fanfare - RBCA Members’ News Autumn 2020, issue 5
Message from the Chair
Message from the new Chair
Having been Chair of RBCA for 9 years, I have taken the difficult decision to retire from this position. I can’t believe that it has been 9 years since I undertook the responsibility. My time as Chair has been challenging and hard work at times, but above all stimulating, enjoyable and very worthwhile. I have met and worked with many wonderful and talented people, all working towards supporting the students. I would like to thank the Committee Members for their continued support to me and their commitment to RBCA.
I am very pleased to be writing my first message as the new Chair of RBCA. Having been a trustee and committee member since 2014, I have thoroughly enjoyed being involved with the work of our Association. As an Alumnus of the Birmingham School of Music and former student of Professor Malcolm Wilson, I am proud to support the wonderful students at the Royal Birmingham Conservatoire, especially since a number of them have been A level students of mine over the years.
I am delighted to write that in September, fellow Committee Members Tony Bridgewater was appointed as the new Chair and Jane Williams as ViceChair. I wish them every success for the future and I look forward to working with them as a Committee Member.
Rosemary is a long-standing friend, through my work in schools and by my being an occasional accompanist and composer for her and her choirs. I know her many personal and professional qualities, and fully realise the enormity of the task in following her successful tenure as Chair. However, I am delighted that she and her husband John will remain on the committee to provide their support and wisdom. I am also indebted to Jane Williams for agreeing to take up the newly created post of Vice Chair. Her wealth of experience in education and public office will be invaluable to me as the RBCA seeks to develop and expand its work.
Thank you to you, RBCA Members, for your continued support for the Association, Royal Birmingham Conservatoire and its students.
Rosemary Phillips, RBCA Committee Member
Tony Bridgewater, Chair, RBCA Committee Royal Birmingham Conservatoire Association is a membership association supporting the work of the students at Royal Birmingham Conservatoire. Tony Bridgewater (pictured left) and Jane Williams (right) presenting Rosemary Phillips (centre) with a gift from the RBCA as a thank you for chairing the committee from 2011 to 2020.
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Introducing the new RBCA Chair, Tony Bridgewater...
Music. Forthcoming first performances include a ‘Fantasia’ for piano to celebrate the 225th anniversary of the Bewdley Chapel, ‘Huddersfield Overture’ for the Huddersfield Windband and ‘Concert Piece no.2 for Piano and Strings’, written for the Hagley String Orchestra, which is conducted by Jeremy Patterson, former Chair of the (R)BCA.
...and the new RBCA ViceChair, Jane Williams
Tony was a piano student of Malcolm Wilson at the then Birmingham School of Music from 1976 to 79, before studying Music at Cambridge, specialising in piano performance and composition. He trained as a teacher in York, and was Head of Music at Ridgewood High School, Stourbridge, and Old Swinford Hospital School for a total of thirty years. During this time he was privileged to work with many talented young musicians, and undertook trips across Europe and America with student bands, orchestras and choirs. He was also the music coordinator for a Birmingham based teacher training programme. He now plays the piano for two Midland choirs, and is the organist at St Benedict’s Church, Wombourne. He also accompanies violinist Anna Downes in the Himley Duo; Anna’s father is former RBC Head of Composition Andrew Downes, and they have included many of his works in their programmes. Tony conducts the National Flute Orchestra and is soon to direct the Wyre Forest Symphony Orchestra in a programme featuring alumnus Michael Jones. Tony has composed music for orchestra, concert band and choir, song cycles and chamber music. His music for brass and wind instruments is published by Forton 2
Jane became a Trustee of the RBCA in 2015. A former Further Education College Principal and Whitehall Director of Standards, she has a lifelong interest in Music and the Arts and in widening access to top class music education. She has served on a variety of Public and Voluntary Sector Boards including Birmingham Metropolitan College as Vice-Chair, and is currently a Board member and patient reviewer for the NHS Quality Review service. She is an amateur pianist, choral singer and Legacy Fellow of the Conservatoire. In 2003 she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from the University of Wolverhampton for her contribution to Further Education in the West Midlands. She is keen to support the Association in developing its assistance for students from disadvantaged and minority backgrounds and also in broadening the diversity of its membership across the West Midlands and beyond.
