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TRANSFORMING LIVES THROUGH THE POWER OF INSPIRATIONAL MUSIC-MAKING
www.sco.org.uk | Issue 68 | October 2017
The subtle, lyrical beauty of Dvorák’s Piano Concerto Time for a reappraisal by Kate Molleson
Also inside: i-on Breakthrough Award | Shetland | Rattray
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CONTENTS
Issue 68 | October 2017
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16 REGULARS 3 FOREWORD 4 SCO NEWS 10 60 SECOND INTERVIEW 11 RECENT RECORDINGS 22 YOUR ORCHESTRA, YOUR SAY COVER 16 Time for a reappraisal The subtle, lyrical beauty of Dvořák’s Piano Concerto and the gentle, contemplative score of Schumann’s Requiem by Kate Molleson.
4 Royal Terrace Edinburgh EH7 5AB telephone: 0131 557 6800 email: info@sco.org.uk www.sco.org.uk
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OTHERS 12 On tour to Shetland This July, we returned to the Shetland Isles with our Strings for the first time in 10 years.
14 In residence at Rattray Primary School From October 2015 to June 2017 the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was in residence at Rattray Primary School in Perthshire.
Core funded by
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The Scottish Chamber Orchestra is a charity registered in Scotland No. SC015039 Company registration No. SC75079
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FOREWORD A very warm welcome to this edition
Back to the here and now, we have
of SCO News.
just completed our 16th annual Masterworks project for secondary school students – a brilliant initiative which offers amazing insights into some of our great musical masterpieces. This year, the focus was on Minimalism, with music by two of America’s best – Steve Reich and John Adams. Our ambition over the next three years is to take Masterworks around the whole of Scotland, thereby increasing the numbers’ of students who can benefit from it.
I hope that you have had a wonderful summer and been able to hear the SCO in one of our concerts around Scotland, or perhaps during the Edinburgh International Festival or the BBC Proms. One of the things I love about our musicians, is the enthusiasm, energy and commitment they bring to every single performance, whether it is in a community hall in the North of Scotland, the Usher Hall for the opening of the 70th Anniversary of the International Festival or broadcasting live on BBC Radio 3 from the Royal Albert Hall. I must say, some of my favourite concerts this year took place in remote village halls in Shetland. They were magical and very special evenings. I am sure you will be aware by now of the extremely exciting plans to build a new concert hall in St Andrew Square, right in the heart of Edinburgh. IMPACT Scotland (International Music and Performing Arts Charitable Trust) is a new organisation established specially to create the venue. Chaired by Sir Ewan Brown – with Trustees including SCO’s Colin Buchan, Donald MacDonald and me – IMPACT Scotland has made considerable progress over the last few months, appointing leading acousticians
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Gavin Reid
Nagata and the renowned David Chipperfield Architects, as well as attracting significant funding from both the Scottish and UK Governments and City of Edinburgh Council (as part of the Edinburgh City Region Deal) and Dunard Fund, for which we are hugely grateful. At the heart of the venue – which will be home to the SCO – will be a world-class 1,000 seat concert hall, together with a 200-seat studio for public performances, rehearsals and a wide range of education and outreach programmes. It will be a thrilling home for all kinds of musical performance – from orchestral, to jazz and folk and a destination that we hope many people will wish to visit, not only as a place to experience great live performance, but also to meet, eat and enjoy good company. This is an exciting opportunity not only for the SCO but for Edinburgh and the surrounding region and we look forward to playing our part in contributing to the design and delivery of this extraordinary project.’
Our longstanding partners Linn have recently released the SCO’s latest CD – 2 of Mozart’s late Piano Concertos with pianist Francesco Piemontesi and conductor Andrew Manze. Our new Season is upon us and we look forward to the Opening Concerts with Robin Ticciati and the remarkable pianist Mitsuko Uchida in Edinburgh and Glasgow, followed by 22 weeks of glorious musicmaking by this fabulous Orchestra. I hope you can join us
Gavin Reid Chief Executive
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SCO NEWS I-ON BREAKTHROUGH AWARDS –––––– Since 2005, i-on magazine has been shouting about the people who help to make Scotland’s cities what they are – “the cool little businesses who don’t always garner column inches but who are at the beating heart of urban Scotland”, according to their website. With this in mind, they launched the inaugural i-on Breakthrough Awards in association with Pickering’s Gin, as a celebration of emerging talent in Scotland.
