CHRISTMAS CRACKERS
Seasonal celebrations with the BBC Singers
PRIZE TIME
ISM members are among the nominees for 2024’s many music awards
HAPPY NEW YEAR
We look at Hogmanay traditions north of the border
Welcome
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As the nights draw in and the temperature drops, gathering together to make music seems to me even more important and vital to our lives. There is something wonderful about shared music making – particularly at the moment when the world is so unstable with floods and natural disasters, conflicts overseas and uncertainty regarding the new government in the US. So music, and for me particularly the music of Bach, is a way of taking my mind away from the world’s troubles. Never have we needed our musicians more. As ever the ISM is proud to stand by your side at this festive time of year and support you –no matter if you are a teacher, performer, composer, music therapist or in some other way connected to making music.
To celebrate the festive season we have a bumper Music Journal –it is a veritable Christmas Cracker. This edition covers everything from the many awards shows, competitions and prizes taking place this October and November, with nominees including ISM members, to how Hogmanay is celebrated across Scotland. And, continuing the theme of bringing to the forefront forgotten women composers begun in our Autumn issue with our feature on the new BBC Ten Pieces initiative, in this issue we look at the life and compositions of Eliza Flower.
We also look at some rigorous research into opera by the public policy research agency Public First, as well as previewing the Christmas schedule of the BBC Singers, who not so long ago were threatened with closure but have now bounced back with renewed support from the BBC. As the festive season is traditionally a busy one for musicians, we also include features to support your health – the first looks at what you can do to become a healthy instrumentalist, while the second offers guidance on the many health and wellbeing services you are entitled to as an ISM member.
ISM sexual harassment training session for orchestras
Music awards, prizes and competitions
12. Hogmanay: A quintessential Scottish celebration!
16. Christmas Crackers: The BBC Singers
20. Perception, cost or accessibility: What are the real barriers to attending an opera?
24. Music exams for everyone
26. Meet Eliza Flower
28. How to become a healthy instrumentalist
30. Health and wellbeing support tailored for you
32. ISM Community
36. Member spotlight
The more friends you refer, the greater your rewards!
And I just want to say a big thank you to members who responded to the DfE Curriculum review – I know it was not the easiest of consultations to complete, but it is really important that this new government hears just how vital music education is and takes the necessary steps to make music accessible to all young people in our schools. In my view it is a basic human right.
While this year comes to a close, we look forward to seeing as many of you as possible next year, at our annual Members’ Day, Make Music Work. Save 24 April 2025 in your calendar and look out for further information about the day in our newsletters and in the next issue of MJ
Enjoy the festive season and see you in the New Year.
VAT on private school fees
At the Autumn Budget, Chancellor of the Exchequer Rachel Reeves confirmed that VAT will be paid on private school fees from 1 January 2025.
The Treasury opened a technical consultation on the proposals over the summer, to which the ISM responded, highlighting the potential impact on music education in private schools as well as extra-curricular music lessons.
A report by the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR), released on the same day as the budget, estimated that two-thirds of the VAT costs will be passed on to parents and 35,000 students will move to the state sector as a result.
An ISM survey of music teachers who work in the private schools received 450 responses. For information about the survey results, please see the ISM website at ism.org
APPG on Music Education elects new officers
The All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Music Education held its Inaugural Meeting in the Houses of Parliament on 22 October 2024. The meeting elected new officers and reconstituted the group in the new parliament.
Bambos Charalambous MP is the new chair of the Group, alongside co-chairs Baroness Keeley and Baron Black of Brentwood. Anna Sabine MP, who was first elected at the 2024 general election, has joined as an officer.
The ISM has provided the secretariat to the group for years and will continue to do so.
ISM welcomes music teacher bursary at secondary level
We welcomed the continuation of the £10,000 bursary for trainee music teachers at secondary level.
Funding cuts for music and culture in Scotland reversed
The Scottish Government confirmed that its proposed cuts to Creative Scotland’s budget will not go ahead, after an outcry from the sector.
GCSE and A-level music entries analysed
We analysed the GSCE and A-level music entries this year following the official announcement from the Joint Council of Qualifications.
The ISM has been incredibly concerned about the decline of music in English state schools following the introduction of accountability measures the EBacc (in 2010) and Progress 8 (in 2016).
This year the number of GCSE entries remained at historically low levels despite an increase since 2023. Music entries as a percentage of the Year 11 cohort in
England have risen by just 0.2% in the last year. Figures remain low across the UK following the 12% decrease in music entries between 2022 and 2023. This is despite an 8.7% rise in GCSE music entries in the past year across the UK. GCSEs are predominantly taken in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
At A-level there has been an increase of 0.4% since 2023 across the UK. In England, fewer than 5,000 students took A-level music for the second year in a row. The data also shows that there has been a decrease in music entries by 43% in England since 2010, when the EBacc was introduced.
The Department for Education (DfE) has announced the music bursary for 2025-26 will remain at £10,000, the same amount as 2024-25. Last year, the bursary for music was reintroduced following campaigning by the ISM and others.
The ISM has long raised the issues around recruitment of music teachers, and the DfE has missed its own recruitment targets consistently over recent years. In 2023 just 27% of the target was met.
Responding, ISM Chief Executive Deborah Annetts said, ‘The continuation of a bursary for secondary music teachers is great news for the next generation of music teachers and a welcome commitment to music education from the government. We hope that this financial support will help some bring their skill and passion to music education.
Labour has rightly highlighted the need for more access to music in schools, and while the bursary is part of that, there are other steps the government should take to grow music such as reforming the Progress 8 and EBacc accountability measures.’
The decision came after an open letter organised by the Scottish Music Industries Association (SMIA) was sent to the First Minister, calling for the urgent reinstatement of Creative Scotland’s Open Fund for Individuals and Youth Music Funds. The letter was signed by the Independent Society of Musicians (ISM) and over 1900 artists and music industry professionals, including major figures such as Lewis Capaldi (image top left) and Paolo Nutini (image top right).
Creative Scotland had initially been forced to close the Open Fund, which supports artists, musicians, producers and writers in pursuing creative outlets, due to uncertainty surrounding budget cuts.
Commenting, ISM Chief Executive Deborah Annetts
Photo: Taylor Herring Photo: Michael Dornbierer
Make Music Work 2025
We are thrilled to invite you to join us for ISM’s Make Music Work on Thursday 24 April 2025
Join fellow musicians and ISM staff for a dynamic day of networking, fantastic live music and invaluable insights on breaking into the industry and sustaining a career.
The Annual General Meeting (AGM) will take place and official business of the ISM will be conducted. You’ll be able to take part in the open forum to share your questions and perspectives.
Save the date for this exciting day! It will be a great opportunity to connect, engage with the ISM community, and enjoy lunch and refreshments. See you there!
ISM sexual harassment training session for orchestras
a great opportunity to connect and engage with the ISM community.
The ISM and Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) will be delivering a special training session on sexual harassment at the Association of British Orchestras (ABO) Conference next February
The session will introduce the new guidance for orchestras recently published by the ISM and EHRC: Preventing sexual harassment at work: a toolkit for orchestras
The ISM’s 2022 Dignity at Work 2 report revealed that high levels of sexual harassment persist across the music sector and the toolkit is a practical guide designed to help orchestras tackle this issue. It was developed with colleagues across the sector, including the ABO, Musicians’ Union, Black Lives in Music and many of the UK’s orchestras.
The training session is designed for anyone with HR or fixing responsibilities, tour managers, and musicians concerned about levels of sexual harassment in their orchestra.
The toolkit outlines the law on sexual harassment and provides clear advice on steps orchestras should take to prevent sexual harassment. It also includes a checklist to support orchestras through every stage of a session, an action plan to outline what action orchestras need to take, and monitoring logs to assess how these items are being used.
The ABO training session is designed for anyone with HR or fixing responsibilities, tour managers, and musicians concerned about levels of sexual harassment in their orchestra. It will help delegates identify different types of sexual harassment and understand what responsibilities orchestras have as employers to protect their musicians from sexual harassment, including from third parties. It will cover the practicalities of using the toolkit for different types of orchestras, including those that are self-governing and those without an HR function. It will look at any barriers to change that might exist in an orchestra and the culture of fear which stops many musicians from reporting incidents of harassment, and how to overcome these.
