THE Breakfast Band is a new group for the Musica Viva in Schools online touring program. 

Made up of cellist Rachel Johnston, mandolinist and polymath muso Trent Arkleysmith and acrobatic-banjo whiz kid Gareth Bjaaland, the band is the brainchild of Canberra musician and Musica Viva’s artistic director of education, Michael Sollis.

Over the next five weeks the program will be presenting more than 120 streamed concerts across Australia and from June 22-25 the show, “Timmy and the Breakfast Band” will help students at Jerrabomberra Primary and Sutton Primary discover how music can influence their own actions, thoughts and emotions through an unusual pairing of music making and circus.

I caught up with Johnston by phone to her home in Majors Creek, where she lives with partner Arkleysmith and their blended family of three kids as they were preparing to live-stream for the first time before a 15-day virtual tour to schools.

“We had 10 weeks of touring booked in until November so the aim is to retain as many of the schools as possible,” she says.

“Schools can dial in from everywhere so it’s a great opportunity for Musica Viva, fingers crossed it all works well.”

The show is a kind of play involving mandolin, musical saw, drums, banjo, cello and acrobatics which revolves around schoolboy Timmy, (Bjaaland) who hears music in his head and knows just how it can change his mood, feelings and reactions.

“Timmy’s having one of those groundhog days when everything goes wrong, but he learns how to direct the music to fit his emotional state,” Johnston says.

“We like to give a bit of a heads-up to the kids so that they can feel like Timmy and maybe even try to use music to change their minds… Especially nowadays, with everything so stressful it’s good to have music as a positive, but it’s wrapped up with a hefty dash of acrobatics and a lot of Buster Keaton-type activity.”

So Bjaaland leaps and acts, broadcasting from his home in northern NSW, Johnston plays cello, Arkleysmith plays everything else – cello, mandolin, trumpet and drum kit – and it’s all brought together from Sydney by Musica Viva’s Jemma Tabet, though Johnston quips: “we are not Disney and we’re not Pixar, this is never going to replace live music”.

The experience is grist to the mill for the talented trio, who are seasoned touring artists on the folk circuit, and much more.

New Zealand-born Johnston, for instance, started on the cello at age six, performed with the noted Tankstream Quartet in Berlin, studied at the Juilliard for two years, completed her masters in London, then in 2006 joined the then all-girl Australian String Quartet in Adelaide for seven and a half years then quit to try her hand at what she calls “non-classical stuff”.

“I’d always wanted to channel into folk,” she says. 

“I said I’d give myself a little bit of time with non-classical, but that was 2013 and I’m still doing it.”

By then she’d met Arkleysmith, a trained cellist who’d run away to the circus and lived on a farm at Peel near Bathurst. Together as the music duo Two If by Sea, they’ve travelled the festival circuit performing Celtic, Scandinavian, American and eastern European tunes and songs.

But with two children of their own and one from his former marriage, they looked to find a place of their own in the country and ended up in one of the state’s music meccas, Majors Creek near Braidwood, a paradise at least until the bushfires and COVID-19 hit.

The pair have now found themselves running the Majors Creek Music Club and Johnston says: “We decided to try and breathe life into the town after the bushfire and COVID-19. 

“We are going strong and the Majors Creek Music Festival is going strong, but it’ll take a break this year… the organisers are glad to have a rest but looking forward to coming back.”

Enter Canberra’s Michael Sollis, who’d done a composing placement with the Australian String Quartet and whose cello sonata, “Hanging Rock” had been recorded and performed by Johnston at the NGA. 

“A couple of years ago while we were still in Adelaide, Michael got in touch with me about the Musica Viva in Schools project… he was looking to develop a show with a little bit of a different form, so we said we’d put something together.”

Their first thought was to involve a local acrobat, but he left on tour, so they found another acrobat, Gareth Bjaaland, who lives in Barkers Vale in northern NSW and whose company, the Pitts Family Circus, was on the festival circuit where they often found themselves camping at the back of the Big Top.

To Johnston, always inclined to cross boundaries in her music, there’s a definite appeal about the non-classical side of performing and she finds folk and bluegrass particularly rewarding. 

“Besides, the non-classical scene is more community-minded. At the folk festivals you can say to someone, ‘would you mind taking the baby, I have to perform’.”

More at musicaviva.com.au/education