Matthew Hardy
The Awards ceremony was held in Edinburgh in September, and our Principal Timpanist Matthew Hardy was chosen as winner in the Music, Arts & Culture category! The panel of judges were simply blown away by his passion for teaching and music. Congratulations Matt! Matt was on his honeymoon at the time of the ceremony, so the Award was collected by SCO Marketing Officer Catherine Gillespie, who helped Matt pull together a video about his work with the SCO. The video is available to view on the SCO website – http://www.sco.org.uk/latest
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SCO Marketing Officer Catherine Gillespie collecting Matt’s Award
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Hannah and Ben
Victoria and Matt
WEDDING BELLS –––––– BENJAMIN MARQUISE GILMORE AND HANNAH SHAW SCO Leader Ben reports, I met viola player Hannah when we were both booked to play in the same concert with the Arnhem Philharmonic (Geldersorkest). It seemed clear from the start that to others we belonged together; several people from the orchestra assumed we were siblings, in spite of the fact we had only just met! We are fairly sure we are not actually related, although my father and
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Hannah’s forebears (from about a century ago) turned out to be from the same part of Ireland, County Antrim. We were married on 18 August in the stunning surroundings of the old Town Hall in The Hague. MATTHEW HARDY AND VICTORIA MASSOCCHI I met Vic in Cardiff where she works on the dark side (only kidding) for the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. We have been travelling across the UK for four years to see each other and should certainly have shares in Flybe and EasyJet by now!
We got married on a little farm in the Vale of Glamorgan on 2 September.
THAT’S D’AMORE –––––– We are very grateful to the Scottish Government for enabling us to purchase an oboe d’amore for Rosie Staniforth. Hear the new instrument being put through its paces in Bach’s Christmas Oratorio and read more about it in the next issue of SCO News. –––––– Bach’s Christmas Oratorio is on Thursday 30 November in Edinburgh and Friday 1 December in Glasgow
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SONGS OF THE ARCTIC
storyteller Berit-Alette Miena. The stories and songs from the
–––––– On 1 and 2 November, our
north of the world hold much magic, and we invite you to
concert programme includes music that evokes birdsong and natural landscapes, opening with Cantus Arcticus by Finnish composer Einojuhani Rautavaara. We are delighted to welcome ticket-holders to a special preconcert event at which SCO Principal Flute Alison Mitchell and storyteller Claire Hewitt weave Rautavaara’s spellbinding flute melodies together with traditional Finnish stories and songs.
hear Claire share some of her discoveries from her journeys through Finland. These ancient tales hold the spirit of Finnish people, landscape, flora and fauna, drawing you into the natural world that inspired Rautavaara.
Claire Hewitt has spent the last seven years storytelling in Finland and the Arctic Circle, working with traditional Runo singer Anna-Maria Toivonen and Sami Alison Mitchell
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Sounding Out the Past, a new commission and schools’ project for the Borders Heritage Festival 2017
Designed in particular to introduce young people aged 11+ to the world of the concert programme, Songs of the Arctic is a free half-hour event, open to all ticket-holders. All ages welcome! –––––– Songs of the Arctic on 1 and 2 November in St Andrews and Edinburgh 6.30-7.00pm Hannah Rarity and a trio of SCO musicians (Aisling O’Dea, Su-a Lee and William Stafford)
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CONNECT LATEST –––––– In September, SCO Connect presented Sounding Out
Stuart Cobley Photography for Borders Heritage Festival
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the Past, a new commission and schools’ project for the Borders Heritage Festival 2017. Composer Suzanne Parry and writer Jules Horne worked with children from local primary schools to explore the history and stories connected to Abbotsford, Aikwood Tower and Bowhill House and Estate. Drawing on the children’s explorations of the houses, Parry and Horne created a song cycle focusing on the lives of women in these houses. Scottish singer Hannah Rarity and a trio of SCO musicians performed the stunning new work at Bowhill House, and at a Family Concert in Selkirk which included songs written and performed by the children. –––––– Due to the generous ongoing support of a number of trusts and foundations, we have been able to double the number of SCO ReConnect workshops offered in 2017. A programme of 20 workshops for people living with dementia is currently running at the new Royal Edinburgh Hospital building, bringing together a group of patients, family members and NHS staff to enjoy a weekly hour of interactive music-making
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Our popular Instrument Armoury returned to the Edinburgh International Book Festival
with Dr Jane Bentley and SCO musicians. Masterworks, our flagship programme for upper secondary school music students, aims to reach schools in every one of Scotland’s 32 Local Authorities over a three year cycle. In September, the Orchestra performed to more than 1500 students and teachers who attended concerts in Edinburgh, Perth and Inverness. A linked workshop programme enabled students across the country to work with SCO musicians in a series of creative composition sessions which took place at mainstream and special schools across the country – from Edinburgh to Skye and the Western Isles.
