With a piano and a pen, MATT OTTLEY started transforming the artwork of children’s picture books into beautiful music. This passion project became an interactive experience for all ages: The Sound of Picture Books.
RACHEL DENHAM-WHITE caught up with Matt to ask how he sees the music in an illustration, and transforms art into a symphony.
Matt Ottley is an internationally acclaimed writer, illustrator and musician, and the 2024 Australian nominee for the Hans Christian Anderson Award. His first YA book, Requiem for a Beast, released in 2007 is the melancholy, dream-like story of a young stockman chasing after a wild bull, set in far North Queensland during the Stolen Generations. He composed a full score to accompany the story, but for years, he had already been using music to give him ideas about how his characters might look.
‘I would write a piece of music for guitar or piano, then take the written musical lines for some of the melodies – I would literally draw a line through all the note heads – and place that line on a page and use it for the lines in a character’s face. Then these thoughts on how I might both perform music for picture books in a live show, and also demonstrate this method of combining music and drawing, swirled around in my head for a further seven years.’
These ideas became The Sound of Picture Books, created in partnership with the Storybox Hub. This multi-modal art piece combines illustrations projected on a screen, a narrator reading the words, and an original accompanying score, performed by the West Australian Symphony Orchestra (WASO).
The first picture book Matt adapted was Tree in 2014, written by Danny Parker. It is the story of a tiny sapling uprooted by a terrible storm. Matt’s score for string quartet and piano combines crashing bass notes and discordant strings to emulate the wildness of rain and wind, and soaring melodies to show the tree growing strong again.
Matt’s process of writing music is a complex mix of art and precision.
‘When I’m creating music for illustrations, I do the opposite to creating illustrations out of music. I will place drawn lines from the pictures in the book (whether it’s an object or a character) on a musical stave, and start mapping out the melodies. I write everything down in music notation, by hand, then take those hand-written notes into music notation software on my computer.’
Matt finds inspiration everywhere, but he still has favourite composers such as Max Richter (‘On the Nature of Daylight’), and favourite artists, like the beloved children’s book illustrator Shaun Tan (Creature, Dog, The Arrival, Lost & Found). He writes music for a full range of different instruments, from a quartet of oboe, bassoon, viola and cello, to string quintet with piano, to very large symphony orchestra and choir. It’s a time-consuming process, with hours of listening, writing and editing, but Matt still manages to find the magic every time.
‘The moment that the soundscape you’ve been crafting in your head for months comes to life is when you hear musicians playing it for the first time. It’s like seeing a painting that’s been in your head finally becoming real on the canvas.’
These workshops from WASO and Storybox Hub have been a big hit with schools, but The Sound of Picture Books is for all ages. Matt writes his scores for adults; he doesn’t believe in ‘writing down’ for children, as kids have an extraordinary capacity for appreciating music. In fact, in his experience, children will often pick up on nuances in the music that adults miss!
Every performance is a celebration of hands-on human creativity, an insight into how the words and illustrations for a picture book are created. Matt puts great emphasis on how it is people and effort that bring stories together. He says, ‘I don’t, and never will use AI, because I think to do that is a kind of laziness, and great art is never produced by laziness.’
Audience participation is a must at these shows. As the soundtrack soars, the narrator shows the kids how to shape their bodies to fit the movement of each illustration. In the workshop segment, audience members are invited up on stage to scribble on a massive whiteboard. The musicians follow along with the pen, moving up and down the range of notes and creating entirely unique sounds. Matt hopes all the viewers come away with a new excitement and interest in exploring art music (what some people call contemporary classical music); and excitement about the potential of multi modal creativity.
Performances of The Sound of Picture Books have included The Messy Bath Monster by Tina Wilson, Stickboy by Rebecca Young and How to Make a Bird by Meg McKinlay. It’s hard to pick favourites, but Matt remarks that he loved writing for The Messy Bath Monster, as ‘the book is such a joyous and profound expression of play and imagination, and it gave me an excuse to let my inner child rip!’
Matt’s most recent project is Hari’s Bones by previous collaborator Danny Parker, illustrated by Rache Antonio. Hari is a young girl always trying to avoid trouble, but when trouble comes seeking her, the very things she’s done to stay safe become her superpowers. It’s a sweet story for the curious, the gentle risk-takers, those who suspect there is more to adventure than climbing up and jumping off.
‘I have always loved Dany’s writing – he is a perfect picture book author – and Rache’s illustrations in Hari’s Bones are so rich and multi-layered. The words and the images have provided incredibly abundant source material to draw musical ideas from. I have set this score for oboe, bassoon, viola and cello because of the depth and warmth of each of those instruments. My challenge has been to get a “bones” sound
from them!’
Hari’s Bones will release from One Tentacle Publishing in August.
The Sound of Picture Books is performing the score for Hari’s Bones in Perth this August and bringing Stickboy and The Messy Bath Monster to Newcastle and Sydney later in the month. Scan the QR code for more information. •
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matt Ottley is a multi-modal artist working across the fields of visual arts, music and literature. He is an award-winning picture book writer and illustrator, with 25 picture books published. As a teenager and during his early twenties he worked as a stockman on remote cattle stations in the Australian outback, before studying fine arts and music.
He is now one of Australia’s most popular children’s author/illustrators, and has been published in several different languages around the world. His book and musical work for young adults, Requiem for a Beast was awarded the Children’s Book Council of Australia’s Picture Book of the Year in 2008, and the Queensland Premier’s Award for Young Adult Literature in the same year. His picture book, What Faust Saw was an international best seller. Matt has also worked as a professional flamenco and classical guitarist. He is currently working on two large-scale orchestral projects that will also have visual and literature components.
Visit Matt Ottley’s website here.
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