Simon Rattle.qxp_Layout 1 23/02/2022 12:23 Page 1
CITY | MUSIC
Keeping time
Dvorak’s American Suite and Hannah Kendall’s The Spark Catchers are two of the pieces being performed by Sir Simon Rattle and the London Symphony Orchestra at the Bath Forum this March. Emma Clegg asks Sir Simon about the programme, encouraging young musicians, and the difference between the musical styles of England and Germany What events stand out from your time as Music Director of the LSO? The tour of Latin America in 2019, which was the first time to this area for the LSO and for me. We visited Colombia, Peru, Chile, Uruguay and Argentina, five countries in two weeks! Audiences were hungry for the music, and so appreciative, and we felt honoured to have been invited. I am particularly thrilled by the success of East London Academy project, which despite every attempt by COVID-19 to put a spanner in the works, is thriving. The LSO East London Academy, launched in 2019, aims to identify and develop the potential of young East Londoners between the ages of 11 and 18. Through the provision of free, inspirational coaching delivered by world-class musicians from the London Symphony Orchestra, the Academy offers high-level training and mentoring to young musicians who show exceptional promise, accelerating their instrumental learning, confidence and aspirations. The LSO East London Academy aims to represent the diversity of east London, particularly encouraging young musicians from backgrounds under-represented in professional orchestras to take part and continue their instrumental learning, including those who have financial, cultural and practical barriers – a step towards facilitating wider diversification of the professional classical music sector. There have been special moments along the way, most notably when the strings section joined the orchestra on the stage for our BMW Classics
outdoor concert in Trafalgar Square last August. The musicians performed the wonderful Ayanna Witter-Johnson’s composition DreamCity to the thousands watching in the square and online. What inspired the programme selection that you are playing at the Bath Forum in March (Hannah Kendall’s The Spark Catchers, Antonin Dvorak’s American Suite and Schumann’s Symphony No 2)? These are works the orchestra and I know well, and all of them are special. What I love in creating programmes is throwing pieces into the mixing bowl of the concert and seeing how subtle relationships emerge in the playing. I love to cook, and creating a concert programme is like putting together a dinner menu. During lockdown, when we were reduced because of social distancing to a maximum of 70 players gathering together, the restrictions encouraged us to explore a new repertoire which was in many ways liberating. Dvorak’s American Suite was a piece we played during this time, and it was terrific, so we want to share it again. How important has it been for you to play 20th century and modern as well as established classical works? Music never stops evolving, and human nature is such that artists respond to the moment as well as the past and that’s what keeps us fresh, innovative and properly stretched as musicians. Hannah Kendall’s The Spark Catchers depicts the working lives of women who worked in the Bryant and May match factory. Can the listener pick up the correlations between the music and this story? Absolutely – I’ve conducted Hannah’s piece a few times already, both with LSO and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) for their centenary. I’m doing it again because I think it’s a knockout piece that makes no concessions and which always grabs orchestras and audience by the lapels and never lets go! It has established itself in the repertory. Hannah is such a powerful composing talent and I love the fact that she has found inspiration for her piece in a real event and an unusual one. I am interested in how a musician responds creatively to events going on around them. You started off as a child playing piano, violin and percussion. What was your first experience of conducting? I began playing percussion and piano as a kid, at age 11. I played percussion with the Merseyside Youth Orchestra and took up conducting, making my debut with my own orchestra in Liverpool when I was only 15. In 1971, I entered the Royal Academy of Music in London on a piano scholarship, but it was conducting that drew me. Conducting never comes naturally; I never stop learning from composers and from fellow musicians. It’s this daily challenge that keeps me stimulated and working. It makes no difference if it’s a piece I know well or a new work; every time you play these creations you find something new to explore or refine. You have always aspired to present classical/orchestral music to a broader audience. Why is this important? What we have with music is evolutionary, as different cultures develop their voice and find the means to share their indigenous sounds. And as technology challenges and enhances how we make musical sounds, so new musical genres emerge. They add to the mix that’s on offer to music lovers. In the end there’s room for everything, and there’s more out there for audiences to encounter. Your route to music may be through pop, rock, rap or jazz, but it may well lead to classical, and that’s fine with me.