The ABO’s 2025 conference will be held at: The Glasshouse in Gateshead from 5–7 February 2025. abo.org.uk
MUSIC Awards, PRIZES and COMPETITIONS
October and November were busy months for music awards ceremonies and competition finals. Clare Stevens picks out some highlights from the shortlists and reveals a few of the winners across different musical genres, and Mary McDougall chats with ISM members nominated for the Ivors Classical Awards
Ivors Classical Awards
The Ivors Academy is the UK’s not-for-profit professional association for songwriters and composers across every genre, supporting, celebrating and nurturing the craft of its members through campaigns, events, networks and two annual awards ceremonies.
By the time you read this we will know the winners of the Ivors Classical Awards formerly known as the British Composer Awards (BCA) and sponsored by PRS for Music, which celebrate creative excellence in British and Irish composing for classical and sound art. Individual pieces are judged anonymously, with all identifying information removed from the scores and recordings.
The shortlist of 36 composers nominated for the eight categories was announced in October and included ten first-time nominees – Amy Bryce, Benjamin Tassie, Cassandra Miller, Jane Stanley, Lawrence Dunn, Lisa Illean, Rufus Isabel Elliot, Rūta Vitkauskaitė, Ryan Latimer and Soosan Lolavar – as well as previous winners of Ivors or BCAs such as Sir George Benjamin, Jonathan Dove and Matthew Herbert, and ISM members, two of whom – Hilda Paredes and Christian Mason – you can read more about on the next page. The ceremony took place on 12 November at the BFI Southbank, London, and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3’s New Music Show on Saturday 16 November (also available on BBC Sounds).
Nourish your imagination, and follow your heart and your dreams, and technique? Well, technique can be taught.
Meet ISM members, and Ivors
Classical Awards nominees, Hilda Paredes and Christian Mason.
Hilda Paredes, nominee in the Best Chamber Ensemble category
Could you tell us a little bit more about your nominated piece?
During lockdown, there was a call for commissions from the Wigmore Hall, I was encouraged to apply and was fortunate to receive one of the few commissions that they were giving out. I decided to do a tribute to [the painter] Leonora Carrington, as it was 10 years since she had died. Leonora is fantastic and she has always been a source of inspiration to me. I like her craftsmanship, and I love her imagination, which is limitless. This is how The Hearing Trumpet came to be – the title is taken from one of her books as she also wrote stories.
Tell us a little bit about your music journey and your career paths?
I was at primary school [in Mexico] and the father of one of my fellow pupils was a composer. I think I was eight years old and his father was teaching children music. He was an extraordinary man because he developed a method for teaching children by adapting some of the percussion instruments, and he recreated the old nursery tunes and games that children could play in the streets. This changed my life completely and took me into a direction that neither of my parents would have imagined.
I finally received a grant to study at the Guildhall, by which time I was very interested in becoming a composer. From there I went on to Dartington Summer School, and then, I left my country when I was 21.
What advice would you give young composers?
When I was a student at the Guildhall one of the hardest things for me to do was stylistic composition i.e. to write something in the style of say Haydn. It was hard, I guess because I had a lot of my own ideas. Lutoslawski once said originality is a consequence of a failed attempt to try to copy someone else’. There is so much wonderful music out there that we can nourish ourselves with, especially when we’re young. If you hear something in a piece of music that you like – go to the score, figure it out and understand how the composer achieved that. Nourish your imagination, and follow your heart and your dreams, and technique? Well, technique can be taught.
Christian Mason, nominee for The Singing Tree!
Could you tell us about the inspiration behind The Singing Tree
The inspiration is a kind of ongoing strand in my life, I guess, of just caring about nature, which is not unique to me. I mean, we’re all increasingly conscious of how interconnected everything is in the world and how, you know, trees are not just resources, right? And nature is not just a resource to be exploited but rather something to live in a kind of symbiosis with, or something like that. So, the inspiration for the piece is really to reflect on that question and acknowledge that we depend on trees as well as benefiting from them in other ways.
Tell us a little bit about your music journey and your career paths?
It started with violin lessons in primary school; you could take up an instrument, and I chose violin, and then joined the school orchestra. Actually, I started on the timpani, because in the school orchestra, if you were playing the violin, you first got to play the timpani, which was fun, and then I eventually moved on. Around 10 or 11, I wanted to learn guitar because I was listening to the Beatles and other bands, so I took that up. My guitar teacher, Rod Freeman, was a jazz guitarist, and eventually, our lessons became like a weekly jam session. I’d show up, and we’d just improvise for an hour. I think that was a really important seed for my future creativity because he never put boundaries on where the improvisations were going to go.
Right: Hilda Paredes
Photo: Graciela Iturbide
Right: Christian Mason
Photo: Marco Borggreve
Scottish Album of the Year
The Scottish Album of the Year (SAY) Award is Scotland’s national music prize, celebrating Scottish music, with the aim of strengthening its value on the world stage and inspiring young people to listen to established artists, play and create their own music. The SAY awards are not categorised; albums from all genres are eligible, with a £20,000 prize for the winner.
In 2021, two supporting awards were introduced to accompany the main album of the year prize; the Modern Scottish Classic Award (recognising an outstanding album from Scotland’s past) and The Sound of Young Scotland Award (facilitating the creation of a debut album from a young and emerging Scottish artist). This year the Modern Scottish Classic Award went to Grit, the final album by piper, violinist, composer and producer Martyn Bennett, who died of Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in 2005, aged only 33, and made the album while undergoing gruelling hospital treatment.
The 2024 shortlist for the Album of the Year included Edinburgh-born, London-based producer Barry Can’t Swim (real name Joshua Mainnie) for his debut album of jazz-inspired, electronica-inflected dance album When will we land?; soul singer Becky Sikasa for The Writing and the Pictures and the Song; and Lucia and the Best Boys for their debut, Burning Castles, strongly influenced by the lead singer’s Scottish heritage. The winner, announced at the Albert Halls, Stirling on 24 October, was Edinburgh fivepiece rEDOLENT for dinny greet (which means ‘don’t cry’).
sayaward.com
Welsh Music Prize
Founded in 2011, the Welsh Music Prize celebrates the finest music made in Wales or by Welsh people around the world, with a commitment to diversity and to high quality production. Fifteen albums shortlisted for this year’s award were showcased at the Wales Millennium Centre, Cardiff, on 8 October, with live performances from Aleighcia Scott, CHROMA, Gruff Rhys, HMS Morris, and L E M F R E C K.
The prize went to rapper Lemfreck – real name Lemarl Freckleton – for his album Blood, Sweat & Fears Born in Newport, Gwent, Lemfreck said when Blood, Sweat & Fears was released that he intended it to give a voice to people in Wales who were surrounded by poverty and overlooked by the government. Receiving the Welsh Music Prize, he dedicated it to his community in Newport, emphasising the importance of representation and adding that ‘it’s not a box tick when artists like myself win awards like this – it’s a confirmation of art’
The 2024 Triskel Award, supported by the charity Help Musicians and presented annually to three emerging artists from Wales, went to Welsh-Ghanaian songwriter, instrumentalist and producer Adjua; bilingual 4-piece band WRKHOUSE; and 80s-influenced song-writing duo VOYA, all of whom also performed live. Eric Martin and DJ Jaffa, pioneers of Welsh hip-hop, received the Welsh Music Inspiration award for their significant impact on the Welsh music scene. wmp.cymru
BBC Young Musician 2024
The BBC’s long-running competition which produced stars such as Nicola Benedetti and Sheku Kanneh-Mason had a significant reset for 2024. Video entries were invited from eight geographical areas across the UK, with 50 performers invited to perform at the new BBC Wales studios in Cardiff in front of a trio of judges who remained the same throughout the following rounds of the competition: trumpeter and former brass finalist Alison Balsom; pianist and composer Alexis ffrench, and multi-instrumentalist and broadcaster Hannah Catherine Jones. Instead of choosing winners from the five main musical categories to compete for the overall title, the judges selected the performers who made the strongest impression on them, regardless of discipline, to progress to the semi-final and final.
