Juvenalia : Early Adult : Sydney : Seattle : San Francisco
Michael Arnold
born Belair, Adelaide Hills, South Australia, Nov 28th 1968
I began life in Coromandel Valley, South Australia - to Mr Richard Arnold, a chemistry / physics secondary school teacher / head master, and Mrs Yvonne Arnold, a piano teacher, ex-jazz pianist, classical pianist. Fortunate to have 3 wonderful older sisters, Britt, Trudy and Sonja.
We were sentenced to 3 years in the country for my fathers first stint as a head master, at the town Balaklava, an hours drive from Adelaide. Here, I went to kindergarden with director Mrs Yvonne Boers, whose family soon became (and still are) close friends of the family. In those three years, my mother began giving music and dance classes, and had us and other families going to art classes in the nearby Clare Valley. Father also developed a passion for horse riding and pony clubs, something that keeps him busy to this day.
We then returned to Corromandel Valley when I was 7, to go to Coromandel Valley Primary School - a very progressive school blossoming from the attentions of the arts-oriented premier of South Australia at the time - Don Dunstan. Here, I was fortunate enough to begin violin lessons from a Mr John Gould, who happened to live up the street from us - ex principle viola from the London Philharmonic.
At age 10, well and truly engrossed in music, youth orchestras and the like, Mr Gould left for Sydney, and I transferred to Mr Rob Collins - a local legend, and a major influence on my generation of orchestral string players throughout the country. Rob remained my teacher for some 17 years, and is still a dear friend.
The teenage years were pretty un-eventful. At Blackwood High School, I was a dungeons and dragons buff, complete with an obsession for science fiction, mathematics, and of course - music, meant my parents were not caused much grief from their youngest!
After school, I studied music for a year at the Flinders Street School of Music, Adelaide (now merged with the Elder Conservatorium) before embarking on a more scientific studies at Adelaide University, where I completed pure mathematics and computer science majors, and an honors degree in pure mathematics under Professor Michael Eastwood.
Throughout this era, I worked in music. Partly in string quartets (the standard wedding-gig-thing), but mostly with the contemporary music ensembles. These were "Kidney Art Ensemble" an art music ensemble comprised of composers and improvisers, with Quentin Grant, Graham Dudley, David Kotlowy, Pompeii Renaldo, Teresa la Rocca, among others. "Lights Contemporary Music Ensemble", a sextet of violin, cello, flute, clarinet, piano and percussion, directed by Graham Dudley. Other musicians here included Janis Laurs, Andrew Close, Greg Roberts, David Shepherd, Jennifer Newsome, Stephen Whitting, Vanessa Tomlinson, to name a few. Finally, "Fresh Air", and ensemble of recorder, violin and two percussionists, made up of Joanna Dudley, Vanessa Tomlinson, and Katherine Oats, was a medi-evil, world, contemporary, semi-improvisatory ensemble that accumulated an amazing local following.
This brings me to 1992, when I spent a year at Stanford University (Fulbright + George Murray + Stanford scholarships), originally intending to do a PhD in pure mathematics under Professor Ralph Cohen. A thoroughly exhilarating year, preparing for qualification exams, and more besides. However, I decided that life as an academic was not yet for me - I never enjoyed teaching - and enjoyed the company of others too well for such an isolating (if stimulating) career.
So, back to Adelaide, to work with the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra and Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, while I sorted myself out, and live with the first major partner of my life - Mr Peter Smith - a wonderful man that continues to be a very significant part of my life, despite the distance. At this time, I helped form the contemporary music ensemble "Nexus", due to political issues that had occurred in "Lights", working for a while in both ensembles.
So, a couple of years full time music - I missed maths and computers. So, I got myself a series jobs in Sydney. The first was a small data-base company called "CHA" (no longer exists), but came to good luck when a friend of my mothers ex-piano-teacher "Ffrangcon Davies", located me a job doing 2-D graphics algorithm research for an embroidery software company Wilcom. The following 4-5 years saw me oscillate between roles in research at Wilcom, and at Canon Research - both in 2-D graphics.
Musically, I ended up mostly doing gigs (weddings and the like), as a regular violinist with the Cambridge String Quartet, and the Palm Court Orchestra, amongst others. I was also introduced social chamber music, initially with Robyn Godfrey of the Palm Court Orchestra, and then to broadening group of musicians, Yve Repin, Peggy Nelson, Paul Hoskinson, Michael Goldstein, Anna Cernika, Ian Bolton, Kristina Bruveris, Inge Courtney-Haentjes to name a few. A situation that grew over those five years to around 10 hours chamber music a week, and a series of private soirées in my home in Surry Hills, hosted by my delightful housemate Thomas Brand.
