Tweeting the latest from Planet Pit: AOBO Percussionists on Twitter

(Left to right) David, Shaun and Allan form the @AOBOPercussion Twitter team

Shaun Trubiano at the AOBO
Insight Night

Music lovers have always been fascinated by what happens in the pit, and orchestras around the world are discovering that social media is a great way to share their behind-the-scenes world with patrons. Australian Opera and BalletOrchestra Principal Percussion, Shaun Trubiano, recently set up a Twitter account to provide OA audiences with regular updates from Planet Pit. 


“There’s always so much happening in the percussion section; we wanted to share something of it with our audience,” he says.

Connecting with audiences is at the heart of music-making, and tweeting about pit activities makes it easier for those connections to happen. As Trubiano, who spent  six months at Miami’s New WorldSymphony Orchestra before joining the AOBO in December last year, puts it: “Today’s audiences want more than just a seat in the auditorium; we now have to treat Stage Door as our front door; invite people into our world and share the collaborative process between singers and orchestra with them. The Twitter account is a step towards addressing that need.”

A tweeted photo from inside
the pit of Turandot 2012

Members of the percussion section have been using their smart phones to tweet photographs and short messages. “If we change a bass drum head, for example, we’d let our followers know. For HandaOpera on Sydney Harbour a second bass drum was required, so we prepared it and posted it on Twitter, and had a nice response.”

Though modest in size at the moment, the Percussion account’s following is growing steadily. “As the winter season kicks in, we’re hoping to get artists on board for photos with orchestra members during intermissions. We’d like to do two, maybe three tweets a week. The AOBO ignites a great fire during every performance, and that energy is contagious; its emotional effect on audience members is profound.”

Other sections of the orchestra are following the Percussion initiative with great interest. 

“People enjoy being in a shot and part of a feed, and many in the orchestra are tech savvy.” 

For Trubiano, joining the AOBO at the relatively youthful age of 28 has been a dream come true. He’s had his sights set on a position in an opera orchestra since joining New York’s Manhattan School of Music at the age of 21. “One of my teachers was Duncan Patton, the Met’s principal timpanist, and he instilled a great love of opera in me.” Trubiano saw many Met productions during his New York sojourn, and made another powerful connection with the opera world when he met and married American mezzo-soprano, Margaret Trubiano.

Tweeting some instruments!

To be part of the creative powerhouse that is opera was his ideal, and he worked very hard to reach it, spending six years studying at the Manhattan School of Music and completing three degrees, two specialising in orchestral performance.

When the OA position was advertised, he was in his final year of study and had just won the position with the New World Symphony, where OA was prepared to let him go before coming to Sydney.

But first, he had to audition, a rigorous process known to terrify even the most accomplished of professionals. Trubiano recalls: “Four weeks from the audition date you are sent a preparation pack with excerpts from OA rep, which you prepare to perfection [at this he laughs], or as close to perfection as is humanly possible.”

A tweeted photo of
orchestral rehearsals

A week before the audition he flew to Melbourne, his home city, where a former teacher, John Arcaro from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, took him through daily mock auditions. “Every night we’d run through the audition and he would be the panel. He’d help me fix things, improve my game.”

But in the end, nothing can prepare a young musician for the competitiveness and stress of one shot. As Trubiano says: “You simply cannot afford to make mistakes.”

Having made it through the first two rounds feeling that he could have played better, in the final round he pulled out all the stops. “I was no longer nervous. I’d been locked away in a practice room for so many years, and the hunger to join this fantastic opera company and orchestra was so intense that…I wasn’t gonna lose.” He laughs. “I played like my life depended on it. Because in a way it did.”

Now practising six to eight hours a day to maintain the skills required to do the job (“I set myself very high standards”), Trubiano does not find hauling out the smart phone, taking a picture and tweeting it away distracting. “It’s the way we work now. Always with one finger on the social media button.”

A tweeted picture of Allan

Trubiano says: “We live in a digital world. It’s changing all the time and we have to adapt the way in which we connect with our audience.”

   

You can view the Percussion Twitter account without subscribing to Twitter. Go to: Twitter.com/AOBOpercussion