CODE OF CONDUCT

WORDS PENNY McLEOD PHOTOGRAPHY LUKE BOWDEN

Student conductor Riley O’Doherty felt relieved when he stepped up recently to conduct his first professional orchestra. His preparation for the concert was a challenging series of workshops held in late January at the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra and University of Tasmania Conservatorium of Music in Hobart.

“I was somewhat doubting myself during the rehearsal stage,” says the 24-year-old University of Newcastle music graduate, who is shown here conducting the TSO in the third movement of Beethoven’s 5th Symphony.

“The workshop stage was intense, almost stressful, but in performance mode it was 100 per cent fun. I think the big difference was there was a bit more trust [for me]. The [orchestra members] were no longer critiquing my conducting, they were just playing music.”

O’Doherty, who is enrolled in a Masters of Music specialising in conducting at UTAS, was one of 11 students who conducted the TSO at the end of The Australian Conducting Academy Summer School led by conductor Johannes Fritzsch.

“I was more engaged in the music itself during the performance whereas during the workshop I was focused on my own physicality and concentrating on the technical aspects and that may have impeded my communication of the music itself somewhat,” O’Doherty says.

“During the concert, I realised the orchestra was there to make music and as soon as it started I realised the difference and relaxed.”