What is Prof. Patrick O'Byrne actually doing?

In our ‘What are you actually doing…?’ section, members of the university community talk about their work.

The pianist Patrick O’Byrne has been a professor of piano at the HfK since 2002 and was elected Dean of the Faculty of Music in December 2020. We spoke to the artist, who was born in Dublin and grew up in New Zealand, about this.

A dean is traditionally addressed as ‘Your Excellency’ – that sounds like power. Or at least some power. The vain, old-school Latin scholar in me associates your title with ‘decanus’, meaning the leader of ten men – which, translated to the year 2021, might correspond to a management position at middle management level. What and whom do you manage?
As a rector does not have the time to oversee both the Art and Design and Music departments, the position of dean was created.

And you’re in charge of the music?
That sounds very important, but yes, it’s true.

So you determine the future of the degree programmes and study options, and act as a mediator between the various interests within the department? 
Thank you for bringing that up. I do indeed see my role as Dean as that of a balancing mediator.

Apart from taking responsibility for everything that happens on Dechanatstraße – what exactly do you do as Dean?
You have to deal with a flood of emails every day. I’m old-school, so not particularly tech-savvy, and so I try to work through the messages with my two colleagues in the dean’s office, Katrin Scholz and Maria Kowollik. However, I also look after the quality of teaching and the implementation of the COVID-19 rules in the committees and on site, and I’m responsible for the finances.

A classic point of contention.
Of course, there are always protests, and one’s decisions are sometimes met with a lack of understanding; the only way to work together is through communication. That is why I place great importance on transparency: I give all decision-makers access to all the data, and I also disclose to the Faculty Council exactly what funds we have, how we are using them – or should be using them – and why – for example, when it comes to the allocation of course funding. My role is to remain neutral in this process.

How do you improve the quality of teaching?
Through staff recruitment. There are currently many vacancies to be filled, and as musicians are currently unable to perform around the world, they are showing increased interest in teaching as a source of income. This means there are now excellent opportunities to attract truly top-class colleagues to the HfK.

Are top musicians also top teachers?
They can be. In my view, the best, most targeted and most beneficial way to teach is to do almost nothing at all. Psychologically speaking, you wait to pull up a blind or open a window so that the student can come up with ideas – so that a process of self-discovery takes place. We as teachers must initiate and develop this process.

You do, of course, need to prioritise staff appointments within the department – where is the greatest need at the moment?
We need to ensure the orchestra is fully staffed; we are still short of, for example, a trombone, a trumpet and a horn player – the relevant professorships need to be filled, and the flute professorship has just been advertised for reappointment. I am incredibly pleased and very grateful that, despite the freeze on the university development plan, the Higher Education Authority has converted nine teaching posts to permanent positions, meaning we do not have to let our colleagues go and leave them in precarious circumstances.

Is being a dean a popular part-time job?
No. Everyone knows that as a dean you have a lot of administrative work to do and have to invest a great deal of time in it. This is particularly unappealing for artists who are building their careers and establishing their reputation. That’s why this post couldn’t be filled last year – nobody wanted to take it on. So they approached me, a has-been in the academic world, and brought me out of retirement to lend a hand, at least on a temporary basis for a year and a half.

Why did you agree to do it?
For me, this isn’t a thankless job; I also took it on because so many plans had to be postponed during the pandemic. I’m not allowed to travel or meet anyone; I’m always stuck working from home. My partner lives in South Korea – we haven’t seen each other for a year – and my private life is on hold. And my family are based in New Zealand and Ireland – I can’t visit them; my son is studying at the Technical University of Munich, so I don’t see him; my daughter lives in Barcelona; and I’m sitting here at home in Bremen on Teerhof Island. I haven’t set foot outside Bremen for a year. But in doing so, I’ve finally started to appreciate nature. I’d never really realised before when the swallows arrive, when the swifts turn up, or when the nightingales start to sing. The area around Lake Werder has become my garden. But I also wanted to do something, and I now plan to stay on as dean until I’m 95 … (laughs)

What makes studying music at the HfK so special?
The fact that, amongst other things, you can study early music in great depth here – that’s something unique to Bremen …

… like Labskaus with a fried egg …
… exactly. But when I moved from the Stuttgart University of Music to Bremen, I was told that it was a dead end. I see it quite differently. We’re a very small university here, which means there’s plenty of opportunity for interaction. People always get on well with one another. And it’s almost unique in Germany to have the opportunity for collaboration and interdisciplinarity through the Department of Art and Design.

How does this benefit students?
My idea is that, for example, a violinist might also study some painting or sculpture; that helps you develop as a person and as an artist. I’d like to make something like that compulsory for Bachelor’s degree programmes in both departments.

But don’t artists tend to live in their own little bubble?
That is precisely why it would be such an enrichment – so that we no longer delude ourselves into thinking that boundaries exist where there are none at all. It is only when someone shows you that you could do that too that new perspectives open up.

Do you mean that artists can, by their very nature, express themselves through multiple media?
Yes, it’s not about music or the visual arts, but about both. The baritone Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau and the composer Arnold Schoenberg were both brilliant painters as well. Enrique Granados’s piano music wouldn’t even exist if Goya hadn’t painted his pictures.

This runs counter to the music-market-oriented mindset of elite university education. After all, it is not complex artistic personalities that sell well, but virtuosos at the keyboard or on the strings.
Yes, we are too perfectionist; that really holds us back. We want to change that through interdisciplinary training.

To what extent does interdisciplinary teaching work within the department – that is, between early music, classical music, jazz and contemporary or electroacoustic composition?
I believe there is plenty of room for improvement. But things are already happening. The Early Music programme, for example, also performs works by Beethoven, Schumann and Schoenberg, because certain historical performance techniques lend themselves particularly well to these works. Every single student here engages with historical performance practice. And the interdisciplinary musicologist Michael Zywietz connects and links the various fields of study.

How does Bremen benefit from the music education at the HfK?
A good reputation as a city of music and the many concerts featuring young, talented artists – we already have a loyal audience for that.

How do you manage the balancing act of being a teacher and an artist yourself?
It’s very difficult at first. Because as a young musician, all you want to do is play. I went to Germany specifically because it’s the heart of traditional classical music – this is where it was born, where it lives on, where it’s at home. At least, that’s how I see it as a foreigner. To keep my head above water financially in Germany, I was in the same boat as many others: I had to teach – and I secured a post quite early on. I was 29 years old when I was appointed to my first professorship, which meant a heavy workload at the university, and from then on I could no longer focus solely on my own musical career. That was tough. On the other hand, I also find it a bit one-sided and rather foolish to want to just look after one’s own interests. Interaction with colleagues and students is, after all, very important. Today, at any rate, I think that playing myself and teaching complement each other. I’ve become a better musician because I’ve taught music; in the process, I’ve been constantly challenged and have realised just how much I still don’t know or can’t do.

Are you suffering professionally as a result of the coronavirus?
Not any more. The 2020 online term was awful – communicating with one another solely via recordings and digital media; that’s not how music works. Unfortunately, it’s still forbidden, for example, to perform the major piano works with an orchestra. It’s very encouraging, however, that face-to-face teaching is permitted again, and that projects can also be carried out in smaller groups. It’s very important to me to ensure that this continues to be possible and that, for example, our opera project isn’t simply banned outright, but can go ahead with certain restrictions.