Smith Journal — January 2018

097 SMITH JOURNAL

The Edit

Ben Northey, conductor with the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra

At its advanced level, Ben Northey says being a conductor means sculpting. “Sound is your medium,” he explains.
“But how do you show devastation? How do you show triumph? How do you communicate what you want to bring
out of the music through your body language?” You use your hands. Northey undertook much of his training at the
Sibelius Academy in Helsinki, Finland, where one teacher employed a surprisingly everyday gesture to indicate that a
note should be cut short: the scissors. Northey thinks it deserves greater currency. “When people are waffling, instead
of giving them the ‘Okay, wind it up’ hand roll, you could just look at them and snip your fingers. It doesn’t mean stop
talking; it just means ‘Cut. Edit. Compress what you’re saying.’” History’s great composers worked out in advance what
needed to be cut from their sounds, but we don’t get that privilege in conversation. Maybe we need to be conducted.