A tribute to Rosemary Phillips, former RBCA Chair Rosemary Phillips enrolled at Birmingham School of Music in 1969, studying singing with Freda Hart, and conducting with Dr Peter James, while working with Coris Cartwright, Keith Darlington, Tom Hawkes, Johanna Peters and Freddie Sharp in the operas performed during her studies. These included The Barber of Seville, The Marriage of Figaro, Albert Herring and the première of Tom Hammond’s No Time for Funerals. She gained ABSM (Associateship), ARCM Singing Teacher in 1972 as well as a graduate diploma and was awarded a scholarship for part-time tuition; she undertook her teacher training at the City of Birmingham College of Education and started teaching at High Park School, Stourbridge, where she was head of music for nine years. She continued to perform nationally in oratorio, recitals and opera. In 1977 she participated in a Tito Gobbi Masterclass which was given in association with The Friends of Welsh National Opera in Birmingham, and worked with Sir Peter Pears at Aldeburgh. Rosemary became a freelance musician, building a busy private singing practice, leading vocal workshops, adjudicating at festivals and directing choirs. In 1989, with her husband, John Gripton, she founded the Viva Musica Choir. She is a member of the Association of Choral Directors, the National Association of Choirs and the Association of Teachers of Singing and from 1990 to 2011 she taught singing and directed choirs for Dudley Performing Arts.
She joined (R)BCA in 1983 and participated as a member of the panel for the Music Teaching Forum, which was organised for BSM students in 1987. She became Chair of the RBCA in 2011, successfully steering the Association on as a registered charity to its current position as a standing Committee of the Conservatoire. Many things have happened during her time in post: she promoted the Association at the annual undergraduate welcome, headed the team at alumni reunions, forged the relationship with the CBSO (String Training and Learning and Participation schemes) along with former Treasurer Helen Mills, managed the introduction of GDPR, and handled the move of the office from Paradise Place to Millennium Point. Rosemary leads from the front by example, sets high standards, is firm but fair, and always shows the teacher’s flair for engaging instantly with staff and students. She keeps comprehensive hand-written notes, which provide a reliable reference and means for clarification when the need arises. Her support of the Conservatoire and the Association has been unwavering and she is an inspiration to all those who have worked with her. In addition, her considerable persuasive and diplomatic skills have proved very effective when required, always infused however with a great deal of charm and grace. Rosemary relinquished the Chair in September, but she remains a valued member of the RBCA Committee.
Helen Mills, Former RBCA Treasurer John D Smith, RBCA Committee Member (Members Liaison)
Members’ News The 2021 Annual Service of Thanksgiving and Commemoration to celebrate the names of those inscribed in the Musicians’ Book of Remembrance will be held at 6pm on Tuesday 27th April 2021 at St Sepulchre-without-Newgate, the National Musicians’ Church. We are associated with alumna and honorary member Margery Elliott HonFRBC. Due to the ongoing uncertainties, there will not be a 2020 Christmas lunch. We regret to report the deaths of members:
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John Streets MBE HonFRBC in 2018 Paul Thomas, alumnus (1968-73) on 14th May 2020 (see page 11) Mrs Mary P Brown née Vowles, alumna (1955-56) on 12th August 2020
Coming soon: New RBCA Student Awards
Update on the re-opening of the Conservatoire building
Last year, the RBCA Committee offered more than £6,000 in financial support, amassed from members’ subscriptions, to help 12 students purchase equipment or undertake extra training outside the Conservatoire.
A significant amount of work has gone into preparing the building to open safely to students and staff, aligning the very specific requirements of a working conservatoire with robust and carefully managed health and safety protocols.
Following the launch of RBC’s ‘Sponsor a Student’ appeal, which featured in the Spring issue of Fanfare, the Committee has decided to shift its focus to support this appeal with two new RBCA Awards, which will offer assistance to students from disadvantaged backgrounds in need of financial support, and contribute to widening access to top class music and acting education. The Committee has already pledged to support one annual award of £2,000, which will be matched by a further £2,000 from the Conservatoire to help meet a UK undergraduate student’s living expenses throughout their 4-year period of study beginning in September 2021. In addition, RBCA members will be invited to contribute towards a second award, which will operate along the same lines, to benefit a further UK student commencing their undergraduate studies in September 2022. We will be keeping in close contact with the award holders during their time at the Conservatoire, and will regularly inform members of their progress. For more details about this exciting new initiative or to make a donation, please contact Amy Self, RBC Development Officer at amy.self@bcu.ac.uk.
