Every orchestra loves a talented bassoonist. Twenty-year-old Lotta Mathilde Rink from Kassel, Germany, discovered this when Rotary Central Melbourne hosted her for a vocational visit.
Bassoonists are rare. Their instruments are weirdly complex and the owners spend hours making their own reeds. So Lotta was snapped up by the Whitehorse Orchestra (Box Hill) and the South Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The Melbourne Musicians featured her as guest soloist playing the lovely but difficult Mozart Bassoon Concerto.
Lotta boarded with the club’s Alan Seale as part of the New Generations Service Exchange (NGSE) program.
Alan says, “She often practised 3-4 hours a day. We would overhear her working on a phrase over and over again till she was satisfied. Then when we went to hear her Mozart concerto at St John’s Lutheran Church, we kept recognising all those phrases that she’d practised.”
Lotta is from a musical family. Her parents run a music school in Kassel and from the age of four, Lotta started playing the violin and some years later piano and singing lessons followed. She only decided to learn the bassoon when she was fifteen. In October 2018 she began her bassoon studies in Weimar. But also the Melbourne Chamber Choir was happy to welcome Lotta in the alto voices during the weeks she spent in Melbourne.
“I was lucky,” she says. “In the Whitehorse Orchestra, the bassoonist had been a principal player in Moscow. And I got lots of help and new ideas from Lyndon Watts at the Conservatorium.” He was principal bassoonist in the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra for many years. (Lyndon describes her as “extremely talented” on bassoon). In particular the fantastic cordial atmosphere in all ensembles she joined impressed her deeply.
Lotta loved our flora and fauna, forever asking “What’s that?” about wattles, flowers, lyrebird calls and red-tailed cockatoos. Her main travel shock was that she had previously only done a one and a half hour flight in Europe. She then found herself on a 27-hour marathon flight to Melbourne.
Lotta reluctantly cut her planned ten-week stay to six weeks to get back to her family before lockdown, but she’d already won the affection and admiration of the Rotary and music community.
The virus has halted what was a thriving NGSE exchange of young musicians and opera singers. But the seeds are planted and NGSE will rise again.
Tony Thomas
Since the mid of March Lotta’s family has performed music and singing on their porch every evening for the benefit of their local street. It was so impressive that radio and TV crews arrived and recorded it. Those making the music were
Axel Rüdiger-Rink father (zither)
Carola Rink mother (flute)
Anton and Mathis Rink brothers (voice and french horn)
Hannah Fries a friend (violin)
Tony had fun with Lotta practising his rusty school and university German of 60 years ago, complemented with his German from listening to Wagnerian operas.
He pledged to Lotta not to look up any German dictionary or use Google translate. This meant that when he couldn’t remember a word, he’d have to do a workaround in German. An example: he didn’t know the word for “meeting” but did know the German for “together” and “group”, so “meeting” became, in German, “together-group”. Lotta was amused. She also pointed out that my cheerful sign-off “Schuss” was wrong, it should be “Tschuess”. My version suggested, “Get shot”.