Philharmonia / Canterbury Season 12.13

Resident at The Marlowe Theatre 2012/13 Season Supported by Pharon independent financial advisers limited

“ Blazing originality�

The Sunday Times, January 2011

The Friars, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2AS Box Office: 01227 787787

marlowetheatre.com

concerts at the marlowe theatre

Michael Collins

Sat 22 Sep 7.30pm

Sat 3 Nov 7.30pm

Esa-Pekka Salonen Conductor

Michael Collins Conductor & Clarinet

Beethoven Overture, Namensfeier

Grieg Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1

Beethoven Symphony No.4

Mozart Clarinet Concerto

Beethoven Symphony No.6, Pastoral

Elgar Enigma Variations

Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonia’s Principal Conductor and Artistic Advisor, makes his first visit to Canterbury with an all-Beethoven programme, forming part of a panEuropean tour to mark the 185th anniversary of Beethoven’s death.

Elgar’s Enigma Variations, 14 cryptic ‘portraits’ of friends, makes up one third of an immensely popular programme.

Peer Gynt, Suite No. 1 contains the well-known Morning and In The Hall Of The Mountain King, and is followed by Mozart’s finest work for a woodwind instrument.

photos (left to right) © Clive Barda; © Eric Richmond

Esa-Pekka Salonen

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Classic FM presenter, Anne-Marie Minhall, talks to trumpeter Alison Balsom

Alison Balsom

I

t was like love at first sight.”

Alison Balsom’s abiding memory of the first time she ever picked up a trumpet.

The multi award-winning musician was just seven years-old then and probably unaware as to how that first encounter with the instrument would shape the rest of her life.

“I’d already played on a cornet and I remember at school holding the trumpet and just thinking: ‘Wow’. It was a really special feeling, I felt like it was a friend straight away. Luckily, I chose well and I still feel the same about it.”

Now 33, Alison is not only a champion of the trumpet, but also a role model for youngsters keen to follow in her footsteps.

She has strong views on music education and has just fulfilled a dream by recording a new album with a conductor and ensemble who inspired her when she was just starting out. Balsom is also combining motherhood with a packed concert diary mapped out to 2015.

So, just what route did this musician take in the early years of learning to play the trumpet in her home town of Royston in Hertfordshire?

“It was a mixture and I think that’s really vital for a child because you need to have lots of stimulation. You don’t ever want it to feel like a chore.

I played in my school and local

town band and had private lessons which were heavily subsidised by the school. I believe [that] doesn’t happen anymore which is an absolute tragedy because I wouldn’t be playing if it wasn’t for that sort of support in education.”

Alison went on to play in the National Youth Orchestra before studying at the Guildhall School of Music, the Paris Conservatoire and, for three years, learning her art from one of her heroes, the Swedish trumpeter, Håkan Hardenberger.

But what about making that leap from studying music to pursuing a career as a soloist; is there a defining moment when a musician knows it’s the right course to take?

Not so for Alison.

“There were moments even when I was very young when it became obvious to me everything else would be pointless compared to playing the trumpet. Yet the life of a musician is very uncertain; you’re only as good as your last gig and you never really know if you’re going to be able to make it as a professional but I knew that it would be a lifelong love. It wasn’t until I was playing at the Last Night Of The Proms that I really realised that was it, I was doing it.”

There’s no time to rest upon her laurels, in fact,

photo © Mat Hennek and EMI Classics

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that’s the last thing this world-class trumpeter would want to do.

“I have this deeply installed insecurity as a musician; you never sit back and say: ‘This is going well,’ you think: ‘What can I be doing better, what’s next?’ When you stop doing that, that’s the day you should give up. I never had a day where I thought I’m going to be a soloist because you never know, especially as a trumpet player; it’s not a usual profession to go into. It takes a lot of luck as well as everything else.”

The Philharmonia Orchestra will always hold a special place for Alison, too, as it was the first professional orchestra she performed with after winning a Martin Musical Scholarship Fund award. The project, which is run by the Philharmonia, has helped many young musicians at the start of their careers.