Somewhat controversially, this process led to two pianists, Ryan Wang and Jacky Zhang, not only competing in the final against Israeli-Ukrainian violinist Shlomi Shahaf, but playing the same piece, Rachmaninov’s second concerto. Shahaf played the Tchaikovsky concerto and was warmly praised by the judges, who predicted a great future for him, and the tight competition between the two pianists was won by 17-year-old Wang, who is Canadian but currently studying at Eton College on a music scholarship.
‘It felt brutal to choose between them,’ said judge Hannah Catherine Jones, ‘but that’s the nature of competition; each of the three finalists delivered incredible performances, but Ryan’s playing was on another level and just hit more chords with us on the day.’
bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00bb3wt
UK Music Video Awards
The UK Music Video Awards took place on 28 October at Magazine London, and included a wide array of categories such as best overall pop, R&B/soul, dance/electronic, rock, alternative and hip hop/grime videos – each of these subdivided for UK artists, international artists and newcomer directors – with numerous separate awards for skills such as choreography cinematography, animation, direction and production. Nominations in the main best video categories this year included famous names such as The Rolling Stones (for Angry), Coldplay (for FeelslikeImfallinginlove), and Dua Lipa (for Illusion) as well as artists from later generations such as The Smile (for Wall of Eyes) and jazz quintet Ezra Collective with Yazmin Lacey (for God gave me feet for dancing).
Winners include Charli XCX for 360, judged as the best pop video from the UK; Mette for Bet the best international video; and Matilda Mann for Meet Cute deemed to be the best video newcomer in pop/R&B/soul.
ukmva.com
Above: BBC Young Musician of the Year 2024, clockwise from top left finalists Ryan Wang, Jacky Zhang and Shlomi Shahaf; the six semi-finalists; winner Ryan Wang
Photo: © BBC / Betsan Evans
Above, clockwise from top left: SAY and WMP nominees Barry Can’t Swim; Lucia and the Best Boys; Redolent; Becky Sikasa; VOYA; Wrkhouse; Adjua; L E M F R E C K
Hogmanay
a quintessential Scottish celebration!
Hogmanay has ancient origins in Scotland. Long before the arrival of Christianity, Scots were celebrating the arrival of a new year around the time of the winter solstice (the shortest day), which is technically the 21-22 December, but the arrival of the Romans and their calendars changed this.
‘Hogmanay’ is the Scottish word for the last day of the year, 31 December, and is associated with New Year’s Eve and the celebrations that come with it. ‘New Year’ usually refers to 1 January, New Year’s Day, when the parties are usually still in progress.
On the stroke of midnight, wherever you are in the world, it is traditional to link hands with anyone standing near you and sing Auld lang syne, which means ‘For old times’ sake’. Listed in the Guinness Book of Records as one of the most frequently sung songs in English, it is usually attributed to the Ayrshire poet Robert Burns (1759–1796), who spent much of the last decade of his life contributing hundreds of songs and lyrical poems to the collections The Scots Musical Museum and A Select Collection of Original Scotish [sic] Airs – often composing his own tunes as well as putting words to traditional folk melodies. Auld lang syne was a traditional ballad, described by Burns as an ‘old song of the olden times, and which has never been in print, nor even in manuscript, untill I took it down from an old man’s singing’.
Other traditions include ‘Firstfooting’, ‘Cleaning the house’ and ‘Clearing your debts’.
The first-footer should also bring symbolic gifts, such as coal, shortbread, salt, black buns or whisky, to ensure good fortune for the year ahead. Cleaning the house is selfexplanatory – to begin the New Year with an unclean house is considered bad luck, hence houses used to be cleaned throughout to welcome the New Year into a tidy and neat house, including taking out the ashes from the fire in the days when coal fires were common. Finally, clearing your debts arose from an old superstition which states that you should try to clear all your debts before the stroke of midnight.
Other traditions include ‘First-footing’, ‘Cleaning the house’ and ‘Clearing your debts’. First-footing is to ensure good luck – the first foot to arrive in your house on New Year’s Day should be a dark-haired male (believed to be a throwback to Viking days when blonde strangers arriving on your doorstep meant trouble).
North of the border, New Year or ‘Hogmanay’ has historically been a more significant date in the calendar than Christmas. Clare Stevens finds out more about this Caledonian tradition and its importance for musicians
On the stroke of midnight, wherever you are in the world, it is traditional to link hands with anyone standing near you and sing Auld lang syne: ‘For old times’ sake’.
This page and opposite top right: Visit Scotland/Kenny Lam
Right: Skerryvore in concert
‘Songs I remember being sung include Bonnie Mary o’ Argyle, The Road to Dundee, Second Hand Rose, and For the Good Times . My dad would belt out some Elvis, Everly Brothers (in harmony with my Nana) and Rolling Stones hits’.
Lisa Milne
How do musicians celebrate Hogmanay?
With the exception of grand Highland Balls or more informal ceilidh dances, Hogmanay celebrations tend to be focused on family and friends rather than going out to concerts, although these days outdoor firework displays are also important, with Edinburgh’s spectacular show the most famous.
‘Hogmanay used to be a much bigger thing in the past in our home in Glasgow,’ says tenor and broadcaster Jamie MacDougall. ‘There’d be music round the piano, everybody singing and having a good time. Of course we’d see in the bells, then the telly went off and we made our own entertainment, starting with my grandpa singing Bless this house The minister next door brought his fiddle; I had mine too and sang. The person playing the piano was Sandra – blind from birth she could play anything, from operatic arias for my grandpa to recent pop hits! A regular juke box.’
Lisa Milne, formerly an operatic soprano and now a vocal teacher, has similar memories. ‘Hogmanay was EVERYTHING in the 70s and early 80s with our family. Keyboards and “moothies” [mouth organs] were always around and so was my dad’s guitar. I’ve got recordings on cassette of my grandparents singing and doing comic monologues! Not forgetting that you had to make a tray of ice in the tiny freezer section of your fridge last until the wee small hours.
Songs I remember being sung include Bonnie Mary o’ Argyle, The Road to Dundee, Second Hand Rose, and For the Good Times. My dad would belt out some Elvis, Everly Brothers (in harmony with my Nana) and Rolling Stones hits. My aunts, uncles, great aunts and uncles and second cousins all sang along.’
There’d
be music round the piano, everybody singing and having a good time. we made our own entertainment, starting with my grandpa singing Bless this house.
Jamie MacDougall
Rebecca Tavener, creative director of Glasgow-based choir Cappella Nova, says that she and her conductor husband Alan are usually so worn out by Christmas performances that ‘we lie in a darkened room, only crawling out of bed in time to watch the Vienna Phil’s New Year’s Day concert on TV while wearing fluffy slippers and eating Mozart Balls!’
No doubt many musicians recognise this scenario. However ISM President Nicky Spence can always be relied upon to enjoy a celebration. ‘Hogmanay is one of my favourite holidays,’ he says. ‘I would suggest the best way to attempt a squeaky clean slate for the coming New Year is to dance away the funk of the previous year with your nearest ceilidh. Whether it’s dancing the Gay Gordons, a Dashing White Sergeant or my personal favourite, Strip the Willow, I defy anybody not to enter the new year without a smile on their face and a drink in their hand.’
Hogmanay events
Edinburgh’s Hogmanay will be familiar to many, but there are numerous other celebrations across Scotland, including:
Edinburgh
The Scottish Fiddle Orchestra will create the party atmosphere of a traditional Scottish Hogmanay at its annual festive concert. Full of well-known tunes with a few surprises, there will be singing, piping and plenty of fiddling as the orchestra toasts the old year and brings in the new. This is an ideal event for all ages and any group outing.
Usher Hall Lothian Road EH1 2EA
Monday 30 December 7.30pm
Edinburgh Royal Choral Union gives its annual afternoon performance of Handel’s Messiah, conducted by Michael Bawtree.
Usher Hall Lothian Road EH1 2EA
Thursday 2 January 12pm
Aberdeen
With a mix of bagpipes, fiddles, accordions, whistle, guitar and vocals, underpinned by drum and bass, Skerryvore are celebrating their 20th anniversary year. They bring their trademark fusion of folk, trad and pop to Aberdeen Music Hall to create a festive night out.