My lodgings in Sydney were many. Initially in Mosman on the north shore, with Richard Hindley, a film editor I had known from Adelaide. Then, to Lane Cove with an "English-as-a-second-language" teacher Peter Hobbs, and his partner Prasit Chongwatanapiron. After a short while in a tiny apartment in Cremorne Point, I finally graduated to "the gay ghetto" of Surry Hills with my dear friend Aldo Fedato - right on Taylor Square. After 18 or so months, Aldo moved in with his partner Scott, and I managed to discover Thomas Brand and Darren Riley - two very remarkable people, for 2 energetic years.
On the personal front, Sydney is not necessarily the place to be partnered! But I did manage a brief affair with a gentleman by the name of Ray Lackey - still a dear friend.
I am guessing most people have heard of the company I was relocated to Seattle by. I was introduced to Microsoft by a colleague from Canon Research, Cameron Brown - head hunted, and taken to Seattle to work on the C++ compiler in the Visual Studio team, with the intention of moving to something more in line with my maths/graphics skill set. Though compilers are certainly interesting, and my current work utilizes the experience, it was not a well chosen direction, so I only stayed for a year.
Having said that. Microsoft is definitely a delightful company to work for - so long as you are well matched to your work. The benefits are great, as is the company culture, and the alumni benefits once you leave are exceedingly useful to have.
A great stroke of fortune lead me to discover Secret Level in San Francisco, who happened to want someone with 2D graphics experience to write a Flash player that ran on PS2 and XBox, but more on that later.
Seattle treated me well. I found myself an apartment on First Hill, and within a couple of weeks of arriving, went to a party given by the "Renegade Bears" (later to become "Washington Bears", and then fold), and leave furnished with a circle of friends of acquaintances that remain so to this day. I was also fortunate to discover a fellow Australian Helen Witting, through mutual friends in Sydney - a very entertaining woman, who luckily for me, has since moved to the bay area.
Musically, I played some with the Bellevue Philharmonic Orchestra, but most of my playing was in the form of violin sonatas with the pianist Michael Carrol, who I met at Renegade Bears party mentioned previously.
Once again, to mention the personal stuff, I found myself together with a very dear man, Neil Headland, right near the end of my tenure in Seattle - a relationship destined to 2 years in the long-distance category.
Great job, and in a great city. I started out in apartment in Noe Valley, but lucked out in becoming good friends with Sam Leftwich of the San Francisco Ballet. Sam wanted a housemate, and I wanted to pay less rent, and be closer to the Castro, and a beautifully maintained Victorian apartment "on the flat" with no other "renters" worked for me :) Still live there! Making this the longest I have lived anywhere as an adult (since July 2001), and definitely the longest I have stayed with one employer!
At Secret Level, my first task was to port Macromedias Flash player to the various games platforms. Though this was very successful (and used in a number of games), the negotiations with Macromedia did not go so well, so we moved on. For a short while, I looked at immersing java script in places it hadn't been before, with the view of obtaining and changing statistics in live games (eg unreal-based games - see epic games) remotely. Also used this for creating a rapid-development environment and engine that we used for the original demonstration of Magic the Gathering Battlegrounds to Atari. Since then I have been working with Maya tools, primarily to do with using Maya as a level editing tool, but also for procedural generation of large scale art assets (no more detail - sorry). More recently, have been looking into Microsofts' VSIP.
Musically, my main stay has been the Berkeley Symphony Orchestra with conductor Kent Nagano, and a string quartet with Miriam Blatt, Bob Bruckner and Burke Schuchmann, and intermittently with a quartet with Gordon Thrupp, David Zwishna, and others. Most recently I have been playing with a quartet made up of Milton Wong, Wendy Clymer and Lia Fernald that is preparing a series of private concerts / soirées, maybe in preparation of some public ones - which I am very happy about. I am also about to start playing sonatas with Chuck Worth.
As you may have gathered, I am very partial to San Francisco. Wonderful friends of course - though I have found those anywhere I have been. Musically, sure it isn't New York, but the supply of international artists coming through is as much as my budget can cope with, and way better the Sydney (or Adelaide or Seattle) had to offer. Weather is not quite what Sydney is - nor so picturesque. Having said that, the coffee / gay culture in the Castro suits me very well, with less focus on youth, and muscle + body hair for days! But that goes to a topic that is better suited to a different type of website (later maybe)!!!
Hope that wasn't too tedious - did not originally intend to really feature ME on this site - but there it is, and I have.
Take care
Michael