Jane Williams Vice-Chair, RBCA
To meet the University’s pledge of providing students with 50% of their activity face-to-face, and to keep our building at no more than 50% capacity, the timetable this semester looks very different from ‘normal’. In order to enable as much Principal Study work as possible to happen in person, supporting studies are being delivered online. Students have been organized into ‘bubbles’ of no more than 30 to both minimize their contacts within the building, and enable effective track and trace processes if required. Some of these groups are departmental, whereas others are mixed – for instance to allow pianists to work with string players in chamber music, or to enable composers to work with a particular group of instrumentalists. As far as possible, 2 metre social distancing is being maintained (and assisted by careful marking-out of rooms and spaces); where this is not possible, a ‘1 metre plus’ approach is being taken, with face coverings, visors and protective screens being used in mitigation. We have been pleased to be able to accommodate 1:1 lessons face-to-face wherever possible, and to enable students to book practice time, including in the evenings and on Sundays. Thanks to the work of Tim English and his team, our Junior Department is up and running on Saturdays, and is delivering a significant amount of its regular activity. While there can be no live events in the Autumn term, we will be proceeding with online performances, starting in October. We hope not to experience further full lockdowns, but are confident that we have contingencies in place if the need arises; and we can certainly support students who need to study from a distance at any point (for instance, those international students who are yet to arrive in Birmingham). Without doubt, re-opening a conservatoire in a pandemic has been a considerable undertaking, but we are proud that students and staff tell us that they feel safe. It goes without saying that everyone is delighted to be making live music again!
Dr Shirley Thompson Interim Principal, RBC Conservatoire student and oboist Elly Barlow, BMus Year 2, who is generously supported by the Leverhulme Trust
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‘In Search of Music’ reflections on 50 Years of exploring, discovering, understanding and performing the music of neglected composers In 1966, while still at school, I was awarded for a Music Prize a book entitled ‘In Search of Music’ by Percy Young (1912-2004). Although on the surface it was a book about the great composers it was the title that has inspired my life’s work: exploring many lesser-known composers deserving of a wider hearing. In 1968 I began part-time piano studies at the BSM with Marjorie Hazlehurst, but it was in January 1971, and still in my (rather outgrown!) school uniform, that I made my public debut at a student concert playing three Bach Preludes and Fugues. Also that year I was appointed to my first church Organist/Choirmaster’s post at a Church in Kings Heath, and also began giving piano lessons to local children. Finally, in September I began full-time study on the Graduate course.
During the 1980s, renowned composers like Edmund Rubbra, William Alwyn and Alan Bush were still very active and it was perfectly possible to pick up the phone and speak to them direct. I did this with Edmund in 1979 when I was preparing his Eight Preludes Op.131 for a lunchtime recital in Aston University. He was not well at the time and requested an audio cassette of my performance; this I did and his response was very kind: “I congratulate you on your general understanding”. This was a great encouragement to me at the time. With William Alwyn the situation followed a similar path. I was booked to perform his Fantasy-Waltzes for a recital in Peterborough Cathedral in 1981. However, he too was ill in hospital and requested a recording of the concert. This was duly sent and I received some kind letters from him later (“I love writing for the piano, the very feel of the keys is to me an inspiration”). With Alan Bush I was more fortunate, having seen him in Birmingham and heard him lecture on John Ireland at the Bromsgrove Festival in 1979. Anthony Cross had booked me to take part in Alan’s 80th Birthday Concert in Birmingham Art Gallery during November 1980. He took part himself and I found his public speaking was amusing – rather like Cicero holding forth!
