HEADER
Coming out
in symphony
It has been a tough two years for the arts in Britain and, as JSO musical director Hilary Davan Wetton explains to Terry Neale, it is not just the effects of the global pandemic that are proving a challenge to making orchestral music in the Island
A
sk Hilary Davan Wetton to define how life has been for musicians living under government-imposed restrictions during the pandemic and his answer is unequivocal, uncompromising – and unprintable. ‘It has been a nightmare,’ is the sanitised version of the eminent British conductor’s reaction to an unprecedented two years that has seen theatres and concert venues closed and many professional musicians forced to seek work in other fields, many of them, it is feared, never to return to the stage again. ‘A lot of musicians, I’m afraid, have fallen between the cracks,’ Mr Davan Wetton confirmed. ‘Events have gone down the pan. I should have conducted a Verdi Requiem and a Carmina Burana during 2020, and also had bookings for both the Royal Albert Hall and the Festival Hall. These should have been career highs but, sadly, they were all lost.’ It is not just in the great concert halls of the United Kingdom that Mr Davan Wetton has found himself barred from mounting the podium.
72
In January 2020, just two months before Covid-19 began wreaking havoc around the world, he was appointed musical director of the Jersey Symphony Orchestra, and he hasn’t seen them since. ‘The JSO is quite possibly unique among British orchestras,’ he pointed out. ‘Most orchestras are either professional or amateur but this one combines the two. It is made up of excellent musicians from the mainland, for whom only their costs are paid, and some very highly skilled local players. ‘In this way, the JSO is not pigeonholed. It aims to attain the very highest standard and it achieves this because it has sufficient time in which to rehearse. With a professional orchestra, you may be lucky enough to hold five rehearsals before a performance spread over five weeks. But with the JSO you have the luxury of rehearsing for five consecutive days. It’s a little like making a souffle; you can get it to rise at exactly the right moment.’ This rare blend of professional and amateur musicians working alongside each other is one that works really well in Mr Davan Wetton’s view.
There is a sense of friendship between them, and the UK players enjoy their jaunts to Jersey to make music in such a beautiful place. Unfortunately, a few discordant bars are discernible in this otherwise harmonious score, and these revolve around the precise locations within this beautiful place for the JSO to perform. Fort Regent is currently a vaccination centre, with a very uncertain future, and the Jersey Opera House is closed while awaiting essential maintenance work. ‘The Opera House is the jewel in the Island’s crown, and I am horrified that it may not be properly funded,’ Mr Davan Wetton said. ‘We are going to use it; we will have to adapt, especially if the Fort closes.’ Adapting is the key word here. A symphony orchestra is typically made up of between 70 and 90 musicians; fine for Fort Regent but a reduction would be required for the Opera House. Even so, the music would remain in symphonic mode.
