5 minute read
THE MIDAS TOUCH
© Andy Gotts
It can have been of little surprise to anyone, and especially her many devotees in her homeland, to see violinist Nicola Benedetti one of the first out of the blocks as live music begins to be made in concert halls again. Trail-blazing is second nature to a woman who brings quality to the classical album charts as readily as the concert platform, and has become one of the UK’s leading advocates of music education. COVER
BY KEITH BRUCE
FEATURE
COVER FEATURE
The 2020/21 Season was to have opened at the Usher Hall on 24 September with Maxim Emelyanychev and Nicola Benedetti on the stage together for the first time for the Violin Concerto No 1 by Max Bruch. That partnership will now join the musicians of the SCO behind the closed doors of Perth Concert Hall to perform the work – billed as The Quilter Cheviot Benedetti Concert – which will be streamed “as live” on the internet from the time the Edinburgh concert was due to start, and available to view at no charge for some time thereafter.
There may be no audience in the hall to hear the performance, but Benedetti is appreciative of the Orchestra’s determination to open its Season as planned in the only way it can, even if notice of the go ahead has necessarily been short, given ever-changing restrictions on gatherings. “It was just finalised within the last month or so,” she says, “although we have been talking about what to do longer than that.
“Some orchestras and concert halls were very quick just to cancel an entire project and did not enter into those secondary discussions about what’s going to be in its place, but that was never the case with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra. They always were looking at what else they could do and how else they could do it.
“Obviously to have the opportunity to produce a concert is great, and I’m sure they’ll do an excellent job of getting it out to all their patrons and supporters so that, even if there is nobody in the room, people will be able to enjoy the concert in another way.”
Crucial to that process has been investment management company Quilter Cheviot, whose long-standing support of the Orchestra finds a new form with this unique event. Benedetti is looking forward to it allowing her a fresh look at a work that is a feature of the repertoire of many violin soloists. “We had just done the Mendelssohn Concerto before lockdown, and played the Sinfonia Concertante for my first time, and I enjoyed that week so much. I feel like I had a bit of a rebirth in my relationship with the Mendelssohn Concerto through my experience then, so the same thing may happen with Bruch, that I hear things in a
© Andy Gotts
totally different way and have a new kind of enthusiasm for the piece. I’m excited about that, because I’ve played it countless numbers of times. And I haven’t played with Maxim Emelyanychev and I absolutely adore everything that I’ve seen and heard about him.”
News of the SCO concert came with Benedetti’s latest album release, built around the Elgar concerto, still high in the classical charts, having debuted at No 1. She was to have been playing that work at both the Edinburgh International Festival and at the BBC Proms, before a European tour.
Instead she featured in one of the limited season of live Proms from the Royal Albert Hall, playing Baroque concertos by Vivaldi, Handel and Bach with the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, conducted by Jonathan Cohen.
“I had played the Bach double before but everything else was for the first time, in a programme specially created, given the circumstances.” That adaptability has also been essential to Benedetti’s education work with her foundation, although the effect of the medical emergency has been to accelerate work that was already underway.
“It sort of solidified what we had wanted to do anyway and propelled us to do it quicker. We were always wanting to move things online and it was almost as if we were gifted an opportunity to push forward with that.
“The setting up of an online structure that is functional and works well had to be done very quickly. The content of what we do has not been changed at all, but the numbers have grown massively and quite quickly. We are very happy about that and surprised by how little compromise there has been on quality – we are just seeing a lot more people. We’ve been communicating with almost 12,000 young musicians and taught them directly within the last couple of months.
“But we will be going back to our live workshops, it is just a case of when. There is no question that that will happen.”
COVER FEATURE
© Andy Gotts
COVER FEATURE
It has been an unexpected benefit of the absence of any live work that her online education work has had her full attention. “Practically nothing until the end of the year that was on my schedule has survived. Anything that I’m doing has been a recent invitation. There’s another orchestral concert and some smaller recital performances, and repeat performances of the Proms programme, but they’ve all just been put together within the last month or so. It’s been interesting for me that although everybody
says you have to plan a concert two years in advance, suddenly we’re seeing that doesn’t necessarily have to be the case!
“But this whole time has been an eye-opener for everybody, and lots of people have made life adjustments that they won’t give up easily now. I think for me there’s been a massive appreciation for time spent with family, and it’s a gift for me to see how much it is possible to do from your home. I’ve been up to see my parents now, but before that was the longest time I’ve been able to be home and cooking three meals a day.”
––––––The Quilter Cheviot Benedetti Concert will be free to view on the SCO’s YouTube and Facebook pages on Thursday 24 September at 7.30pm, and available for three months thereafter.
Maxim Emelyanychev and Nicola Benedetti will be on stage together for the first time.
© Andy Gotts
