You knew you’d read it here first.

Whispers from Sussex had been reaching me for several days but I was sworn to silence. Now, I can confirm those thrilling rumours.

Here goes.

Kate Royal has withdrawn from Glyndebourne this summer because she’s expecting a child, her second.

She was due to sing Governess in Britten’s Turn of the Screw.

She will be replaced by Miah Persson. Congrats to all.

That’s it. What were you expecting?

Kate

Miah

I put two questions to the UK Musicians Union this morning about the presence of the Brazilian conductor, Roberto Minczuk, who has sacked half his orchestra and will audition for replacements in London next week.

As expected, I received forthright answers.

Why, I asked, were Liverpool musicians not encouraged to boycott Minczuk when US unions were telling their members to do so?

MU: Unlike US labour law, punitive UK trade union law makes this very difficult. A ballot of all players would have had to be held, the proper notifications given etc. The players weren’t prepared to do this – but they have issued strong statements of support for their Brazilian colleagues.

What is the MU’s position, then, on next week’s auditions?

MU: Our line is that of the International Federation of Musicians (FIM), which says ‘FIM has called on all musicians to boycott these auditions which will be held in May 2011’. We’ll endeavour to notify people attending the auditions of the statements issued by Brazilian colleagues.

That seems to be as clear as it gets, under the eyes of the law.

 

More grassroots goings-on, this time from the north of England:

HALLÉ MEDIA RELEASE

Over 16,000 primary school children to perform alongside the Hallé at The Bridgewater Hall


Come and Play with the Hallé allows thousands of primary school children from across the North West to perform alongside the Hallé – one of Britain’s finest symphony orchestras – in eight special concerts throughout June.

The pupils have been working hard under the direction of their local music services to learn a specially devised version of Chuck Rio’s Tequila, which they will perform alongside the Hallé during these unique concerts. In each concert, over 1,000 young string, brass, woodwind and percussion players will sit in the Stalls and Circle levels of Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall – with their instruments – as they join the Hallé to fill the auditorium with an enormous massed sound.

A further 1,000 children will have the chance to sing Mark and Helen Johnson’s ‘Life is a Wonderful Thing’ from the Sing Up Songbank and join in with the other participatory elements. Each concert will be conducted by the Hallé’s Assistant Conductor, Andrew Gourlay and presented by Hallé horn player, Tom Redmond – known for presenting the Hallé’s Family and Hallé for Youth concerts.

The children have been taking part in the government’s Wider Opportunities scheme, which gives pupils in all primary schools the opportunity of learning to play a musical instrument as part of their weekly curriculum.

The Hallé’s Education Director, Steve Pickett, said: “Come and Play with the Hallé gives thousands of children not only the opportunity to watch an award-winning symphony orchestra, perhaps for the first time, but also to perform alongside one. Hopefully, with the dedication of the music services, this will encourage every young musician to continue playing their instrument for many years to come.”


During the concerts, the Hallé itself will also perform:

Grieg Peer Gynt Suite

Holst Mars from ‘The Planets’

Tchaikovsky Symphony No.4 (excerpts)

Nyman Miranda

Debussy Clair de Lune

John Williams ‘Harry’s Wondrous World’ from Harry Potter

Tchaikovsky 1812 Overture

ENDS

For more information, interviews and pictures, please call the Hallé’s Marketing and Press Officer, Liz Robinson on press@halle.co.uk / 0161 237 7008

or Sabina Wagstyl at Valerie Barber PR: sabina@vbpr.co.uk / 020 7586 8560

 

Members of the Kensington Symphony Orchestra, amateurs all but of very high standard, are mailing me this morning with their responses to playing Mahler’s fourth symphony for the first time. Here’s the first pair. More to follow (see below).

From Peter Nagle, cellist (and, I think, composer):

So what does a band like KSO get from playing Mahler? Well, of course there’s the satisfaction to be gained from having got our fingers round some very tricky notes and brought it all together into (I hope) a convincing performance. I thought we gave a very good account of ourselves tonight. There’s also that emotional aspect – no matter how much you may think you’ve heard it all, Mahler always seems to retain a capacity to get to you. There’s also, I think, an appreciation of the music that you get from participating that you could never get as a passive observer, and I’d like to think some of this rubs off on the audience too (who are, after all, largely our friends and so have a vested interest in us that they wouldn’t of a pro band).

But what I really want to say is that playing Mahler is great because it gives us a chance to play Lutoslawski. We got to perform a ravishing, wonderful work that was written within our own lifetimes, with a fantastic soloist in Katherine Watson. We can gush about Mahler all we like, but we need to experience him in a context like this, because then he becomes a part of a living tradition, one that can be renewed, and not just some dead 19th century guy paraded in a sonic museum. I think Mahler would have hated the idea that he might be the end of a tradition. By pairing his symphony with music of our own time we’re keeping him alive.
From Russell Keable, conductor:
Conducting amateur orchestras is one of the most exhilarating and
uplifting jobs. Wherever the players are on the ability range they can
always achieve more (than they think they can) and the process of
growth, both as individuals and as a group, is quite intoxicating. I’m
fortunate to have worked with one of the UK’s finest amateur
orchestras for most of my life. The potential within Kensington
Symphony Orchestra is quite extraordinary and many highly-experienced
soloists who have worked with us have been amazed at what this group
of people can achieve as a hobby. 

