Ukiyo/The Floating World is not Eva Bedggood’s first composition but it might as well be. Instead of the workshops and one-off performances her music has previously received – notably a quartet played during the At The World’s Edge Festival – NZTrio is taking the 21-year-old’s latest piece on the group’s nationwide Triptych 3: Untamed Hope tour, hitting 13 centres from October to December.
“It’s exciting, it’s overwhelming, it’s a little bit terrifying,” Bedggood says. “But I’m looking forward to sharing my music, because that’s what music’s about: sharing that connection and emotion with people.”
NZTrio’s tour features works by Fanny Mendelssohn, Joan Tower and Ethel Smyth, important composers who took years to be appreciated. What’s it like for Bedggood to be in that sort of company so early in her career? “It’s a lot of pressure for my big debut as a composer to be included in such an incredible programme,” she says. “To be chosen to represent young women in the industry is exciting and I’m grateful. I’m all about promoting women in music, so to have that, and share my voice with composers I’ve always admired and whose works I’ve performed, is incredible.”
Bedggood grew up in an artsy household. Her parents were members of the Royal New Zealand Ballet, so there was music in the house. She learnt brass at the Christchurch School of Music, and as well as currently studying composition, she is doing performance trumpet. “I remember hearing Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue and Dvorak’s ‘New World’ Symphony when I was 3, and being like, ‘I want to be a trumpeter.’ That’s what I saw myself doing. I used to find my happy place making sounds at the piano, creating worldscapes and telling myself stories through music.”
She was good at it. At 16, Bedggood was accepted into the University of Canterbury. The lack of a brass programme saw her switch to the New Zealand School of Music, and this year she transferred to the University of Melbourne, which has benefited her composing and her playing.
“[Melbourne] has expanded my horizons. I’ve been getting professional gigs, met some of my international idols, and there’s support for my composition alongside performance.”
With so much going on in Australia, Bedggood says she works on her music from 8am to 9pm every day. The hours seem not to faze her.
“I love being hardworking. You have to take every opportunity you can, and there are not enough hours in the day to do performance and compositions and lectures and work and life. It’s exhausting but it makes me me, and I’m excited that I get to do this with my life. I don’t want to waste a single minute.”
NZTrio, Triptych 3: Untamed Hope, October 10-December 15, nationwide. See nztrio.com for more.
