Kate Whitley
The British composer strives to challenge the nature of what it means to make music, and her Multi-story Orchestra project continues to capture the imagination. Their latest work, Verified, receives its world premiere at Bold Tendencies, Peckham, on 9 June as part of the Borletti-buitoni Trust’s 20th-anniversary celebrations.
Multi-story has taken on a new life in the last few years. It’s amazing to play in car parks, and that’s still part of it, but it feels like it’s more about the ethos. Verified is a great example, with all of our musicians and young people in one room, writing something together. It’s a really fun way to make music and I think that’s what the Multi-story Orchestra project has always been about – community and making music together.
Verified is about social media and that feeling of wanting to be liked by other people. It’s about the addiction to that, and placing worth in what someone else sees in you. We worked on the overall shapes, structures and melodies as a group and then my job was to string the whole thing together and orchestrate it. It was very much a joint effort.
I grew up as a classical pianist. Concerts often had the same feeling as a piano exam and it felt to me that wasn’t what music should be about at all; it takes the joy and fun away from it.
I used to take musicians to play in pubs and schools. I’d written a bit of music at school, so I started writing pieces for us to play. Writing music just gave me more of a creative outlet than playing.
I didn’t have any female composition teachers or role models. When I was invited to apply for the Paul Hamlyn Composers Award I thought, ‘There’s no way I’m going to get this; there’s no point.’ But I noticed that one of the previous winners was Sally Beamish – the only woman on the list – and I happened to have met her a few weeks beforehand. So I thought, ‘Maybe I should put my application in.’ I didn’t win, but I was so glad that I applied.
My composition teacher Jeffery Wilson was always relentlessly positive. There was never right or wrong, and having someone give me that, at that age, was really important. One of our young people at Multi-story said it feels like a place where you can be whoever you want to be, and that’s exactly the thing to aim for.