Aberdeen Music Hall Union Street AB10 1QS Saturday 28 December 7pm
Glasgow
City centre gastro pub and live music venue
Blackfriars offers an evening of swing, jazz and current hits with Tommy McArdle and The Background Sounds as well as the traditional midnight greetings.
Blackfriars, Bell Street G1 1LG from 7pm – 1am
The annual Hogmanay celebrations at the beautiful House for an Art Lover, designed by Charles Rennie Mackintosh, kick off with Prosecco and canapés followed by dinner and a ceilidh with a live band, before the New Year is welcomed in by a piper and bells at midnight. House for an Art Lover, Bellahouston Park, Dumbreck Road, G41 5BW, from 7pm
ISM President Nicky Spence kilted up to perform with pianist Dylan Perez at the Royal Philharmonic Society Awards Photo: John Millar
New Year celebrations around Scotland Photo: Stephanie Taylor
This image and bottom: Scottish Fiddle Orchestra performing at Usher Hall
Left: New Year celebrations around Scotland Photo: Visit Scotland/Kenny Lam
Christmas Crackers: The BBC Singers
Clare Stevens finds out what makes the festive season special for the UK’s only full-time professional chamber choir
Scroll through the BBC Singers’ social media feeds for last December and you will get a good idea of the variety of their seasonal activities. There’s everything from Handel’s Messiah with the Britten Sinfonia in the Barbican and an atmospheric carol concert in the historic Temple Church, to a festive night of songs from the shows; a dawn call at Maida Vale Studios, dressed in their Christmas jumpers, to perform the winning entry in the Radio 3 Carol Competition live on Petroc Trelawny’s Breakfast show; and contributions to the festive edition of In Tune with Sean Rafferty and Katie Derham – another live broadcast, this time from the streamer-bedecked Concert Hall in BBC Broadcasting House.
I want to make sure it’s as fresh as possible and see what has come out in the run-up to Christmas. I get sent a huge amount of Christmas music for consideration, and I do look at every piece.
‘December is almost like the entire year in miniature,’ says Alice Gribbin, who has been a soprano with the Singers for seven years and loves the contrast between ‘the big, jazzy, feel-good concerts full of real Christmas bangers, when we wear our coloured frocks … and a contemporary carol concert which always includes such a wide spectrum of pieces that people are writing now, ranging from quite gentle carols that can be performed by amateur and professional choirs alike to others that are really quite challenging. It’s like brain gym, it really stretches our brains and our voices and we enjoy that.
‘The music really is hot off the press for that concert,’ she adds, ‘which means that if questions come up about how to interpret the score the conductor can get in touch with the composer and find out exactly what they want … it’s great being able to get answers from the horse’s mouth and to have many of the composers with us at the concerts.’
This year’s contemporary carol concert takes place on 17 December, but the details of what will be performed were still under wraps at the time of writing, not just because the Singers’ programming announcements are always tied to BBC broadcasting schedules and tend to have short lead times, but because the choir’s director Jonathan Manners puts off choosing the repertoire for this concert until the very last minute.
‘I want to make sure it’s as fresh as possible and see what has come out in the run-up to Christmas. I get sent a huge amount of Christmas music for consideration, and I do look at every piece. For example, the composer Lucy Walker sent me a piece of music privately on X [Twitter] and asked me what I thought of it… I liked it, we performed it and it’s now in Carols for Choirs 6 It’s so important to be able to inspire young composers.’
That said, the programme does always include some more familiar music, and this year there will be a few more than usual because the carol concert will be marking the centenary of the BBC Singers, which the choir has been celebrating over the past year.
Choosing the ‘best’ carols of the past hundred years would be a terrifying prospect, Manners admits, but he will certainly want to reflect the close relationships the choir has had with composers such as Judith Weir, Judith Bingham – who was actually a BBC Singer herself for many years – Roderick Williams and their current principal guest conductors, Bob Chilcott and Owain Park.
‘We still have composers in the group,’ he adds. ‘Helen Neeves, one of our sopranos, for example, writes brilliantly and baritone Jamie W Hall is writing beautifully at the moment. It’s really important to continue that tradition; but my main aim with these concerts, as with every programme really, is to create a sound world and an atmosphere and take people on a musical journey.’
Jamie Hall [pictured left] recalls that the first carol he wrote for the Singers was actually inspired by his first experience of taking part in the contemporary carols concert. ‘I was absolutely blown away by a setting of The Holly and the Ivy by Richard Rodney Bennett and was very interested in the notion of setting text which has such a well-known existing melody. I went home and set Silent Night But it was my Opus 2, As I Lay Upon a Night, that was first given an outing by the Singers. It is still the piece of mine that pops up most often with other choirs, and it appears on two discs. There’s no doubt that initial performance is the reason it has life out in the world.
Like all composers, I put a lot on the producer’s desk, some of which gets through to the Singers’ music stands. Our team is incredibly diligent about fairness and making sure everybody is fairly represented so one has to accept that there’s no special treatment for insiders, but again, I’ve felt supported and have been given the chance to develop.’
Jonathan Manners
Right: Cellist Abel Selaocoe joined the BBC Singers for their centenary concert at the Barbican Photo: © BBC/Mark Allan
Below: The Singers in Christmas mode Photo: © BBC
photo: Ben Durrant
Asked what it is like to perform his own music with his highly skilled colleagues, Hall responds that it’s ‘incredibly nerve-wracking! The experience in the room is absolutely vast and there’s an instinct almost for whether a piece is good or not ... and I feel like I have different ears for my own music, a level of forensic scrutiny that I’d never feel the need to use with other music, so it’s usually months or years later that I can listen to something more gently and enjoy just how beautiful the performance is. The downside is that it’s quite difficult to tell if you’ve done a good job in the writing, because the Singers can make things sound so much better. I’ve always felt supported by the group when I’ve written things for them, bass section leg-pulling aside!’
For 10 years a cornerstone of the BBC Singers’ seasonal schedule was the BBC Radio 3 Carol Competition, which gave amateur composers and children the opportunity to set a specific text – generally alternating between secular and sacred in theme, and by poets ranging from Christina Rossetti to contemporary writers such as Imtiaz Dharker and Simon Armitage – for performance by the Singers. Shortlisted carols were broadcast frequently for a week before Radio 3 listeners voted for the winning carol, with the announcement being made by Petroc Trelawny on his Breakfast show, followed by another live performance.
The original call-out attracted composers who might never before have had their work published or performed by professional choirs, but who did have quite a high level of skill – music teachers and church organists. More recently, listeners were invited simply to submit a melody, and shortlisted composers had the chance to work with professional arrangers to add harmony and instrumental parts. ‘It was rather wonderful to watch how it evolved and grew over the years, and became accessible to a wider range of composers,’ says alto Margaret Cameron. ‘Obviously having to get up early on a winter morning to perform live on air isn’t ideal for singers but it was always so much fun when we got there, watching Petroc doing his thing.’
The results show, with us all in our Christmas jumpers, was always a really jolly occasion, signalling the beginning of BBC Singers Christmas silliness and fun.
Alice Gribbin
Alice Gribbin [pictured left] agrees: ‘It was always really special to witness the reactions of the composers to hearing their pieces performed for the first time, and the results show, with us all in our Christmas jumpers, was always a really jolly occasion, signalling the beginning of BBC Singers Christmas silliness and fun.’
Radio 3 has now called time on the carol competition, but this year the Singers will be contributing a choral Advent calendar to the Breakfast show. ‘It will feature 24 very different pieces, very specifically for Advent, which I think is such an exciting period musically,’ says Jonathan Manners.
‘On 5 December in the Barbican we’re doing a concert of Christmas music from around the world with the cellist Abel Selaocoe, one of our Artists in Association, who will be bringing his band to perform some medieval carols with us. He brings so much out of the Singers and really allows them to show their versatility. We’ll also be contributing for the first time to Voces8’s Live from London series; that’s without audience, broadcast online to subscribers.’
Margaret Cameron’s highlights from the past include the strangeness of pre-recording Christmas repertoire at the height of summer, particularly one scorchingly hot July day when they found themselves performing Benjamin Britten’s cantata A Boy was Born. ‘One movement of the piece is an arrangement of In the bleak midwinter, and it really brought home to me the power of music to evoke an atmosphere, because there we were in a sweltering church on just about the hottest day we had for years, yet I utterly felt the winter and snow and silence and space of it.’