After graduation in 1974, I entered the freelance world as a piano teacher, organist, accompanist to choirs and operatic societies, which financed my postgraduate advanced piano studies with, among others, Janice Williams and Tom Bromley (on Christopher Edmunds’ music). From Constance Warren I learnt about York Bowen and Benjamin Dale (her teachers at the RAM), and from Edna Iles about Nicolai Medtner (1880-1951) who had lived in the Midlands during World War Two. By this time I had already taken part in the 80th Birthday celebrations for Chris. Edmunds had also been brought into closer contact with one of his students, Herbert Lumby, whose wife, Muriel Normansell had sung for Medtner. All these ingredients worked themselves into the enterprising series of concerts called ‘Friends and Contemporaries’, organised by the late alumna Margaret Handford (1926-2018), a singer whose earlier ‘Midland Musicians’ series had given a great many opportunities to local artists, and commissioned several works from such composers as Gunilla Lowenstein (1929-1981) who had heard me play the rarely-heard Frank Bridge Piano Sonata in the Barber Institute in 1979 and wanted to write a piece for me, but her illness and death prevented this. Michael Jones, RBC alumnus (1968-1979)
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During the 1990’s onwards, I published biographical articles for several composers’ centenaries: including Chris Edmunds, Dorothy Howell, and Leslie Heward – the CBSO conductor from 1930 to 43 and whose Variations on an Original Theme for Two Pianos was premièred by Fleur Elliott and myself at Symphony Hall in 1995. Over the years I have acquired or inherited several collections of sound recordings, historic concert programmes, and more importantly photocopies (and some originals) of manuscripts from many Archives. Not surprisingly, perhaps, I have now performed works, in all genres, by well over 500 composers in 50 years!
All these activities might seem as if it has been difficult to concentrate on a performing career, but this is not so. I have been able to enrich my programmes with a range of composers rarely explored by the mainstream pianistic establishment, many of whom have a repertoire of only 20-30 composers at most! Also, playing the organ for church services demands extra skills of harmonisation and improvisation which go beyond the merely re-creative skills of the average pianist. Therefore, I can say that in 50 years of musical life I have considered it far more important to become an all-round musician while, hopefully, contributing something of significance to the Midlands’ musical heritage.
Michael Jones, RBC alumnus (1968-1979)
Members’ Liaison contribution Report on Annual Meeting The first Annual Meeting of the restructured RBCA as part of the Conservatoire took place on Friday 19th June 2020 via Zoom video call due to the RBC building being closed on account of the Coronavirus pandemic. RBCA Chair Rosemary Phillips welcomed all attendees to the meeting. She reported that RBCA funds had given support to twelve students in need at the February Student Awards Committee meeting.
Due to lockdown restrictions, the Spring issue of Fanfare and Members’ News had to be published online. Rosemary also addressed the challenges caused by Covid-19 for both the Conservatoire and the RBCA and thanked all committee members for their support during this difficult time. 6
Welcome to our new Patron
The RBCA Committee are delighted to announce that RBC Emeritus Professor Julian Lloyd Webber, who stepped down as Principal of RBC in September, has accepted the newly created role of Patron of the RBCA.
Two new Committee Members We are pleased to welcome Paul Carr and Jonathan Hill as new committee members. Paul is a well known organist and recitalist, choral director, accompanist and teacher based in Birmingham, an alumnus and Honorary Member of the Conservatoire, and long-standing RBCA member. Jonathan has had long experience teaching music at primary and secondary school level, while also pursuing a busy parallel career as Musical Director of shows in Birmingham and across the Midlands. He and his wife Lorna are both life members of the RBCA.
Welcome to new Members We are delighted to welcome twenty eight new members who have joined the Association since the summer: James Alexander, James Allen, Francesca Asbury-Semmens, Victoria Benito Rodriguez, Glen Carroll, Jude Crofton, Felicity Davies, Richard English, Lillian Garnier, Tania Gasa, Lydia Goodall, Holly Greenwood-Rogers, Joel Harris, Hayley Harrison, Katie Hoare, Matthew Holmes, Benjamin Isaac, Xinyue Mao, Charlotte Marshall, Angela Monge-Alvarez, Ellice Price, Vivianne Sengati, Sebastian Storey, Eleanor Tomlinson, Chia An Tung, Kaiying Wang, Albert Ward and Jack Whiting (Annual Members, 2020 RBC graduates).
