Inaugural Bundanon Residency

Omega Ensemble’s Inaugural Bundanon Resident Recipient - Oliver John Cameron, reflects on his time creating art in Bundanon.

In a program like Omega Ensemble’s CoLAB, you find yourself in the fortunate position of receiving feedback and mentorship from world-class composers and performers. There are so many good ideas, opinions and options to take on board, and only so much you can actually apply into the one piece, and inevitably there are things you will learn in those CoLAB workshops that need some time to sink in. 

A year on from my CoLAB experience, I was able to attend a two-week Bundanon residency as part of Omega Ensemble’s CoLAB: Composer residency program that was generously supported by Zeke Solomon, and it was in this sustained period of writing that I was able to process a lot of the wonderful constructive feedback that had come up during CoLAB. Some of this was to do with the diversity of our mentors’ practices, and the multifaceted careers that they sustain; and then there were the practical, musical recommendations like playability, orchestration and structuring. Above all, CoLAB had re-inspired my appreciation for performing as a part of the composition process; hearing ideas out loud in a room, not trapped in notation software playback.

At Bundanon, I was one of six artists in residence: visual artists, performance artists, and writers, and it was great to connect with people with differing practices and mediums. Everyone was working independently but we would connect over a cup of tea and a timtam, or head out for a walk in the evening to marvel at the sheer number of wombats and kangaroos poking their heads up from the surrounding shrubland.

The first few days I struggled to find my focus, and I actually felt some guilt when flitting between the projects I had brought with me rather than stubbornly sticking with just one and getting it done. I also found myself scrutinising my practice: trying new ways of making, revisiting old approaches, and paying attention to the conditions that allowed ideas to emerge. 

It was fortuitous that my residency coincided with the opening of “Man On Fire: Visions of Nebuchadnezzar” featuring the work of Arthur Boyd and Shaun Gladwell. Hearing about Gladwell's collaborative process during the day and viewing his film in full, I was struck by the ways the Bundanon landscape was so integral to evoking both isolation and connection, fragility and resilience. It inspired me to think deeper about making work that responded to my surroundings and not just work on the projects that I had brought with me from home.

I recalled a comment that CoLAB mentor Nico Muhly made, about the cinematic quality of my music and that I should consider writing to film. Sitting in the musicians' cottage at Bundanon, I realised I was already watching one: light shifting across the landscape throughout the day, weather rolling through, kangaroos popping their heads up and the occasional flash of a fluorescent jacket as another resident disappeared along a walking track. 

The morning after “Man on Fire” opened, I placed three postcards of paintings from Boyd's Nebuchadnzzar series on the piano, which, positioned against the window allowed me to overlook the Shoalhaven landscape. I recorded first-take improvisations in response. Inspired by Boyd painting en plein air, I wanted to capture the broad shape of each musical idea in a single sitting, force myself to work with wrong turns and own the surprises that emerged and try to make sense of them while still playing. This was a practice I continued for the rest of my time at Bundanon. I would record an improvisation and then go for a walk and listen back before returning to edit the audio and planning how I could finesse the works. 

On my second-last evening I invited the other residents to the musicians' cottage to share what I'd been working on. It was a rewarding way to conclude the residency and a reminder that composing doesn't end with writing. Sharing, performing and talking about new work are all part of the process. The residency reminded me that composing doesn't always happen at a desk, and giving myself permission to move between projects and not being so focussed on finishing things, made me more productive. Alongside these new improvisations, I wrote three new numbers for the next version of my opera M.TH.R., and about four songs using poems I had written a couple of years ago and forgotten about. 

I'm incredibly grateful to Omega Ensemble for making this residency possible. CoLAB offered a remarkable opportunity for developing a singular new work, and Bundanon provided the time and space to explore what comes afterwards. Together they represent a meaningful investment not just in individual pieces, but in the long-term development of a compositional practice.