“It was a lovely experience, they were really friendly and true professionals. They can just play and read anything; the rehearsals can be quite short because they’re just so quick and it’s a real pleasure working with players who are that creative and sensitive. It’s a true mark of greatness when you don’t have to wear it on your sleeve, you just do it.”

The work Alison will be playing at The Marlowe Theatre in Canterbury is Hummel’s Trumpet Concerto in E Flat Major. Like its predecessor

by Haydn, she believes it’s a masterpiece and one that she never tires of performing.

“It has so many parallels to the Haydn Concerto; it’s the same sort of structure and yet it’s bigger, it’s longer, the second movement goes to even more romantic and darker keys and the last, even more flashy.

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It’s a joyful, wonderful piece.”

The search for repertoire never ceases and, although timeconsuming, it’s imperative.

“It is actually the biggest challenge of my career because I have to be true to myself and I have to love the music. If I don’t think it’s worth it, I can’t play it convincingly so finding things that work well on the trumpet is an obsession of mine. The album I’ve just made is all Purcell and Handel and there’s a lot of music on that disc which is not originally for the trumpet but I just knew with some clever reworking would work well.”

The making of that album fulfilled a long-held ambition for the trumpeter as she’s collaborated on it with the harpsichordist and conductor, Trevor Pinnock, and The English Concert.

Growing up she had heard Pinnock’s recording of Bach’s Brandenburg Concertos with The English Concert, an experience that proved to be life changing. “[It] just took my breath away and made me have a lifelong passion for music. I’ve just come out of the studio from recording with Trevor and it sounds like I’m exaggerating but I had goose pimples the entire week. I had to pinch myself that it was actually happening so it’s really wonderful when your dreams come full circle like that.”

Alison’s boundless enthusiasm for the trumpet and for music seems only to have grown since those early days of discovering her instrument.

She is relishing every step of her musical journey.

“I feel there’s so much more to do and there’s so much that I want to achieve.”

(It) just took my breath away and made me have a lifelong passion for music.

concerts at the marlowe theatre

Alison BAlsoM

Boris Giltburg

Sat 26 Jan 2013 7.30pm

Tue 26 Mar 2013 7.30pm

Santtu-Matias Rouvali Conductor Alison Balsom Trumpet

Domingo Hindoyan Conductor Boris Giltburg Piano

Beethoven Symphony No. 2

Tchaikovsky Romeo & Juliet (Fantasy Overture)

Bizet Symphony in C

Shostakovich Piano Concerto No.2

The glamorous Alison Balsom, one of the freshest performers in British classical music today, performs a central work in the solo trumpet repertoire. Also featured is what is widely considered to be Bizet’s finest orchestral score, and a Beethoven symphony with roots in Bach.

Barber Adagio For Strings

Bernstein Overture, Candide

photos (left to right) © Mat Hennek and EMI Classics; © Eric Richmond

Hummel Trumpet Concerto

Bernstein Symphonic Dances from West Side Story A Russian first half, with the Fantasy Overture to Romeo and Juliet and Shostakovich’s best known piano concerto, is paired with an American second half. Barber’s elegiac Adagio is balanced by the fizz of dances from Bernstein’s Broadway hit.

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Cutting-edge digital installation featuring Holst’s The Planets comes to Canterbury

Universe of sound

all Photos © Andrew Corrigan

T

wo... three... four... five... ‘Mars, the Bringer of War’ is underway. An army of wooden bows hit strings. Snare drums and timpani march. A band of trumpets lead gradually to the first of many blasts of sound. It’s breath-taking, neck-hair-raising stuff – exactly what the orchestral experience is all about.

Now imagine being able to walk through the orchestra as this is all going on.

This is the concept behind the Philharmonia’s Universe Of Sound project which launched at the Science Museum in London in May 2012, and tours to Canterbury in 2013. The digital installation divides the orchestra’s sections into different rooms: violins and violas, flutes, trumpets, and so on, as they play Holst’s The Planets. Meandering through these sections, you see what they see and hear what they hear as they play as part of the larger ensemble.

“The symphony orchestra is one of the most complex, unusual things on earth” says Esa-Pekka Salonen, the Philharmonia’s Principal Conductor and the brains behind the project.