Congratulations to composer Andrew Downes HonFRBC, former Head of Composition and Creative Studies at RBC (1990-2005) who celebrated his 70th birthday on 20th August 2020 A prolific composer with over 110 works to his credit, ranging from solo vocal works to song cycles, cantatas, oratorio, choral works and opera, and works for solo instruments, duos, quartets, octets, and orchestra, his career spans over five decades, and many recordings. He has received commissions from numerous artists, ensembles and organisations, amongst them flautist Peter Sheridan; guitarists Simon Dinnigan and Fred T. Baker; alumnus, violinist James Coles; organists Carson Cooman and Robert Green; alumnus Richard Adams HonFRBC of the Cambrian Brass Ensemble; Roland Horvath of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra; song cycles for mezzo-soprano Sarah Walker and tenor John Mitchinson for broadcast on BBC Radio 3; Brahms Trio Prague; the Almira and Exton Quartets; Cambrian Brass Quintet; Midland Chamber Players; James Madison University Flute Choir; Birmingham Conservatoire Chamber Choir for BBC Radio 3 Choral Evensong; Callington Singers; Choir of Hereford Cathedral; Academy of St Philip’s Orchestra; Colorado Flute Orchestra; Czech Philharmonic Orchestra; Sutton Coldfield Chamber Orchestra; Symphony Hall, Birmingham; City of Birmingham’s Centenary Festival of Fireworks and Music; Three Choirs Festival; anthems for the BBC Radio 4 Daily Service; Choir of the Collegiate Church of the Holy Trinity, Stratford-upon-Avon; the Incorporated Society of Organists; Runnymede Church Choirs Association; Francis Brett Young Society; British Horn Society; Vienna Horn Society; horns of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra; Horn Octet of the University of New Mexico; Princethorpe College; Rugby Schools’ Music Association; and the Bishop of Naples to celebrate the restoration of the Cathedral of Barletta, South Italy, to name a few. He is a Life Fellow of the RSA and the International Biographical Association, President of the Central Composers’ Alliance and Leading Patron of the Midland Chamber Players. Andrew Downes, former Head of Composition and Creative Studies at Birmingham Conservatoire (1990-2005)
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Andrew was born in Birmingham in 1950. In 1969, he won a choral scholarship to St. John’s College, Cambridge, where he gained an MA degree specialising in composition and in 1974 went on to study composition with Herbert Howells at the Royal College of Music. He joined the staff of the Birmingham School of Music in 1975 as a lecturer in music and started the experimental music workshop. He was responsible for the introduction of composition as a first study subject and went on to found the School of Composition and Creative Studies. He was awarded a Professorship in 1992, retired in 2005 and nine years later was made Emeritus Professor of Birmingham City University, for carrying out his work ‘with distinction’. He now works as a freelance composer. He has chosen to raise money for Stoke Mandeville Spinal Research for his 70th Birthday year of concerts. He has suffered a life of ill health, starting at the age of 12 when he first displayed symptoms of ankylosing spondylitis, an arthritic disease which slowly creeps up the backbone, destroying the cartilage between the vertebrae and gradually fusing the spinal column together, leaving it rigid and brittle. In 2009, Andrew’s left hip gave way, he fell and his back broke. He was left paraplegic but received excellent care at Stoke Mandeville Hospital. #andrewdownes70 includes the première of his 6th Symphony, a socially-distanced recorded video performance, along with numerous other online endeavours, due to COVID-19. Find out more: watch videos; listen to recordings and podcast episodes; browse the digital sheet music at andrewdownes.com.
Alumnus (1971-74) Simon Davison writes: A Lifetime of Employment I first started “working” as a cellist when I was about 13 years old and at school in Birmingham in the 1960s. In those days there were many amateur operatic companies with plenty of places to perform, as all the large Victorian factories like Dunlop and Cadbury’s had their own theatres. There were also many small theatres, like the Crescent Theatre in Brindley Place, dotted around the city. The works of Gilbert and Sullivan came out of copyright in 1961 and were being performed every week somewhere in the city. This was the perfect recipe for a lazy schoolboy to earn as much as £10 a week, which was a lot of money in those days, and I used to do my “O” level revision on the bus going home after a show. Consequently, I left school at 16 with 2 “O” levels and went to the Birmingham School of Music in Dale End. I was at BSM when the Queen Mother opened the “new” building next to the Town Hall in 1973 and a small booklet was produced to mark the occasion; I was in two of the photographs. When I was a student, there were 6 fulltime cello students and five of us got orchestral jobs straight from college. After Birmingham, I went to work in an orchestra in Salzburg, where Herbert von Karajan was the Music Director. It took 24 hours on a train to get to Salzburg on the Tanus Express, with no buffet car, so you had to take all your food and drink with you. The ‘cello was not allowed in the compartment, so it had to travel in the guard’s van.