‘My main aim with these concerts, as with every programme really, is to create a sound world and an atmosphere and take people on a musical journey’.
Jonathan Manners
Back in January this year the Singers recorded a new setting by Thomas Hewitt Jones of Clement Clarke Moore’s seasonal story-poem The Night before Christmas This has just been released on Spotify and YouTube. ‘The piece was commissioned in connection with celebrations around Clarke Moore’s induction into the New York Hall of Fame,’ explains the composer. ‘Setting a text that is such a perennial favourite, I wanted from the outset to write the piece for a small ensemble of professional singers, rather than an amateur choir, and write an entertaining throughcomposed setting, with soaring melody, vibrance and Christmas cheer in abundance!’
Christmas cheer is sure to be in abundance too at the Singers’ final engagement of the year, a live Radio 3 broadcast of Friday Night is Music Night with the BBC Concert Orchestra from Snape Maltings in Suffolk. This will be an opportunity for musicians and audience
alike to let their hair down, with repertoire including popular favourites such as Mel Tormé’s The Christmas Song, Leroy Anderson’s Sleigh Ride and Richard Bissill’s Christmas Carnival
Most of the Singers will be free after that to spend Christmas with their families. But some are involved with church music; Jamie Hall, for example, says that when he moved to a Hertfordshire village two years ago he quickly became involved in the local community, writing motets, hymns, descants and responses for the 3-part local choir: ‘I really love this practical music-making. I’ll be doing my best impression of an organist on Christmas morning, and then the bubbles will be opened... I’ll resurface at some point in early January!’
Snape Maltings in winter
/ Shutterstock
This image and Opposite page: The BBC Singers and BBC Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Sofie Jeannin, and guests at their centenary concert in the Barbican, October 2024
Photo: © BBC/Mark Allan
Right:
Photo: © Coastalrunner
Below photo: Helena Cooke
Perception, cost or accessibility
what are the real barriers to attending an Opera?
Seb Wride summarises some of the intriguing results of a recent research project looking at public opinions on opera – how much people know, barriers that prevent attendance and what may tempt a new audience
Have you ever wondered how the public feels about opera? Not just the people who have been to one, or even just the people who have heard of it, but everyone. Earlier this year, the research organisation where I work, Public First, had the opportunity to find out, on behalf of the Laidlaw Opera Trust. We wanted to understand perceptions of the art form, what stopped people attending, and the changes that could be implemented to grow and sustain the opera audience. We surveyed just over 4,000 people across the UK on their attitudes to the art form, and hosted four group discussions with people who had either visited on occasion, or never.
It is worth emphasising that this research spoke to everyone. Our nationally representative sample included many who had never attended opera. In total, 30% of our sample claimed they had been to see an opera at least once in their life. Realistically, this is likely an overestimate, or at least we anticipate people are including things that don’t really count as ‘going to an opera’. Not least because we tested awareness levels of real opera names, and while we found good recognition of Carmen (67%) and The Marriage of Figaro (62%), we also found 18% awareness of The Reverie – an opera that we made up.
But speaking to this very general audience has its perks. For one, it means we can identify the divide between interest in opera and attendance at opera. Across the whole population, 56% said that they would consider going to see an opera at some point in their lives, as opposed to never attending. This is a high watermark, but throughout our research we found that presenting different sorts of opera, in different contexts, would grow and shrink the appeal for different audiences. For example, did you know that given the choice, women in the UK would prefer to go to an opera performance than a football match? On the other hand, given a choice between opera and ballet, women split down the middle, but most men chose the opera.
Interestingly, base interest in attending opera peaked among the 25-34-year-old age bracket. Despite the perceptions that opera attracts an older crowd, for many of the older respondents who had never attended the opera it was unlikely that they were going to change now. Younger people, however, would consider attending. So the question became: why don’t they already?
If it’s a massive gig, I’ll probably invest in an artist because I know I’m going to enjoy it … if we’re exploring something a bit unique or we’re not really sure where it’s going then you want it to be a bit more affordable so that it’s worth the risk of seeing what it’s like.
Opera Holland Park Chorus in Le Villi at Opera Holland Park 2022
Photo: © Ali Wright
Perceptions of the cost of opera were an issue, but price cuts didn’t necessarily solve the problem
The clearest barrier, though also one of the most complicated, was cost. Our research showed that for most people (56%), the expectation was that an opera ticket in London would set them back at least £75. Only 10% would be willing to pay that much. Many recognised that the prices for an opera ticket were not all that different from the prices for other evening entertainment options, particularly large gigs. What mattered though was the risk that people felt they were taking with spending that much to go to the opera.
However, in an unexpected finding, when we put to our group participants the suggestion of ticket price reductions, the response was not overwhelmingly positive. People may respond differently to real price changes, but some in our groups felt that discounts could reduce opera’s ‘mystique’. One participant in Manchester compared it to ‘Harrods having a bargain basket’
In some ways, one of opera’s biggest strengths is also the biggest thorn in its side. In our research, even those who had never attended before felt that opera was a truly unique experience. For those who would choose free opera tickets over free musical theatre tickets, one of the key reasons they would do so was for the more memorable experience. Yet this need for opera to be an experience
– an opportunity to get dressed up, to spend at a higher price point to experience the real deal – means that people feel automatically priced out, and unlikely to consider the cheaper alternatives. In some cases, it meant opera was thought of as something to do once and tick off the list. It’s hard to build a stable audience for a bucket-list activity.
For some people, opera was simply not accessible
Cost was only one barrier. The length of opera performances, and the ability to understand them, did come up as roadblocks to attendance. Length in particular came up in our focus groups on a number of occasions.
In the survey, we asked people to compare opera to musical theatre performances. Descriptions like ‘epic’, ‘intense’ and ‘extravagant’ were felt to apply more to opera than musical theatre. The word ‘exciting’ tended to be felt to apply to musical theatre more. However, the adjective ‘long’ was overwhelmingly felt to apply more to opera.
However, accessibility was not just a result of the way the shows were put on. We did find some concern in places about fitting in to the opera audience. Stereotypical views of opera attendees were clearly present in our survey; when asked, people would tend to assume opera attendees would be wealthy, older individuals who would also enjoy fine dining and classical music. These stereotypes could lead to some feeling that they would not fit in at an opera performance, or even in the foyer.
So how can the sector increase and sustain an audience?
We approached the question of how to grow the opera audience of the future by presenting a wide range of possible directions which opera performances could take, and seeing what the public thought of them. This included everything from performances as close to the source material as possible, to adaptations of modern fiction like Harry Potter, staging shows in immersive settings, or placing traditional operas in modern environments like the office.
We kinda need the Twenty20 cricket version of the opera.
Opera needs an audience, and our research demonstrates that even the most experimental and the most traditional operas have an audience, they just need to find them. In good news, it might not be so hard to keep people coming back once they’ve attended. We found that the more that people engaged with opera, the more they seemed to like it. This was not just because those who had been before were positive about the experience (although that was also the case). We were able to show the people filling out the survey video clips of opera performances, and doing so would consistently move attitudes to be more rather than less positive. In fact, even with more experimental opera performances (such as X: The Life and Times of Malcolm X ) viewers became more positive, and these clips would even unlock new audiences.
This process revealed a tension in opera’s future audience. Stripping away the people who seemed unlikely to attend regardless, we find that creating new audiences and maintaining current ones can pull the sector in different directions. There’s a distinct group of people for whom traditional performances were critical; they tended to be older, and they were the most likely to be going to the opera already. On the other hand, we found a group of people who wanted to see greater experimentation – in settings, stories, music genres and performance approach. These people tended to be younger, and while they were less likely to have visited before, presented with the right show they were sometimes more interested than the frequent attendees.
What next for the sector?
Opera is facing challenging times. I was invited to present the findings of this research at the Business of Opera conference in early October, and speaking to the conference attendees showed just how aware the sector is of these challenges. Funding is harder to come by, returning audiences are ageing, and younger audiences are more strapped for both time and money. Yet, it was also clear from these conversations that those in the sector were willing to change things. If our research shows one thing, it’s that it’s far from over for opera yet.
