. But the curation this year has had an incredibly strong response.
Festivals like us are living or dying on the line-up more than we ever were. So somewhere like the Opera House, which is an artistic filter and a lens, maybe has an advantage in being able to have the kinds of conversations with the artists that we've had. The other thing that helps us is that we're a not-for-profit. We're not here to make a giant profit margin. We're here to achieve a superb artistic result from a broad cross-range of audiences and artists. And that maybe is chiming with the moments as well. It’s the thing I've always cared about in the programs. I’ve said this before, but I truly believe that you can't have a healthy culture without a healthy subculture. I come from underground electronic music. I started off doing drum and bass. I never dreamed I would be programming contemporary music at the Sydney Opera House. I try to make sure that everything that's on that stage has its roots somewhere in the underground.
Probably the biggest expression of that this year is giving Mitch Tolman, who produces as 3NDLES5 and is the lead singer of Sydney punk band, Low Life, two nights to curate. He's done an amazing mix of Scandinavian DIY music with Young Lean, Jonatan Leandoer, Frederik Valentin, and Ecco2k. They're absolutely astonishing nights. I don't know that that would work in a context outside of a festival like Vivid in a building like the Sydney Opera House. It’s the idea of merging street-level DIY work from Scandinavia and Australia in a high-end art building that traditionally has paid no attention to those forms. All of those things come together to give it a real zap, energy and excitement that the city in the country seems to respond to.
RW You mentioned that you started in underground music. How has your definition of contemporary music changed? What is new music to you?
BM For me, anything that's not classical falls within the world of contemporary for my programming purposes. But then we did Max Richter last year, we did Niels Fram the year before that, and we've got Devonte Hynes this year. They're not hard boundaries, but it's about taking a wide-screen approach to what the gold standard of modern contemporary performance is and saying Mahler and Sky Ferreira, and Jain should be within that scope just as much as the Sydney Dance Company, London Symphony Orchestra, and Opera Australia. This is all the gold standard of modern performance. I think we should be looking in nightclubs and venues and much closer to home to stitch it all together as a proper representation of where Australia is at culturally.
RW When programming, are you concerned with trends or fame? How do you align Vivid’s audience with your interests?
BM It's a really good question. I don't just programme what I think people will want to come to, but I don't just programme my personal music collection either. I'm always trying to find work that matters, that speaks to me, and that has integrity, and that I can see has real integrity and originality to it. Everything here matters to me to some extent, but I will absolutely programme work, even if it doesn't necessarily give me goosebumps, if I can respect it and see what it's doing within its field. But I think as a programmer, if you don't programme the work you're emotionally responding to, you will turn into a bit of a hack, or you will just end up permanently chasing that mirage flame of trends. And this is why I don't programme a lot of work that I know will sell tickets. I'm looking for line-ups that I hope can last. I'm not interested in novelty, but I do want distinctiveness, and I do want urgent current voices along with titanic figures in their fields.
And it’s a real collage. I’m forever looking at it and going, have we got too much of this? Do we need some more of that? Is it tilting a certain way here? But all of it should speak to something in my heart or my taste. Otherwise, it's just algorithmic work. You have to stay inspired, and you need the energy of what's new coming in. And you can be surprised. There are things I programme that I can be a little line-ball about. And then the performance can just absolutely blow the back of your head off. And that's a wonderful feeling to still find programming surprising you, too.
RW How do you discover artists and new music?
BM I am forever reading reviews, having conversations with people, listening to work that's coming out and listening to playlists, looking at festival line-ups, and seeing names that are new. People will bring you things, and people will suggest things. And you just start to put it all together.
RW Why do you think music is important to people? Why do you think it has stayed relevant as a discipline for all these years?
BM Let me gather my thoughts for a moment. It's a big question, but it's a really important question. I did a great interview with the English DJ Andrew Weatherall once. He talked about the difference between fashion and style. And he said, fashion is external and clearly imposed. It is decided by a group of people, and it is put on other people to join in effectively. He said, style comes from within. Style is internally generated, and it comes from someone's inner confidence. Contemporary music, I think, is important because it chimes with something at that latter point. Contemporary music has no code to be cracked. If the music's good and if it touches you, you can have a transcendent moment. Music, in its best sense, is style rather than fashion. People can come to it with their own experiences, have their own sense of confidence in it, and be moved. I love that it has such strong emotional triggers for people.
RW Do you remember the first time that you felt that emotional trigger?
BM I don't. I didn't grow up in a house that was top-to-bottom in music. It was something I gradually discovered for myself. But I've always been deeply affected by the arts—by paintings, by novels, by music. When it came to me, I would get goosebumps, I would be sent somewhere, and I was drawn to it, I suppose, but never in a career-ish sense. I grew up in the suburbs of Perth, in WA. You didn't watch people have artistic careers. It wasn't anything I thought could be in my future. I studied law at the university. But I eventually pursued music for its own sake. I didn't ask it to give me anything back. I never wanted it to turn into something that just had to turn a dollar. I'd go and do other things if it was just about money. I don't have to be here doing this with art.
I think if you're going to deal with art, treat it with respect. The programming is not just decisions of art, it’s budgets, it's forcing things through financial matrixes, and it's lots of angry arguments about deal points. The hardest part of my job is keeping that inherent love for the art while it moves through this relentless process to become a reality for the programme. Through all of this, I love that it still moves me and that I'm not inured to it or numbed. It still gives me goosebumps.
RW You obviously see longevity in it.
BM I do. I think the desire for us to be together in the dark waiting for the lights to come on is Neolithic. We gathered together in caves with the paintings on the walls, and the flames were lit, and the figures moved, and performances started. We craved it then and we crave it now. I think it's hardwired into us. It's a very old impulse. I don't think it's going anywhere. I think we missed it like crazy during the pandemic. I think our points of communal contact are dwindling, not increasing, as time go on. The live performance space, particularly for contemporary music, is incredibly special.
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