After Salzburg, I joined The Academy of the BBC for eighteen months, a small repertoire orchestra in Bristol, which used to record for Radio 2 and Radio 3. Radio 2 was limited to the amount of commercial music it could play - I think something like fifteen minutes per hour - the radio orchestras filling the gap. At the time, a BBC orchestra could record a piece for radio once, and if repeated, there was a small repeat fee for the players. To get around this, a popular piece would be recorded 5 or 6 times in the same session. In April 1976, I joined the Welsh Philharmonia, now called the Orchestra of Welsh National Opera, in Cardiff. The Arts were undergoing a huge expansion; the orchestra had become full time a few years before and was now expanding in size. Opera North was founded a few years later.
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Simon Davison, RBC alumnus (1971-1974) (third from right)
There was plenty of Arts Council money for performances and touring, which is expensive. WNO did 4 big tours a year, 4 different operas a week, often 6 shows a week, and we were away from base for about 36 weeks a year. Compare that with now, 2 tours a year, at the most 3 different operas a week and away from base for only twelve to fourteen weeks. With the start of Digital recording and the invention of CDs, the orchestra moved into the studio. Joan Sutherland re-recorded most of her catalogue with us, and other stars on those recordings included Luciano Pavarotti and Montserrat Caballé. We recorded in London during the day and performed opera in Birmingham, Oxford, or Southampton in the evening, with Decca transporting the orchestra back and forth every day. Eventually we started recording in Swansea, which was much nearer home and cheaper for the recording companies; but persuading Pavarotti to leave London for Swansea was a challenge. We also recorded with Kiri te Kanawa, Renée Fleming, José Carreras and, of course, Bryn Terfel, amongst many others. We rerecorded many of the G&S operettas with Sir Charles Mackerras, as well as most of Delius’s music with him. We played Wagner with Sir Reginald Goodall, Pelléas et Mélisande under Boulez, we toured the Ring around the U.K., and took Verdi to Milan and Debussy to Paris. Foreign tours were many. We went to East Germany (DDR) for over 3 weeks, (it was interesting seeing the other side of “the wall”), Japan, New York, Hong Kong, Germany, Italy, Finland, and in recent times the Middle East, including Dubai and Oman. Taking an opera company abroad is awfully expensive, and sometimes we would do two or three foreign trips a year. It is not just the orchestra and singers who go, but all the backstage and technical personnel, sets, and costumes. Large instruments like ‘cellos had their own seats on the plane; we would use either charter flights or scheduled flights.
Towards the end of my time in WNO, when the company was on tour in Birmingham, the orchestra would go into the Birmingham Conservatoire to do a “side by side” rehearsal with the students. We would rehearse something, usually an opera in our current repertoire, with a student by our side, and we were supposed to pass on pearls of wisdom. I always felt my career had gone full circle, starting at Dale End, moving to Paradise Circus, then back to the latest building, a spitting distance from Dale End. After 47 years of full-time work, plus the years of playing beforehand, my left arm started to let me down! The tendon which controls my ring and little finger had become “gristly” and swollen. It was pressing on the nerve controlling those two fingers, slowing them down, weakening them, and making it harder to press down the strings; nothing could be done medically, so I retired in July 2019. My wife Rubina and I have three children (a consultant in a London hospital, an A&E doctor in a hospital in Sydney, and a solicitor for a University) as well as four grandchildren. Although my ‘cello playing days are over, I have started learning the piano accordion, a fiendish instrument that certainly challenges me mentally and physically!
A second volume appeared and, not long after my two symphonies were recorded, I was invited to contribute to a third album, which was released last December . For my contribution I wrote a fantasia for string orchestra on themes by the Flemish Renaissance composer Loyset Compère. It was recorded by the strings of the Ukrainian Festival Orchestra, conducted by Paul Mann, and is dedicated to Yodit’s son, Alex, in memory of his late mother. The title, Beyond Compère, not only puns the Flemish composer’s name, but also serves as a tribute to the departed Yodit.” Rodney adds that the CD of his 1st Symphony (written just after leaving Birmingham School of Music) and his 4th, together with a short tone poem, Distant Nebulae, has been well received and is now in its second pressing. It has received many favourable reviews, including an enthusiastic one in the American Fanfare magazine and a positive one from the distinguished music critic, Richard Morrison. Currently there is a scheme afoot to record his two most recent symphonies, Nos 13 and 14, which are both scored for symphonic wind band, for eventual release on the Toccata Classics label.
