Melbourne Chamber Orchestra violist Merewyn Bramble has held positions in orchestras across Australia, a pathway that was all but pre-destined by her musical upbringing.
The ‘artistic bubble’, as she calls it, was an omnipresent force in her early years as an aspiring musician. Many of her family members were either professional or studying performers, so she had no shortage of positive influence from within her melodic household.
“After romanticising a musician’s lifestyle for a while,” she admits today, “I flirted with the idea of hopping on the physiotherapy ladder – but I slowly dragged myself back to music before the end of secondary school.”
A stint at the Australian Youth Orchestra was a formative experience as a teenager, “I was suddenly surrounded by a scale of music I’d never experienced before”, and it gave Merewyn her first taste of orchestral study programs. It remains a keen interest today in her role within the MCO, where she reflects on the study experience as being akin to growing up in another family, “where it all made sense”.
The migration from musical studies in her early adulthood to becoming a full-time performer came soon after Merewyn graduated with a Bachelor of Music with Honours in Performance.
“I was about 23,” she recalls, when, “my teacher at university, William Hennessy, occasionally asked me to join the viola section of MCO, as he was leading the ensemble at the time. It was exciting to turn up to rehearsals and see which musicians would be there for me to aspire to emulate – and drink tea with!”
This early invitation into professional music saw Merewyn interact with a mixture of established performers and her own peers. It continues to be the type of early career experience MCO pursues to help the next generation of string players gain in-roads into the competitive arenas of concert music.
Merewyn is forever grateful for MCO’s approach and is keen to return the favour wherever possible. “Hopefully these days young musicians look forward to having a tea with me!”
As she professionally ‘grew up’ in MCO, Merewyn thinks of it as her musical home, particularly as MCO focusses on educating and entertaining in equal measure.
“We aim to strengthen the audience’s relationship with music,” she says, “whether they’re a school group in Portland, a professional clarinettist visiting from interstate, or someone’s neighbour attending their first concert. There is no wrong message to be taken from experiencing live music, but we hope that the common message is that everyone should come along and bring seven friends!”
By Liam Heitmann-Ryce-LeMercier