WIN £250 ––––––
250 SOCIETY Please join us in congratulating recent winners of our 250 Society draw who each won £250. May – Kathleen Irving June – James Dunbar July – Sylvia Dow August – Olivia Robinson It costs just £5 a month to become a member of the SCO’s 250 Society and be in with a chance of winning a monthly prize of £250. All proceeds go towards helping to fund the work of SCO Connect. To join, simply download the SCO 250 Society membership form at www.sco.org.uk/support-us or call on 0131 478 8344.
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In other news, Big Ears, Little Ears visited Shetland for a sell-out performance in July; our popular Instrument Armoury returned to the Edinburgh International Book Festival and attracted 360 enthusiastic visitors and, for the first time, the Orchestra performed to more than 1500 primary school pupils at the Virgin Money Fireworks Schools Concert on the final day of the Edinburgh International Festival. This month, SCO Connect launches an ambitious three year Residency in Wester Hailes – starting with an SCO WHALE Family Day! Through
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Antonín Dvorák
Attracting 360 enthusiastic visitors
We aim to embed the SCO in the life of the community, inspiring and empowering local people to engage with music
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this residency, we aim to embed the SCO in the life of the community, inspiring and empowering local people to engage with music and the arts in Wester Hailes and beyond. The programme includes
EXPLORE DAYS
creative music workshops and performances for all age groups, with regular activity at the secondary school WHEC, local primary schools and nurseries, and at Edinburgh College. There will be opportunities for local people to attend SCO performances within Wester Hailes and in the city centre. We are delighted that Chris Jarvis, our regular Family Concert presenter, has agreed to be a Champion for the Residency, and will be visiting schools in the area with us.
a detailed exploration of Dvořák’s Violin and Piano Concertos, the ‘New World’ Symphony and his deeply personal and emotional Biblical Songs. The day is led by Queen’s University Belfast Professor, and authority of all things Dvořák, Professor Jan Smaczny, with excerpts performed by SCO Cello Eric de Wit. –––––– Explore Dvořák: Saturday 11 November 2017 10.30am-4.30pm Royal Conservatoire of Scotland Glasgow
–––––– This Season, together with Principal Conductor Robin Ticciati, we immerse ourselves in the world of Antonin Dvořák. Please join us for Explore Dvořák:
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MUSICIANS ON THE MOVE –––––– We’re very sorry to say “au revoir” to two wonderful musicians. Our superb Principal Bassoon Peter Whelan is something of a Renaissance Man – he’s been doing more and more directing recently, with ensembles such as Opera Theatre Company in Dublin as well as his own group, Ensemble Marsyas. He has decided to leave the SCO to focus on developing his conducting and directing activities. The Orchestra, and especially the SCO Wind Soloists, will miss him greatly. Principal Timpani Matthew Hardy will be relocating down south following his recent marriage, and will be taking up the position of Principal Timpani at the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. Matt has contributed much to the SCO, not only on the platform, but also through his passionate commitment to teaching and outreach work, and his service on the Orchestra Committee. Our congratulations, thanks and warmest wishes to both Peter and Matt, both of whom we hope to welcome back as guests with SCO in the future.