Dr Rodney Newton, RBC alumnus (1963-1967)
Simon Davison, RBC alumnus (1971-1974)
Alumnus (1963-67) Dr Rodney Newton HonRBC writes: A few years ago, my friend, Martin Anderson, proprietor of the Toccata Classics label, released a CD recording of two of my symphonies (Nos 1 and 4) as the first instalment of a project to record my orchestral music, and he introduced me to an extraordinary project of his. In 2015, his partner, Yodit Tekle, died of cancer at the early age of 37. When her illness was first diagnosed, their friend, composer Steve Elcock, wrote a string work, Song for Yodit, which he hoped might bring her comfort. During her final year, Martin was inspired to ask a number of his composer friends if they would write a work for string orchestra to celebrate her life, and, following her death, the resulting works appeared on an album entitled, Music for my Love; profits of the sales being donated to Macmillan Cancer Support, Winston’s Wish (a charity supporting bereaved children) and Cancer Research UK. Dr Rodney Newton, HonRBC alumnus (1963-67)
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Musical Life Under Lockdown Alumnus (1968-1979) Michael Jones writes: “Like many musicians, I was unable to pursue all
regular musical activity during the months of lockdown. But looking positively on this outwardly-imposed situation enabled me to get on with lots of writing, research and, more importantly, the time to get on with digitising onto USB memory sticks my entire collection of original manuscripts (mostly photocopies), a process subjected in the past to endless procrastination! In doing so it was quite an experience going through all my music cupboards to be reminded of what has been accumulated over nearly 50 years from many sources. The vast majority of the photocopies are very likely to be the only second copies in existence. This work is complete and I have produced a comprehensive catalogue. Of the many composers listed the ones most immediately relevant to RBC include: Christopher Edmunds, James Walker, Herbert Lumby, Dorothy Howell, Hayford Morris, Constance Warren and Peter Wishart”. Alumnus (1987-1991) Ian Venables writes:
“The coronavirus pandemic has certainly affected both my personal and professional life. As with so many of my musician friends, the initial impact of the current crisis is devastating. All the scheduled concerts and recitals that were to feature my music have been either cancelled or postponed. This included a muchlooked-forward-to performance of my new Requiem with Merton College Choir, Oxford at this year’s Worcester Elgar Festival and a song recital in Vienna. Apart from not being able to travel and meet up with family and friends, my day-to-day life has not really changed very much. I generally spend most of my time at home either composing or working on various musical projects.
One of the few positive effects of this lockdown is that I have been taking more outdoor exercise. As the lockdown regulations eased, I began taking long walks in the wonderful Worcestershire countryside. I have been discovering more of its secret history and hidden places and as Landscape has been an important influence on my music, these recent experiences may well have some positive effect on my music in the future: we will have to see! When the lockdown began, I was very dispirited by what was happening to the country, and my friends and I didn’t really want to compose anything. However, as I had already been commissioned to write a short choral work, I realised that time was moving on and I thought I had better start looking for a suitable text. After some weeks of research, I eventually found what I was looking for. As is often the case, the words seem to find me, or perhaps with the current situation uppermost in my mind, I was simply drawn to them. For whatever reason, I found Psalm 67. The words jumped off the page and seemed to have such a resonance with what was happening to our world that I had no choice but to set it. In the opening lines, the psalmist implores: God to return health to the Nations and after praising God, the earth will be ‘…rejuvenated and bountiful again…’ So in a strange way this epidemic has most definitely influenced my music”. Ian’s Flying Crooked, which was composed in 1998 and first performed at the Wigmore Hall the following year, was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 on 15th July 2020. Alumna (1958-62) Joy Lee reports from the Sydney Conservatorium of Music in Australia: “We went into lockdown after four weeks of semester 1, from 28th March 2020. This meant that instrumental lessons, music skills and advanced seminar went online, performance platform and chamber music were cancelled, and listening suggestions were offered. A weekly newsletter was sent to students, parents and staff, with tasks, keeping them active, interested, and letting them know that we cared. We did silly things like crosswords, quizzes, weekly family listening suggestions, student submissions and any informative ideas we could think of. We decided to have a blitz on listening, so in fact the time was used usefully. We started back at the Conservatorium for semester 2 on 1st August in a limited form: lessons, performance (no audience from outside) and chamber music tutorials. Music skills and advanced seminars stayed online”. Ian Venables, RBC alumnus (1987–1991)
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Musical Life Under Lockdown Alumnus (1996-2000) Duncan Honeybourne tells us he was busy during lockdown recording a series of 75 daily online "Piano Soundbites" for his Weymouth Lunchtime Chamber Concerts’ audiences. The series ran from March until June and can still be heard on the WLCC YouTube channel. In addition, he commissioned composers to write new pieces and the result was a complementary "Contemporary Piano Soundbites" series, featuring thirty world premières of new piano pieces written during lockdown by composers including Andrew Downes, John Casken, Francis Pott, Adam Gorb, and John McLeod, and RBC alumnus Paul Henley.