The full report of this research is available on the websites of Public First (publicfirst.co.uk) and Laidlaw Opera Trust laidlawopera.co.uk). There are some hard truths in there, and not everything we found will please enthusiasts. However, I hope that it provides an interesting starting point for a sector thinking deeply about its future. I cannot pretend the report has all the answers, but I do genuinely believe that the first step to building an audience is understanding it.
Photo: Karen Almond/ Met Opera
Below: Alcina’s Island, Bampton Opera Photo: Anthony Hall
Gianni Schicchi, Welsh National Opera Photo: Craig Fuller
MUSIC EXAMS FOR EVERYONE
The International School of Musicians offers a flexible pathway of digital lessons and assessment for schools and individuals, from beginners to advanced students. Its Director, ISM board member Dr June Fileti, tells us more
Previously known as the London Borough of Newham’s Every Child a Musician programme, the International School of Musicians (ISoM) has been delivering examinations and music education throughout London since 2011. We are an Ofqual-recognised Awarding Organisation, examination board, and education provider; our Level 3 qualifications offer UCAS Tariff Points, providing students with additional benefits as they progress into higher education. Montessori Global Education Group endorse our Early Years Exams via their Star Framework, demonstrating our commitment to providing an educational pathway for the very youngest students.
Our mission is to make music assessment and education accessible to all. Unlike most traditional examining boards, ISoM’s exams were developed as part of an action research project in East London to address social mobility through music education. This project impacted over 18,000 children, reshaping how music exams are delivered, leading to ISoM’s current innovative model that aligns with the needs of today’s learners. Now, we provide this service globally, operating in 95 countries.
ISoM has been delivering examinations and music education throughout London since 2011.
Our foundation is deeply rooted in its social ethos. We provide all exam music books at no cost, significantly reducing exam costs. We also offer 100% scholarship opportunities, ensuring access to high-quality graded music exam certification for all.
We are flexible and accessible, operating 24/7, 365 days a year, demonstrating our commitment to our ‘anytime, anywhere’ approach. We are always happy to help and build partnerships with teachers and schools, providing outstanding customer service – we aim to issue exam results and certificates within 10 working days.
Our live online and recorded exams follow a simple and consistent format, focusing on performance. In each of our free exam music books, you will find five technical exercises and five performance pieces. In component one, marked out of 25, candidates select and perform two exercises. In component two, candidates select and play three pieces marked out of 75. We have a clear structure to follow, making it easy for teachers and candidates to understand what they need to prepare for our exams.
We have developed a comprehensive syllabus for a wide range of instruments and subjects. We offer all Western classical orchestral instruments, plus Classroom Percussion, Flutophone and Recorder, Electric Guitar, Acoustic Guitar, Classical Guitar, Drums, Melodica, Small Harp, Ukulele, Jazz Saxophone, Piano and Singing, covering all styles and genres from Classical to Afrobeats, Electronic Keyboard, Welsh Music, Music Production and Technology, Composition, and Music Theory and DJ exams. We’d love to hear from you if you have an idea for a syllabus!
We offer flexibility by including music from other examination boards and music that is easily accessible at no cost, which you can find in each syllabus. There is also the opportunity for candidates to personalise their exam experience even more by incorporating Free Choice pieces. Subject to approval, these pieces become part of ISoM’s repertoire list for future use. This approach allows teachers and candidates to connect with music that is meaningful to them, allowing them to help shape our examination syllabus, ensuring that it is relevant and creative.
Our mission is to make music assessment and education accessible to all.
There are no deadlines or restrictive schedules, which really helps students in remote regions and provides them with opportunities that might otherwise be out of reach.
ISoM’s digital platform is user-friendly, streamlining the customer experience from start to finish. Supported by ISoM’s expert team, our exam process is smooth and efficient. With no need for travel or in-person attendance, students and teachers benefit from reduced costs, less stress, and greater flexibility.
We are preparing for some exciting events soon. You will find us at the Music Education Expo in London on 30th and 31st January, 2025, with our exclusive partner, Cambrian
We’ll be holding our second annual conference in Newham in July 2025, and we would love you to attend and share your knowledge and skills.
At the heart of ISoM is a deep commitment to accessibility, flexibility, and quality. From our beginnings as an action research project aimed at improving social mobility locally, to becoming a global provider of inclusive digital music exams, we remain true to our mission of making music education and assessment accessible to all.
You can get in touch with us anytime via our website, internationalschoolofmusicians.org or via info@internationalschoolofmusicians.org We are always happy to help, so do get in touch!
Meet Eliza Flower
Following on from the feature in our Autumn issue of MJ, where BBC’s Ten Pieces initiative highlighted the work of women composers, Frances M Lynch introduces us to another little-known figure in the musical pantheon, radical feminist Eliza Flower (1803 – 1846)
In 1834 Eliza Flower was a published composer whose settings of songs from Sir Walter Scott’s Waverley novels and first song cycle exploring the seasons were warmly received. She wrote weekly for the choirs she established at South Place Unitarian Chapel, London, where reportedly her organ playing attracted more audiences than the sermons of the minister, Revd William Fox. Flower and her sister, the poet Sarah Flower Adams (1805-1848), were at the centre of cultural life at the chapel, with philosophers and writers like Harriet Taylor, John Stuart Mill and Robert Browning, while beyond its walls, her music resounded through the voices of protesting workers.
In 1831 her first major published work Musical Illustrations of the Waverley Novels, was critically acclaimed. Further work includes Songs of the Seasons in 1832 and Flower’s most significant collection of choral Hymns and Anthems in 1841.
As well as her music for use in the chapel she also wrote songs for the parlour, for public concerts and for the street. Her Songs of the Months, a musical nature diary serialized in the chapel’s journal The Monthly Repository, was published collectively in December 1834 by Vincent Novello.
A Chime for the New Year is one of five songs in the collection written with her most frequent collaborator, her sister Sarah.
Eliza and her sister, the poet Sarah Flower Adams were at the chapel while beyond its walls, her music resounded through the voices of protesting workers.
Winds and Clouds shows the powerful Schubertian piano accompaniment, demonstrating Eliza’s pianistic prowess.
Through Songs of the Months we hear Flower’s journey through that year in her unique musical voice: we see her use of drama, extremes of dynamics and tempi, chromaticism and sudden harmonic shifts, which also permeate her protest songs and choral writing. With a piece for each month, January saw A Chime for the New Year one of five songs in the collection written with her most frequent collaborator, her sister Sarah, and reflects their joy and solace in nature. February brought St Valentine’s Day, her most decorative art song, and is a setting of poetry by Charles Pemberton (1790-1840), while in March
In the middle of Songs of the Months, in June, comes an a cappella chorus, Summer Song for the Open Air which bubbles over with effortless joy. In August we find The Harvests of Time part of Flower’s political song writing partnership with Harriet Martineau (1802-1876). The Harvests of Time, with its arpeggiated clarion calls, bids the world move as one In October there’s the appropriately titled Falling Leaves. We finish in December with Winter Minstrelsy and a joyful, hopeful, poetically musical ending.
Flower’s song-writing partnership with Martineau included other political songs such as Song of the Polish Exiles (1833), created in solidarity with the Polish uprising against Russia. This was neither an art nor a street song and given the level of musicianship required, it must have been performed by the chapel choir, whereas their most famous, multi-purpose Gathering of the Unions – March & Song, was once sung by 100,000 protesting workers in Birmingham.
Flower’s radical song cycle Freetrade Songs of the Seasons written with her sister in 1845, in support of the Anti-Corn Law League, delivers its message directly into the parlours of middle and upper-class homes, confronting listeners with the harsh realities of life for poor agricultural workers.
Her greatest choral work was perhaps Nearer my God to Thee, part of Hymns and Anthems – her sister’s words survive to this day, but the tune, supposedly sung on the Titanic as it sank, had long supplanted Flower’s more complex music.
To learn more about Eliza Flower visit elizaflower.co.uk, created by Electric Voice Theatre with recordings, performances, information and free access to scores (supported by Conway Hall Ethical Society, Dr Oskar Jensen and the National Lottery Heritage Fund).