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SECOND INTERVIEW ANDREW MANZE
QUESTIONS BY ALEC FRANK-GEMMILL
You travel the world conducting orchestras and have your own band (the NDR Radiophilharmonie in Hannover). Is your approach broadly the same with each group, or do you make music in different way with each orchestra? Every orchestra is different, of course. I try to listen to what the musicians spontaneously offer and see how that chimes with my preconceptions. Then the rehearsal process is one of melding one to the other. I hope the result is a performance that is fresh for the occasion and for the performers and listeners. For example, last year, I never heard the opening chords of Beethoven’s revolutionary ‘Coriolan’ as arresting, disturbing, epochchanging as with the SCO, though I did the piece many times. Before turning to conducting you were a violinist and pioneer in the early music scene. Has background been helpful in establishing your (excellent!) relationship with the SCO? Extremely helpful, because I have shared the musicians’ experience of sitting through rehearsals and concerts with good, middling and (yes, it must be said) sometimes bad conductors, feeling variously inspired, confused, terrified or bored. One of the great pleasures of being an exviolinist-conductor is that I get to hear supreme violin playing, for example Benjamin Gilmore’s amazing solo in Britten’s ‘Frank Bridge’ Variations. Your programme with the SCO in January opens with Frank Martin’s Passacaille. It seems surprising that his works aren’t better known. How did you first come across Martin’s music? Martin wrote wonderful music – lyrical, dramatic, modern but graspable. The Passacaille is a good starting point for ‘getting’ him. It was my violinist wife who drew may attention to it, since it was a party-piece of the New Stockholm Chamber Orchestra (strange parties they had!). Do have a listen – his music grows on you and you might get hooked, like me. –––––– Britten Les Illuminations conducted by Andrew Manze is on 18 & 19 January in Edinburgh and Glasgow
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RECENT RECORDINGS Mozart Piano Concertos Nos 25 & 26 Francesco Piemontesi – Piano Andrew Manze – Conductor Following success on the concert platform with Francesco Piemontesi and Andrew Manze, we have joined forces again to produce a new album with two late Mozart Piano Concertos. It hasn’t gone unnoticed by some of our top critics! “Piemontesi’s polished playing is alert with exactly the kind of spontaneity essential to great Mozart performance. Lithe and without fuss, the Scottish Chamber Orchestra makes clear
from the opening bars that this is historically informed Mozart with an updated feel.” – The Observer, 6 August 2017 “Piemontesi finds a perfect partner in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra whose impeccable credentials are widely acknowledged. Conductor Andrew Manze shares Piemontesi’s approach to creating an authentic performance, making this somewhat of a Mozart dream team.” – Gramophone, Editor’s Choice, September 2017
“…lively, stylish performances, alert to every fleeting change of mood.” – Financial Times, 18 August 2017 …”the result is top class.” – Classic FM, John Suchet’s Album of the Week, August 2017
COMING SOON… ––––––
Chrysalis Releasing your first concerto recording is a landmark in any musician’s career, but when it is preceded by years of injury, uncertainty and even the loss of your beloved instrument, it is even more remarkable. Corinne Morris has named her album Chrysalis because “it suggests the process whereby things change, develop, progress their form and yet somehow stay intrinsically the same,” she explained. The Monn Concerto lay dormant for many years before the manuscript was discovered, and the Haydn Concerto was also presumed lost until a copy of the score was found at the Prague National Museum in 1961. After an enforced time away due to injury, Corinne further explained, “I suffered, but
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I grew, my playing eventually came back and I was able to articulate some of the new understandings I had been shown.” The album opens with Couperin’s Pièces en Concert, arranged by French cellist and teacher Paul Bazelaire. The five movements gradually increase in difficulty, culminating in the devilishly difficult finale; a pregression which could be said to echo Morris’ return to form. Chrysalis will be released on Linn on 20 October 2017. –––––– Both albums are available to purchase now from the SCO merchandise desk.
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On tour to Shetland
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In July, we returned to the Shetland Isles with our Strings for the first time in 10 years. This was largely made possible thanks to generous support from NorthLink Ferries, and the fantastic organisation from the excellent team at Shetland Arts. They organised three venues for us to play in – Aith Public Hall, Burravoe Public Hall and Mareel in Lerwick. Aith is a small village on the Northern coast of the West Shetland mainland and Burravoe is a community on the island of Yell. We travelled together by coach. We were dumbstruck by how beautiful the place is – no trees, lots of peat and a fantastic array of wildlife including plenty of cute Shetland ponies! Each village provided us with tasty hot meals, and the concerts were well attended by locals, and tourists from as far away as California. Every person we met in the community, who came to our concerts (and in the pub at night!) showed incredible levels of kindness and generosity to make this one of the most memorable SCO tours in our history. If you haven’t had the chance to experience the Shetland Isles, then please, add them to your bucket list –––––– Thank you to Shetland Arts for support of this tour and NorthLink Ferries for in-kind travel sponsorship of this tour.