Paul Thomas was born at Loveday Street Maternity Hospital in Birmingham and attended Acocks Green Infant, Junior and Secondary Modern schools. When he was twelve years old he sang O for the wings of a dove and The Holy City in Birmingham Central Hall as part of the 1952 International Co-Operative Celebrations. At the age of 14 he passed the exam to go to Aston Commercial School. On leaving, he took a clerical job with the Wesleyan and General Assurance Company, but found the work so tedious that he applied to become a nursing cadet at Monyhull Hospital for mentally handicapped people, later doing general nurse training at Bromsgrove General Hospital.
He was fascinated by music from an early age and had singing lessons with Gordon Clinton, BSM Principal, who, in 1968, encouraged him to become a full-time Duncan recorded many of the pieces in July and a disc of some of them will appear on the Prima Facie label in student. His tutors included Gwen Hanson, voice, and the autumn, entitled "Contemporary Piano Soundbites: Ruth Gerald, piano. Having obtained the Licentiate diploma of Trinity College of Music in singing, Paul Composers in Lockdown 2020." His next 2-CD set of began teacher training at Birmingham College of British piano music for EM Records should have been Education. He left in 1973 and started teaching at Elms recorded in April but the sessions had to be postponed to August. This album will include the Piano Sonata in B Farm Junior School, moving, after three years, to minor by former BSM Principal (1945-1956) Christopher Springfield House School in Knowle, where he found a Edmunds (alongside the Frank Bridge Sonata and premi- particular interest working with autistic children. He ère recordings of works by Edgar Bainton and Armstrong gained a BA degree from the Open University and a B.Phil(Ed) in Special Educational needs from Gibbs), with release scheduled for this winter. Birmingham University in 1980.
Remembering Paul Thomas 4th October 1939 - 14th May 2020
In January 1983 he was appointed Head Teacher at The Bridge School, Erdington then took up a similar position at Merstone School, Marston Green where he invited Live Music Now! to become involved with music in the school and many of their performers were BSM alumni. Children in Need came to film the work which was used as an integration link with a local primary school. A small group of children from the school appeared in the Solihull Schools’ Music Festival and performed their version of ‘Winter’ using the music of Vivaldi; their performance received a standing ovation. This led to the young people attending a residential Music Workshop where they participated in the production of a simple musical. Paul acted as official accompanist for the week. He took early retirement in 1996 but returned to teach music part-time at St Anthony’s RC School, Kingshurst. He joined BCA in 2009 and became a Trustee three years later. His interest in the students was paramount and he was a keen supporter of everything musical. He had a special skill encouraging hesitant members of an audience to take up Association membership. He is greatly missed by the RBCA Committee. Paul Thomas, RBC alumnus (1968-1973) and former RBCA Trustee
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Contact Us If you would like to find out more information about the work of the RBCA, renew your membership, update your contact details or preferences, or offer content for the next edition of Fanfare RBCA Members’ News, please contact: Lydia Ward Development Administrator Development Office Royal Birmingham Conservatoire 200 Jennens Road Birmingham B4 7XR Email: lydia.ward@bcu.ac.uk Telephone: 0121 331 6988
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