Matt Maiden – Season 02 / Ep 07
Precision and truth,
Riding the course eyes open,
Orchestral farmer
Everyone should have a Matt Maiden in their lives. He’s one of those people you know you can rely on for an entertaining, thought-provoking, intelligent and considered conversation. He’s busy, I mean really busy. I’m busy, you’re busy, we’re all busy but Matty is busy. Listen to this to see just how busy.
He has also played such a very important part in my life. After we fin-ished this interview, another almost-four-hour marathon, we stood chat-ting with my wife in our kitchen over a cuppa and a biscuit. She told Matt, amongst other things, how grateful she is for how he has changed our lives. It wasn’t an empty platitude, it’s true. And it’s to do with horse racing. Have a listen, it’s not a betting story, (though there’s a good one of those too).
So how is Matt busy? Try a blended five-children family, running a re-search lab and working in one state (South Australia) and working in two hospitals in another one too, (Victoria). Try combining this with play-ing in a high-level orchestra and tending to a one-hundred acre farm. I love it when people are as busy as me.
This interview contains much laughter and much respect. Sorry if I made you late for band practice mate.
PS. Today I was sponsored by the word ‘busy’.
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02 07
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1) Miss Judy’s farm, The Faces (00:26:10)
My earliest music memory. Must be played in stereo and loud!
2) Quintet for piano and strings in E flat, Mozart (01:09:41)
Delicate perfection with musical glimpses into the future. The guy was a genius.
3) Tupelo honey, Van Morrison (01:35:33)
So musical. Multiple lines( just listen), dynamic, great control. No synthesisers. 1971 and has aged so well. Authentic and soulful. Have always liked it. Typifies what I value in music.
4) The cullyback hop, Lusana (02:23:24)
Folk music from a part of the world where I felt like I belonged.
5) Peter and the wolf (the procession) – Prokofiev (02:51:58)
Prokofiev could orchestrate and geez he had balls. He spent his life writing music knowing he could be sent to the Gulag.
6) The planets (1.Mars, bringer of war), Gustav Holst (03:20:27)
This was written before anyone went to space or made movies about space. It defines the genre in all our minds. And what a piece of music to be involved in!
7) Killing in the name of, Rage Against The Machine (03:35:41)
Simple but powerful. Proof that music does not have be complicated to work. Makes all my family move as one. Never any arguments to turn it down.
Now finally, along with all Douglas Adams’ written works (Google if you’re not familiar with him), please tell me:
Your choice of film
Not a big film buff. Instead can I have “Don’t think twice its alright” by Chris Thile and Brad Mehldau. Jazz piano and mandolin dogin a great take on Bob Dylan. I have to have some jazz track in here somewhere. (Captain’s note: no Matt, you can’t. I’ll give you Scorcese’s superlative Dylan documentary No Direction Home instead. How’s that?)
Your choice of book
Victorian Railways – the way it was. not into reading novels (too busy) – but I love this book as it tells the story of my country through the amazing feats of engineering train lines.
Your luxury item (that may be neither alive nor an aid to escape)
Not interested in luxury items.
(Captain’s note: OK, you can have that piece of music you mentioned above instead).
The one piece of music or album you would choose of your seven if you could have only one
Like saying pick your favourite child.
If you have a favourite saying, quote or proverb, here’s where you put it please
If a job is worth doing, it is worth doing well. My Nan.
“It ain’t what you don’t that gets you into trouble. Its what you know for sure that just ain’t so” Mark Twain.
Finally, to stave off madness, should that be your choice, which vista, which single place in all the world would you choose to have surround you in the Virtual Reality Pod (VRP). Open the pod bay doors…
Apple music on shuffle. Surely we have wifi in space.
(Captain’s note: Again, no and no Matty, you won’t).
Over.
