HAMISH McKEICH
The Conductor
''You have to take risks. If you don't, orchestras may become less relevant. You have to try and keep up, vary things ... We can do more.''
Hamish McKeich stands on the podium at Wellington’s Michael Fowler Centre – hair flying, wildly gesticulating his way through the theme to Mission: Impossible as he puts the New Zealand Symphony Orchestra musicians through their paces.
He looks pretty energetic up there but he’s actually taking it easy on account of his wobbly knees.
They took a battering when he tumbled down some steps outside the Aotea Centre in Auckland after a concert last year, leaving him bedridden for two months and now walking with the aid of a stick.
McKeich, 50, is not your stereotypical conductor. During his early days with the NZSO he was a smock-wearing, purplehaired musician who brought a bit of va va voom to the band.
The hair has lost its purple hue these days but McKeich still stands out from the crowd.
Sporting a pencil-thin moustache, a shirt rather shy of buttons and hair in free flow, the assistant conductor of the NZSO (under music director Edo de Waart) is getting fired up to conduct John Williams’ Oscarwinning music Star Wars: A New Hope ina live screening of the original film on March 10 as part of the New Zealand Festival programme.
McKeich was 10 in 1977 when Star Wars was released. He can vividly recall settling into the plush red velvet seats at his local cinema in Christchurch as the Force was unleashed on the big screen. He was ‘‘utterly mesmerised’’.
‘‘It blew my mind. The lightsabers, the lasers, the characters – we’d never seen anything like it before.’’
Playing to a film score has become a popular genre and McKeich has conducted several, including Hitchcock’s Psycho and Vertigo, and Pirates of the Caribbean.
This sort of move to include contemporary music alongside the traditional repertoire is a hallmark of McKeich’s tenure at the NZSO.
In April, he will conduct the first of three concerts in Wellington’s Shed 6. It’s not your usual formal affair, he says. The Shed Series will be closer to seeing a band in a bar with music from composers like Frank Zappa, John Zorn and Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood.
Independently and with the orchestra he has collaborated with a load of musicians – the Phoenix Foundation, the Violent Femmes. He’s soon to work with Bret McKenzie and Kermit the Frog in The Jim Henson Retrospectacle concert.
The NZSO is modernising and McKeich is the moderniser.
Classical music will always be at the forefront of the orchestra but it’s crucial to be varied in what they perform, he says. ‘‘We have to be up with the times and make sure everyone’s ears are kept fresh.’’
As for the traditionalists, well, too bad, he says. ‘‘I don’t care. I think you have to take risks. If you don’t, orchestras may become less relevant.
‘‘You have to try and keep up, vary things ... We can do more. This is just the start.’’
McKeich grew up in Christchurch in a musical family. His father taught oboe, his mother played the piano and sang in a choir. Music was a part of everyday life for him and his two older siblings. He remembers going to concerts at the town hall from the age of 7. Classical music got into his soul early.
He wanted to play bassoon but his fingers were too small so he had to make do with the oboe. But as soon as his digits had grown sufficiently he took on the bassoon.
The mellow-sounding instrument was a perfect fit for him. He never needed to be asked to practise.
He was heavily into football and cricket as a kid but music won out when his schedule became more demanding.
The first piece of music that got under his skin was Strauss’s Alpine Symphony.
He had the full score at home and would follow it over and over again, listening in particular to the bassoon parts.
He was just 9.
He left Burnside High School after the sixth form, having ‘‘failed miserably’’ in everything except music, and came to Wellington, where he enrolled at Wellington Polytechnic to study bassoon.
While he studied his instrument he scored casual work with the NZSO – he was good, but there wasn’t much competition for bassoon players either, he says. Touring the country and getting paid was a complete thrill for the young McKeich, who would be on stage in a coat and tails while his mates were at school parties.
Two years later he went to Sydney, where he studied under Gordon Skinner, a former principal bassoonist at the NZSO. On a whim he applied for the associate principal bassoonist role with the Sydney Symphony Orchestra and got it.
Europe beckoned after a further two years and he moved to the UK and later the Netherlands for the next decade. The seed for conducting had been sown. McKeich wanted to be more than a player, he wanted a say in the repertoire, the sound – the big picture.
During his time in Europe he studied conducting with Professor Ilya Musin and Valery Gergiev and played with various ensembles, including the Asko Ensemble from the Netherlands, Orchestra Filarmonica Italiana, and the Armenian Philharmonic.
He took his time learning the craft – in the conducting world people tend to talk their way into the position rather than learn the techniques necessary, he says.
But things are changing. Certainly the days of autocratic, megalomaniacal conductors are over. Orchestras these days are more player oriented and less tolerant of prima donnas.
McKeich became frustrated at being unable to secure conducting roles because of citizenship issues in Europe and came back to New Zealand in 1999. Since 2002 he has served as the NZSO’s Associate Conductor.
The father of two still travels independently as a conductor but these days Aro Valley in Wellington is home.
He likes the Valley. He’s a regular at brewer Garage Project’s Taproom down the road. Last year he worked with them on a special lager beer; Resonance was brewed to music played by the NZSO – ‘‘infusing the beer with the power of classical music’’.
The cans featured McKeich’s mug. ‘‘It was a glorious moment in my career,’’ he jokes.
Beer aside, McKeich’s career is well and truly on the ascent. And there’s still plenty on his wishlist. Top of that would have to be conducting an orchestra alongside Radiohead. Now that would be something, he says. The moderniser is in the house.