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In residence at Rattray Primary School From October 2015 to June 2017 the Scottish Chamber Orchestra was in residence at Rattray Primary School in Perthshire, visiting throughout each school term to work with pupils, teachers and families. Composer Matilda Brown and SCO musicians led regular class workshops and assemblies for the whole school. Our Dots & Lines team brought music, movement and art workshops to the nursery, and families and teachers came along to after-school workshops to take part in musical activities. Families were also invited to events
for the wider community such as Big Ears, Little Ears and Stan and Mabel Family Concerts in Blairgowrie and Perth. For the second year of the Residency we worked with all 243 children in the school. During core classes, pupils worked in small groups to develop their instrumental skills and their understanding of composition. Each pupil was encouraged to find their own role, and each group created pieces of music that were personal to
Each pupil was encouraged to find their own role, and each group created pieces of music that were personal to them
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them. For some, this opportunity opened up new channels of communication and creativity. Children who struggle in other areas with opportunities were able to shine, and the collaborative process encouraged the development of transferable skills and qualities such as teamwork, patience and empathy. To conclude the Residency, more than 80 pupils appeared in concert at Perth Concert Hall as guests of the Horsecross Youth Arts Festival. The programme featured music created and performed by the pupils with Matilda Brown (composer), William Stafford (clarinet), Robert McFall (violin), Brian Schiele (viola) and Phil Hague (percussion). Visual images created with the children were projected on screen by videographer Sandy Butler. We were delighted to be
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able to showcase the children’s work on the main stage with generous support from our partners at Horsecross, and to celebrate the success of the Residency with pupils, families, community workers, school staff, our Chairman and guests –––––– Kindly supported by The Robertson Trust, The Plum Trust, The Basil Death Trust, The Thomson Charitable Trust, The Cross Trust, Paterson Logan Charitable Trust, DC Thomson Charitable Trust and Jimmie Cairncross Charitable Trust and Horsecross Arts
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Season 2017/18 Poster Image for Schumann Requiem
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The subtle, lyrical beauty of Dvorák’s Piano Concerto and the gentle, contemplative score of Schumann’s Requiem
Time for a reappraisal by Kate Molleson History is full of the times we got it wrong. The times an artist unveiled a bold new work or a new direction and was met with incomprehension, or plain derision, from audiences and critics. Beethoven got it for exploding quartet form in the Grosse Fuge. Puccini for putting the lives of poor people on stage in La bohème. Stravinsky for, well, pretty much everything about the Rite of Spring. Miles Davis for going electric. In the cases I’ve just mentioned, general consensus swung around and, sooner or later, works that were initially heard as too weird or too radical were absorbed into the canon. (That didn’t always do them favours, incidentally; ‘canonical’ status often softens the way we play and hear things that still deserve to sound shocking.) In other cases, when the work in question is less obviously progressive, the negative first impressions seem harder to shift. We are happy to reconsider unconventionality as creative genius in retrospect, as the product of a wild but brilliant mind. With subtler eccentricity we fixate on the flaws. And one quality in particular that we can’t seem to handle is frailty.
History is full of the times we got it wrong
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We are happy to reconsider unconventionality as creative genius in retrospect, as the product of a wild but brilliant mind Take the way we listen to the music of Robert Schumann: lyric poet, collector, teacher, storyteller. Regular concertgoers will likely be familiar with his piano concerto, piano quintet, some of his early works for piano, probably a couple of song cycles. But what about his late music? The form-breaking piano fantasies, more songs, the piano trios, the rarelydone opera Genoveva… or the Requiem, which is one of several 19th century rarities included in the Scottish Chamber Orchestra’s new season.
long before he suffered any official mental breakdown. Even his earliest works are flecked with the art of self-doubt and disappointment. It’s when the flecks become too visible that we seem to turn away.