“You have a hundred people playing these unusual things. It looks strange, and the way it works is sort of UFO-like.” Holst’s The Planets is the work to explore this. “People will know it even if they think they don’t know it, and

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that makes it easier to draw them into the detail of how an orchestra An impressive actually works.” feat…this Cutting-edge installation technology underpins certainly gives the whole project. 37 HD cameras were used a taste of the Orchestra’s to film the orchestra; amazing conducting ‘pods’ (which give you richness.” the opportunity to The Daily conduct the orchestra) Telegraph use Kinect movement detection hardware – the same used on an Xbox (pictured right); and commentaries from some of the players and Esa-Pekka Salonen provide an incredible perspective from their side. There’s also the opportunity to take part by actually playing an instrument, under the guidance of Philharmonia players who appear on screens giving advice at the appropriate moment.

The installation also includes a newly commissioned companion work, Worlds, Stars, Systems, Infinity by Joby Talbot. It was commissioned by Esa-Pekka Salonen and the

photo © Dario Acosta Photography

concerts at the marlowe theatre

Sir Andrew Davis

Philharmonia specifically for this installation, and continues the journey through our own solar system to somewhere beyond. The piece has been written so that the viewer can choose between scorings for the piece. For example you can switch the melody from horn to cello, by dragging an icon across the screen.

The Philharmonia is extremely grateful for the support of Arts Council England, the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation, Paul Hamlyn Foundation, The Foundation for Sport and the Arts and The Eranda Foundation.

Universe Of Sound will be installed at Augustine House, Canterbury Christ Church University between 27 April and 12 May 2013. Entry is free and booking is not required. universeofsound.co.uk

FRI 10 MAY 2013 7.30pm

Sir Andrew Davis Conductor Zsolt-Tihamér Visontay Violin Vaughan Williams The Lark Ascending Elgar Overture, In The South (Alassio) Holst The Planets Sir Andrew Davis, one of the great conductors in British music today, leads in this all-English programme. The Lark Ascending, a beautifully simple utterance, is one of the most effective in all music. The second half features a live performance of The Planets (linked with the virtual, interactive installation Universe Of Sound).

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tickets Tickets: £29.50, £24.50, £18, £11 Premier Seats: £34 Concessions: £3 off top three prices and Premier Seats The Marlowe Friends: £4.50 off top three prices and Premier Seats Discovery Card: £8 (for those between 16-26yrs, limited availability)

How to book

In person: Our Box Office is situated in our theatre’s main foyer at The Marlowe Theatre, The Friars, Canterbury, Kent CT1 2AS Opening hours: Our Box Office is open for personal bookings Mon–Sat 9am–6pm. When there is a show, we remain open until 30mins after the performance begins. Telephone bookings can be made between Mon–Sat 9am–6pm. If paying by cheque or postal order, please make it payable to Canterbury City Council.

Booking fees: For bookings made by telephone, post or via the internet a booking fee of £2.50 applies. There is no fee for bookings made in person, group bookings of more than 15 tickets or customers with access needs. A charge of £1 applies if you would like your tickets posted. The Marlowe Friends do not pay postage charges. Your tickets will arrive within ten working days.

The Marlowe Theatre is owned and managed by Canterbury City Council

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Premier Seats: Available for most shows, giving you the chance to buy the best seats in the auditorium. Availability is limited, so early booking is advised.

If you have any questions or comments, please email us at info@marlowetheatre.com Box Office: 01227 787787 (bkg fee)

marlowetheatre.com (bkg fee) facebook.com/themarlowetheatre @marlowetheatre

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Telephone: Tickets can be booked on 01227 787787 with all major debit and credit cards (except American Express).

Concessions: Available on selected performances for children under 16yrs, students, disabled customers, the over 60s and unemployed people in receipt of benefits.

Customers using our wheelchair spaces can buy tickets at the lowest standard price available. Discounts or concessions are not available on every seat, and are subject to availability. Only one concession or discount can apply.

Cover imagery: With Relish

Internet: Book online at marlowetheatre.com