The Complete Flowers of the Months is available from 1 Dec 2024 at electricvoicetheatre.co.uk/events/ the-complete-flowers-of-the-months/
Radical Songs of the Seasons will be available on 1 January 2025 at electricvoicetheatre.co.uk/events/ radical-songs-of-the-seasons This includes sound recordings of Flower’s Freetrade Songs of the Seasons recorded at Conway Hall, and the sister song cycle by four contemporary composers inspired by Flower’s work.
To subscribe to Electric Voice Theatre visit electricvoicetheatre.co.uk/subscribe-2
Frances M Lynch is Artistic Director, Singer and Composer with Electric Voice Theatre
All images: Courtesy of Conway Hall Ethical Society
Left drawing: by Miss Margaret Gillies / Left and top photo: Herbie Clarke
Top photo: Tinted lithograph of a drawing by Mrs E Bridell Fox
PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT
HOW TO BECOME A HEALTHY INSTRUMENTALIST
The ISM Trust explored the prevention and support of physical health issues for instrumentalists in our recent webinar Healthy Instrumentalists, here we summarise the session
The session was delivered by Penelope Roskell (chair of EPTA UK and professor of Piano at Trinity Laban) and Dr Hara Trouli (Performing Arts Medical Specialist and trustee for BAPAM), and offers musicians guidance on:
• how to prevent injury to ensure a long and successful career
• where to seek help and the steps for recovery
• the role of the teacher
In the session, Roskell and Trouli shared their insights on physical health problems among instrumentalists, and discussed symptoms, treatments, and recovery.
Injury prevention and awareness
Roskell and Trouli highlighted shortterm triggers such as stress, deadlines, a sudden increase in practice time and challenging new repertoire or techniques.
Underlying causes that can contribute to injury include poor posture, poor alignment, ill-advised practice methods, excessive tension, and inappropriate technique for a musician’s physique. Non-musical activities, such as typing, texting and sports may also contribute to playing-related injury.
Identifying warning signs
Early recognition of warning signs is key to preventing injuries. Musicians may experience symptoms such as tingling, numbness, pain, redness, burning sensations, and weakness. Persistent symptoms like these should not be ignored, and pushing through pain can worsen issues over time.
Musicians are encouraged to maintain a ‘Musicians’ Health Logbook’ to track any overuse, misuse, extra activities, psychosocial mood, extraneous circumstance and early symptoms. By identifying these warning signs early, instrumentalists can mitigate the risk of chronic issues.
If you notice any tension or warning signs, STOP! The adage ‘No pain, no gain’ is false. If you experience fatigue, rest. If you experience pain, stop playing and seek help.
Immediate care
For acute injuries, the P.R.I.C.E. protocol — Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, and Elevation — should be used within the first 48–72 hours to reduce inflammation and discomfort. However, if P.R.I.C.E. leads to further pain, or symptoms persist, musicians should seek help from a health professional.
The adage “No pain, no gain” is false. If you experience fatigue, rest. If you experience pain, stop playing and seek help.
Recovery and holistic health for musicians
Musicians recovering from injury should stay engaged with their craft through score study, mental preparation, and further exploration of injury-prevention techniques. Returning to playing should be gradual, focusing on simpler repertoire and careful attention to posture and technique.
For longer-term care over 2-3 weeks, the P.O.R.T. protocol — Practice, Other activity, Repertoire, Technique — can aid gradual recovery over several weeks. This calls for consideration of how these aspects could be triggering or contributing to an injury.
Underlying causes that can contribute to injury include poor posture, poor alignment, ill-advised practice methods, excessive tension, and inappropriate technique for a musician’s physique.
If pain continues beyond these initial stages, consulting a medical professional with expertise in performing arts is essential. Chronic injuries often require more specialised care and a longer rest period.
Healthy practice techniques
Developing a healthy practice routine is foundational to a musician’s career longevity. Roskell and Trouli recommend routines that include regular breaks every 20 minutes, helping to prevent fatigue while maintaining mental focus. They also highlight the importance of warming up before playing and starting with slower practice, along with varying techniques, like alternating hands or adjusting tempos, to avoid repetitive strain. Mental practice is another effective technique that reduces the physical load on the body while allowing musicians to work through challenging passages.
The role of teachers
Teachers play a key role in a musicians’ physical health journey, particularly for younger students who may not recognise signs of tension or discomfort. Roskell highlights the teacher’s duty to instil healthy techniques from the start, teaching proper alignment, posture, and relaxation techniques that minimise tension. Teachers should observe their students closely, encouraging them to report any discomfort. Open communication is vital for spotting issues early, and referring students to health professionals when needed can be a crucial step in preventing long-term injury.
Roskell and Trouli emphasise the importance of a balanced lifestyle for both physical and mental resilience. Healthy habits outside of music, such as regular exercise, quality sleep and a healthy diet, support a musician’s ability to manage the physical demands of practise. Stress-management techniques like mindfulness and meditation can aid in maintaining focus and reducing strain.
Photo: Matthew Johnson
Health and Wellbeing support tailored for you
Whatever fitness challenges you face throughout your music career, the ISM is here to support you with a range of health and wellbeing services, including our newly launched Ele Wellbeing
Standard, early career, student and retired members can access mental health services, affordable hearing protection and physiotherapy, all as part of your yearly membership.
Ele Wellbeing
This summer we launched Ele Wellbeing, an online platform created to help elevate your mental health and overall wellbeing. It’s a safe online space that offers a diverse mix of information and support. You will find content to help you with everything from managing stress, menopause, and finances, and on topics such as neurodiversity, parenting, and dealing with grief. Simply, click on the Channel and type the topic you’d like to learn more about.
Ele Wellbeing works like popular streaming services, and you can be reassured that no personally identifiable information is stored in any way, meaning you can use the service knowing you are not being personally tracked. To get started, you select what you are most interested in learning about, and you can select as many options as you want. Each icon takes you to different types of content: videos where people share their lived experiences, podcasts to listen to on the move, roundtables with important workplace advice, curated playlists on important issues, experts sharing their insight, and comprehensive resource and support directories.
Ele Wellbeing encourages users to create their algorithms by compiling lists of relevant resources. The platform will instinctively select resources and videos relevant to you, and as new resources are added, those most suited to you will be suggested every time you use the platform. The service is free to ISM members and sits alongside our pre-existing wellbeing services, including counselling,
our free physiotherapy service, and our Hearing Health scheme for affordable hearing protection. All wellbeing services can be located on the Members Fund webpage, and you will now find them within the Ele Wellbeing platform under Member resources, on the home page.
The username and password details are located on your account home page when you log in. You will also find a PDF user guide that shows you how to use the platform and maximise your engagement to receive tailored information and resources that are personal to you and your wellbeing journey.
If you find some information, a video series or a podcast that you think will be helpful or of interest to a family member, friend or work colleague, feel free to share it with them by
clicking the ‘share’ button. If you have any questions, you can always email us at membership@ism.org
Counselling
Our counselling service provides access to confidential support from professionally qualified counsellors and is free to ISM members, a member’s partner or spouse, or a dependant of a member, between the ages of 16 and 24 and in full-time education.
All wellbeing services can be located on the Members Fund webpage, and you will now find them within the Ele Wellbeing platform under Member resources, on the home page.
You can arrange up to six face-toface meetings with a counsellor, or if preferred you can access our 24-hour advice line. All ISM counselling and advice services are delivered by CiC Wellbeing, which is totally independent of the ISM and operates a code of strict confidentiality. Nobody will know you have used the service, not even the staff team at the ISM.
Physiotherapy
The service is open to those with standard, early career, student and retired ISM membership and provides free physiotherapy for muscle and joint problems. It is delivered in partnership with Physio Med and offers quick, expert intervention from a senior chartered physiotherapist.
Treatment includes either self-management, which includes a detailed treatment plan of exercises to undertake at home, or face-to-face sessions at a physiotherapy practice close to your home.
Hearing Health
Nurturing your hearing health is important, as hearing is fragile and musicians and those who work in music are more at risk of experiencing damage to their hearing. Noise-induced hearing loss is 100% preventable and ISM members can access a 25% discount on our Hearing Health scheme, as it is subsidised by the ISM Members Fund.
For a one-off payment of £37.50, you can access:
All Physio Med physiotherapists are MSK (musculoskeletal) trained and can treat all aspects of the body, but they do not specialise in one specific area.