There is a widely held attitude that the music Schumann wrote
The Requiem, Opus 148, is a gentle and contemplative score that speaks directly and deserves to be heard more often. It dates from 1852, the year in which Schumann produced almost all of his sacred music. His mental health was becoming increasingly volatile – in less than two years he would attempt to drown himself in the Rhine (he survived, then was
from about 1848 up to when he died in 1856 was the product of a deteriorating mind, and therefore inferior to what had come before. It is true that the late works aren’t easy. Schumann himself told his wife Clara that everything he experienced in life went directly into his music – but that means the expression of failure was there in his scores
incarcerated in an asylum where he would end his days) and for many commentators, that biographical detail is a signifier of substandard music. The critic Andrew Clements believes that “even by the standards of late Schumann, [the Requiem] is not an outstanding work, with rather unvaried choral writing and thick orchestral
accompaniments”. Robert Haven Schauffler, who wrote a definitive 1960s account of the composer’s life, states that the late choral works “need not detain us”. Eric Jensen, a more recent biographer, picks up briefly on the mournful quality of the Requiem and informs us that it contains more contrasts than the Mass – which isn’t the most thrilling sales pitch. The august musicologist Carl Dahlhaus compared Schumann’s Requiem to Brahms’ – relevant enough, given the closeness of the two composers, but missing out on a fundamental difference between the two. Brahms’ work is all about the living. It offers consolation to the mourners. Schumann’s work, on the other hand, turns its gaze unflinchingly toward the dead. It isn’t without problems in orchestration or textural balance. But – surely more important – it confronts mortality with an honesty and serenity that is gracefully, profoundly moving.
And one quality in particular that we can’t seem to handle is frailty
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Richard Egarr conducts Schumann’s Requiem
It confronts mortality with an honesty and serenity that is gracefully, profoundly moving The work made at the end of an artist’s life, often circles around the process of dying. Some
to “stop fighting and take it in”. Edward Said concluded that lateness is “the power to render
composer did write one, though you could be forgiven for not knowing. The reason why it is
artists find acceptance, others rail. Think of the way Turner used light in his late period – “the sun is God”, he told us. Think of Bob Dylan’s 1997 song Not Dark Yet, with its foreboding repeated line (“it’s not dark yet, but it’s getting there”). Think of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s The History of My Sad Whores, which explores with immense elegance the experience of living with the prospect of death. In the late sonnets of Rilke, Orpheus finally accepts his place in Hades, telling us
disenchantment and pleasure without needing to reconcile the two”. In Schumann’s late works, the sound of failure is left unresolved. For the Requiem to succeed, we have to allow it to fail.
hardly ever performed?
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Richard Egarr conducts Schumann’s Requiem at the end of October; a month later, Robin Ticciati and Sir András Schiff turn their attention to another bafflingly neglected gem. Dvořák’s Piano Concerto. Yep, I promise you the Czech
I blame our collective obsession with virtuosity. In many ways, Dvořák’s Piano Concerto is an anti-concerto. He wrote it in 1876 and openly admitted that he had not created a showpiece in which the piano does dazzling battle with the orchestra. That would have been a more typical model for a romantic concerto; what’s more, the solo writing sounds less difficult than it actually is, which never exactly endears a piece to performers.
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Sir András Schiff plays Dvorák’s Piano Concerto
Maybe it’s a concerto for our times: an antidote to the rule that whoever shouts loudest gets most attention The pianist Leslie Howard remarked that “there is nothing in Liszt that is anywhere near as
subtle and lyrical beauty, full of characterful cameos for various members of the orchestra.
mighty. Maybe it’s a concerto for our times: an antidote to the rule that whoever shouts loudest
difficult to play as the Dvořák Piano Concerto – a magnificent piece of music, but one of the most ungainly bits of piano writing ever printed.”