There’s one other thing about this. Every concert is an event. Every
concert is played with total passion and commitment. Not always are
all technical hurdles jumped clean but the determination to
communicate the players’ love of music-making is infectious to an
audience.

My only regret is that this huge range of amateur music making is
undervalued in the UK and often dismissed as ‘just amateur’. KSO, this
season alone, has performed really tough modern works by Adès, David
Matthews and HK Gruber. Last night we played Chantefleurs et
Chantfables, Lutoslawski’s unfairly neglected song cycle on texts by
Desnos. In our last concert of the season we’ll be playing Richard
Ayres’ (really tough for us) No.37b.

From Ariane Todes, violnist, editor of The Strad:

What does it feel like as an amateur on the inside of Mahler’s Fourth?

Well, there are moments of pure elation, a sense of time standing still – the slow movement last night was one. There’s the joy at being part of such a huge sound, of being swept up in a luscious tune (but trying not to overmilk it). Then there are moments of frustration with one’s fingers and one’s brain, for not being able to do the things that you know Russell has been reminding you about during the rehearsals and for fluffing the runs that you’ve practised so hard when you’ve managed to grab some time after work. There are also moments – dare I say it – when one’s mind goes totally AWOL and starts dissecting what happened at work.

There’s the sense of discovery – KSO is particularly special for performing challenging modern works, so that for every old friend such as the Mahler, we get to meet something new, such as Lutoslawski’s Chantefleurs et Chantfables – a slightly mad but beautiful song cycle featuring turtles and alligators, brought off impeccably by Katherine Watson last night. And no, not all of these pieces come off. Sometimes rehearsals become pure note-learning and rhythm-bashing sessions, and the audience doesn’t appreciate ‘the bit before the good piece’. Occasionally, you even end up liking the new piece more than anything else on the programme. But we’re out there, challenging ourselves, and challenging our audiences.

I think that for all of us, being in the orchestra provides a magical alternative reality to our lives as teachers, administrators, accountants, managers, parents, executives, students, writers. It would be trite to say that all the cares of our working day disappear when we start our rehearsals at 6.30 on a Thursday. They don’t. But they go out of focus a bit as we struggle with our notes, our intonation, and Russell’s perennial complaint that we don’t play in time.

I’m a somewhat erstwhile member these days – a key quality-control rule means that you can only miss one rehearsal per run and work trips mean I often miss out – but whenever I come back I see the familiar faces, catch up with the life changes, queue up for coffee and jaffa cakes, and stare up at Russell on the podium, it feels a little bit like coming home. Most of us look a little older than when I joined 15 years ago, but that’s it – we’ve grown up together. And there’s always young, fresh talent making its way through, too, to keep everyone on their toes and to keep the life cycle going.

Russell’s right when he says that amateurs are underappreciated. There are fantastic players in KSO – the strings, of course, but the wind and brass are the best I’ve come across on the amateur orchestral circuit, and many of the group could have made it professionally if they’d chosen that difficult path. Artists of the calibre of Nikolai Demidenko and Jack Liebeck, who are happy to come and play with us, must know something. But I sometimes get a sense of sniffiness in professionals towards amateurs. No, we can’t necessarily play the Tchaikovsky and Brahms violin concertos. We don’t play consistently in tune. We don’t always listen to ourselves in the objective way that professionals are taught to do. Sometimes Russell has to repeat the same point a few times before we get it. But what we do, we do with love, commitment and a certain amount of wisdom. We’re also the ones who buy the CDs, go to the concerts, and buy the nice strings and cases. The music industry has a lot to thank us for. And as a member of KSO, I feel I have a lot to be grateful for – I can have my jaffa cakes and eat them.

 

From Toby Deller, viola playera:

Full disclosure: I do play (viola) professionally, just a regular freelancer. I’m not paid to play in KSO, though, in fact I pay my subs just like everyone else It’s good for my continuing professional development, to use the jargon. Mostly, though, I like – really like – playing music, and my tastes are wide, and KSO goes some way to catering for that.

Another confession: Mahler 4 is one of several pieces that make me cry a bit (sometimes just thinking about them leads the tear ducts to water). I have to make a bit of an effort not to get too involved with it as I’m playing or it can be awkward reading the music. Luckily for them, the audience don’t have that problem. They are free to be moved, and hopefully some were last night. Even if not by the orchestra, then by Katherine Watson’s singing, intoxicating right from the start of the Lutoslawski.

It’s not, as one might expect, the big climaxes that set me off in Mahler 4 but the final movement. It’s so cruel – the music and text paint this picture of an untroubled paradise. At the end, you’re all relaxed and ‘Ah, that’s lovely’, until it dawns on you that it’s all make-believe, you’ve been had. You must return to an imperfect world. Not a million miles from having to go back to the office the day after playing Lutoslawski and Mahler