• an audiological assessment and check-up from a specialist in musicians’ hearing (worth up to £100)
• a set of custom-made, ACS Pro Series plugs (worth £149)
• expert advice on referral routes and next steps to manage any problems
• option of wax removal, if necessary, at a subsidised rate of £50
Those with ISM Standard and Early Career membership who reside in the UK are eligible for the scheme.
To sign up for any of our wellbeing schemes please visit ism.org/members-fund for more details.
St Paul’s Cathedral is recruiting the next generation of choristers
Our friends at St Paul’s Cathedral, London are currently recruiting the next generation of boy and girl choristers. They welcome children in school years two to five who have a passion for singing and are eager to be part of their world-renowned choir.
St Paul’s Cathedral is determined that no child should ever have to pay to sing in their cathedral. Choristers learn and board at the Cathedral School and receive 100% bursaries for their education fees and up to 100% on the cost of boarding. Find out more at stpauls.co.uk/join-cathedral-choi
Royal Throne of Kings: Vaughan Williams & Shakespeare
On 1 November Albion Records releases Royal Throne of Kings: Vaughan Williams and Shakespeare with Kent Sinfonia conducted by James Ross (ISM member), alongside soprano Eloise Irving (ISM member) and Malcolm Riley, piano. The album includes orchestral music by Vaughan Williams for Shakespeare plays at Stratford Memorial Theatre and for BBC radio, alongside five of his Shakespeare songs. Arrangements and reconstructions are by Malcolm Riley, David Owen Norris and Nathaniel Lew. None of the album’s orchestral works have ever been recorded before in these versions.
James Ross comments: ‘Vaughan Williams’s music has a special warmth and depth of humanity. This album captures the composer’s instinctive sympathy with the characters of Shakespeare’s plays. Vaughan Williams pays tribute to the music of Shakespeare’s time but goes far beyond pastiche. His music for Richard II transcends “incidental music”, bringing us a musical portrait of the complex and often dark world that Shakespeare evokes.’ james-ross.com/royal-throne-of-kings.html
Highlights of our members/activities across the UK
For all community news, visit ism.org/professional-community
Opus One Summer Piano Festival
This August, talented students from the USA (Angel Verdera, Lillian Jackson, Dashiell Ames, Mia Han), Canada (April Chiu), Italy (Riccardo Palmeri), and the UK (Maximillian Ansell) etc. gathered in London for the Opus One Summer Piano Festival. Through intensive Chopin masterclasses and chamber workshops, participants sharpened their skills, culminating in a grand performance at the prestigious Duke’s Hall, Royal Academy of Music, featuring works by Mozart, Saint-Saëns, and others.
A festival highlight was the Autour du Piano chamber session, where duos – piano, violin, cello, and French horn – met for the first time after rehearsing via pre-recorded videos. Despite having never performed live together, their remarkable chemistry illustrated music’s universal language.
The festival also presented a special Studio Ghibli-themed concert by esteemed professors and professional musicians. Plans for the 2025 edition are already underway, promising another inspiring celebration of music.
For more information, please visit: opusone.studio
Tickets on sale now: In C
Sasha Waltz & Guests, Terry Riley, London Sinfonietta Tues 29 and Wed 30 April 2025 Southbank Centre’s Queen Elizabeth Hall
Envelop yourself in a hypnotic interplay of music and dance: London Sinfonietta partners with world-renowned German dance company Sasha Waltz & Guests for the cross-disciplinary UK premiere of Terry Riley’s groundbreaking open composition In C.
Revolutionary at the time of writing (1964), it is considered the first piece of minimalistic music. Built using 53 fragments of sound and choreography, performers improvise within a structured framework to create an ever-evolving spectacle of melody and movement.
Find tickets: southbankcentre.co.uk/ whats-on/in-c
NMC Recordings
This October NMC Recordings continued their 35th anniversary celebrations with the release of two brilliant debut albums:
RE-BUILD, from the young, award-winning trombone quartet Slide Action, features five newly commissioned works from composers Ryan Latimer, Laura Jurd, Emily Hall, Alex Paxton and Joanna Ward; these are interspersed with interludes by Purcell and Locke, especially arranged by the members of the quartet.
The second release was Spell Book, the debut album from British-American composer Freya Waley-Cohen, known for her instinctive use of colour in music. The title track is her dramatic song cycle Spell Book, which sets feminist spell-poems by Rebecca Tamás to music and is performed by an all-female ensemble: instrumentalists from the Manchester Collective, soprano Héloïse Werner and mezzo-sopranos Fleur Barron and Katie Bray.
Photo: Courtesy St Paul’s Cathedral
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TEAHOUSE BAROQUE
is a private, non-commercial, cost-free network that brings established or advanced players and singers together to play compositions from the Baroque, Renaissance, and other periods.
The present groups include cantata ensembles, woodwind consorts, trios and quartets. Whether you are a professional, retired or very advanced musician, you can join an existing ensemble or help create a new chamber music group. The ensembles are unsuitable for beginners. However, there is a preparatory circle for recorder players wishing to improve and gain experience before joining the recorder consort and other chamber music ensembles.
The rehearsals take place at a private venue near Guildford. The music library holds a comprehensive collection of around a thousand works. The project is an initiative of HSH Dr Donatus, Prince of Hohenzollern.
If you miss making music and can contribute to fine chamber music, please get in contact: teahouse-baroque.uk
A network of established or advanced players and singers in South England to rehearse chamber music.
Located in Guildford
Member spotlight
Edmund Jolliffe, composer and pianist
How did you originally get into music?
I was definitely not a child prodigy on an instrument – far from it, in fact. When I was 12, there was a competition at school to write a piece of music and something sparked inside me. I was so excited about the idea of creating music that from then on my goal was to become a composer.
What
or who inspires you?
There is so much that has inspired me throughout the years. Primarily those composers who have trodden their own path and created extraordinary art. To name but a few: György Ligeti, Steve Reich, Philip Glass, John Adams, Graham Fitkin, Jonathan Dove – you can probably see where my tastes lie – and visual artists such as Bridget Riley. Taking part in Artistic Retreats (for example at the Banff Center in Canada, and the Wurlitzer Center in New Mexico) has given me the chance to meet people I wouldn’t have otherwise met and led me down interesting paths. Working with young people to create music – new or otherwise – is always a constant joy to me and reminds me how lucky we are to have music in our lives.
What piece of advice has helped you the most in your career?
Be true to yourself – you cannot be anyone else, so why try to emulate others? Follow your own voice and see where it takes you.
What has been the most rewarding project so far in your career and why?
Projects are so different and my work is so varied, it is hard to pick a particular one. I have loved writing the music for television programmes such as the BBC’s Quentin Blake: The Drawing of my Life or The Queen at 90, where I feel I have captured something of what is needed to help tell the story on screen. Turning on the television and unexpectedly hearing a piece of my music is very gratifying. I always love it when someone contacts me to tell me they have enjoyed a piece of my music – knowing you have touched someone personally is very special.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to succeed in the music industry?
Particularly for composers – this can be a very lonely life as you are often spending large amounts of time on your own, but you need to get out and meet people. This can be incredibly inspiring and can lead to unexpected projects. Composers need performers and performers need composers, so doing as much as possible to enable that connection is always good advice.
If you could work in another industry, what would it be?
I would love to be an architect. I think it would be amazing to design buildings. I suppose I always want to create something!
If you could change one thing about the music sector, what would it be and why?
This is easy – simply to have more support for the arts and for the people in power to recognise how much it can add to people’s lives.
What are your future plans?
Later on this year an album of my cello and piano music will be released by Edition Svitzer and next year I will be recording an album of my choral music with the Nonsuch Singers. I am spending October on an artistic residency at the Anderson Center in Minnesota, where I will be composing a new piece for The Pink Singers. And hopefully lots of TV music projects!
Finally what does your ISM membership mean to you?
My ISM membership is reassuring to me in so many ways. Though I do not take part in many face-toface events, to read about fellow musicians is always inspiring and to know that the ISM is always fighting for our cause is of huge value. I recently had to use the legal department as well and recover some unpaid fees – never a pleasant thing to do, but it was dealt with brilliantly by the team.