The opening theme is vintage Dvořák, glowing and earthy, tinged with resignation. The horn solo at the start of the slow moment could be a missing page from the ‘New World’ Symphony.
gets most attention. Time for a reappraisal –––––– Schumann’s Requiem is on 26 & 27 October in Edinburgh and Glasgow –––––– Robin Ticciati Conducts Dvořák Piano Concerto on 7 & 8 December in Edinburgh and Glasgow –––––– Concerts are proudly sponsored by
After its premiere, the work was declared unpianistic and was forgotten about by almost everyone. Only a few devotees have championed it, notably Sviatoslav Richter, and more recently Francesco Piemontesi and Stephen Hough. Yet there are so many reasons to love it. The music unfolds with
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Yes, it is very different from the bluster and one-upmanship of most romantic-era piano concertos. Instead, the music meanders like a convivial conversation. It is unshowy, unheroic. It is mighty, precisely because it is not conspicuously
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YOUR ORCHESTRA, YOUR SAY...
Insta pick of the week
–––––– Your opportunity to comment and have your say. Whether it is via social media or by sending us a letter, we love to hear from you. ––––––
Berg Violin Concerto [SCO at the BBC Proms 2017] seemed to me absolutely gorgeous – and the long, contemplative silence in the hall at the end spoke for itself. Thank you all! Richard Rawles, Facebook
Virgin Money Firew orks Concert 2017
JOIN THE CONVERSATION –––––– The marvel that is @Whelanpp is going to be so sorely missed from @SCOmusic, it *does* mean that there’s an exciting opportunity for someone! Karen Cargill @cargillmezzo (Twitter)
Wow!! The Vasks was utterly mesmerizing. Experiencing such an amazing performance in that intimate venue (the musicians were meters away) was spine tingling. Marwood was captivating. Thanks to all involved. Love love loved it. Strathpeffer attender (Customer email)
Fantastic concert last night at the [Virgin Money Fireworks Concert] in Edinburgh! Orchestra was amazing as always, especially the trombone section in the stomp piece! Always look forward to this event and was not disappointed! Well Done Isobel Cook, Facebook
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THROUGH THE EYES OF... Pete Deane Stage Manager You have been stage managing the SCO for over two years now and have also been involved in a few SCO Connect projects. What have been your main highlights? I’m happy to say that there have been many highlights over the last two and a half years! Most recently however, I had my first visit to the Royal Albert Hall for the BBC Proms. The significance of the venue and occasion was an amazing (and slightly daunting!) experience. We also travelled to Shetland this summer. We found the people there to be welcoming and extremely helpful. Whenever the SCO goes on our travels it’s always a great experience. Outside of making the Orchestra happy and look good on stage, what does your role as Stage Manager involve? It’s an extremely varied job but days during the main Season, tend to fall into some kind of pattern. I generally find myself setting up and supporting rehearsals for the first couple of days of the week before heading off to Glasgow, Perth, St Andrews or some of the other venues we visit each year. I also look after the running of the SCO truck and our equipment and instrument store. From time to time, I also check out new venues. Perhaps, most importantly, is making sure the Orchestra have enough biscuits! Which concerts present the most challenging stage set-ups and changes in our new 2017/18 Season? I always look forward to the change between our Seasons, whether from summer into autumn/ winter or the reverse. It provides a refreshing
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change of pace and different ways of working. This coming Season features a wide range of music from different eras including some modern pieces with slightly unusual orchestrations and instruments to our normal set-up. In particular, I’m looking forward to Colin Currie performing Rautavaara’s Percussion Concerto. This promises to be a large set-up with all the bells and whistles (almost literally!). Our annual family concerts are also a lot of fun and normally involve a more challenging set-up. Last Season I witnessed the Orchestra dressed up as cats and dogs! I’m keen to see what surprises lie in store this year! What has been your most unusual request from a conductor or soloist? In my first Edinburgh International Festival concert, we had to set up “offstage spades” for a percussionist to “play”. The player in question did a great job on the night as the gravedigger! I also had to visit toy shops recently in order to find rubber balls to fill a cardboard box for a piece by Thomas Larcher in our recent BBC Prom concert. I received a few funny looks when I explained what I required them for! Finally, if you could swap places with anyone in the Orchestra, who would you pick and why? It’s a regret of mine that I could never really get the hang of written music – an embarrassing admission considering where I work! If I got my head around this I’d have loved to play any of the strings. I’m also a frustrated drummer however and so would love to be able to punctuate some grand pieces with a good whack on the timpani!
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PLAY YOUR PART
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