Life in a day: A decade at the helm

A Decade at the Helm Life in a day:

“I run the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra”.

There is always a delay before whoever has casually asked me what I do whilst chatting on the train, at the garage, or in the shoe shop, responds. Sometimes I hear the words ‘wow that’s amazing’ or ‘incredible, I love the BSO’, or ‘they were the first orchestra I heard as a kid’, but just as often the reply is simply… a bemused smile…

Rarely is the delay because the person hasn’t heard of the BSO, it is much more that people think of arts and culture as ‘entertainment’, as ‘fun’, something that is just ‘always there’ rather than realising that the Creative Industries pre-pandemic were one of the fastest growing economic drivers in the UK and give employment to 1 in 11 of the UK workforce.

So, I guess in that context, someone does need to run it…

From the moment I took up the French Horn at 10, all I have ever wanted to do is music. From 13 to 18 I played in two Youth Orchestras every weekend, one in Harrow and one in Surrey, (my poor parents!) plus five years in the National Youth Orchestra during the holidays. Music gave me a way to express myself, and the discipline, flexibility, teamwork and listening skills, fuelled my desire to give musical opportunity to others.

Age eleven at Saturday morning music school

Sartorial elegance from an early age!

Eleven years in the horn section at Opera North gave me incredible experiences that no-one can take away. Sitting in the pit literally underneath John Tomlinson in the Coronation Scene of Boris Godunov, or Andrew Shore as Wozzeck (OMG), or Phyllida Lloyd’s production of Britten’s Gloriana with the incomparable Dame Josephine Barstow as Elizabeth I, the Act 3 Finale of la Gioconda (outrageous!), anything by Verdi or Puccini, or the joy when as a horn player you nail a performance of The Marriage of Figaro – surely one of the most glorious of all operas.

It also taught me that being a performer is hard, stressful, unglamourous most of the time and physically exhausting. Many musicians carry injuries when they play and mine – a playing related jaw injury – ended my horn playing career in 2000.

Thanks to the legendary General Director of Opera North, Richard Mantle, who saw something in me, I was given the opportunity to develop and grow as a Manager and then Director running the orchestra, chorus, and concert programme. In 2012 I was invited to apply for the CEO role at the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, leaving ON after 23 years at that remarkable company.

BSO Chief Executive Dougie Scarfe

© BSO/Corin Messer

"Our mission is to be a Cultural Beacon at the heart of our communities"

The BSO exists to bring music into people’s lives. Our Mission is ‘to be a Cultural Beacon at the heart of our communities’ and for the BSO that means communities across 10,000 square miles of the South and South West of England. So, whether that is a concert hall in Bristol, Exeter or Poole, a theatre in Alresford, Barnstaple or Truro, a school in Portsmouth or Yeovil, a community centre in the New Forest or the Isles of Scilly, or a care home in Bournemouth or Torquay, we use the power of music to enrich lives.

In a nutshell my role is to guide the strategy and lead the charge.

We hear in every performance the remarkable talent that there is in the BSO. There is also a brilliant Head Office team behind the scenes planning, administering, and supporting the delivery of our work, telling the story of the BSO to audiences, funders and stakeholders and ensuring BSO is run as a first-rate business and charity.

At a time when musical opportunities are reduced in schools, when the mental health challenges in our communities post-pandemic are more acute than ever, and when the isolation of lockdown has not gone away for so many, making the case for why music can help has never been more important. I see every week how our concerts across the region lift people’s spirits and when you see a child hearing an orchestra for the first time, you know that what we do makes the world a better place.

But we have the statistics too. We have shown that when one of BSO’s specialist community musicians is on an acute care ward of a hospital, the prescription of anti-agitation drugs reduces by 27%, levels of hydration in patients improve and staff report positively on how it makes them feel. As the Head Porter at one of Hampshire’s main hospitals said, “what you do you can’t put in a syringe”.

Opera North horn section, early 1990s

So, my Day in the Life is all about making the case about why music, arts and culture, should and can be for everyone. Going back to the bemused smile when I say what I do; yes it’s entertainment, it is definitely fun but there is no guarantee that it will always be there.

BSO is very fortunate to have strong support from Arts Council England, Local Authority Partners and wonderful Corporate, Trust & Foundation and individual supporters. In a challenging postpandemic funding landscape, my role and that of my team and Trustees is to ensure we have the right people and enough financial resources so that BSO is here for this and future generations.

I have one other great passion which drives me, and helps me cope with a challenging day job, and that is running. There is simply nothing better at the end of a hard week than doing a long run round the Purbecks or the New Forest, or a Half Marathon round Richmond Park raising funds in the blue and orange colours of the Motor Neurone Disease Association.

The Richmond half marathon in 2019

One of 15 half marathons we did that year to raise money for the Motor Neurone Disease Association

At the BSO we all love our partnership with Grange and the strange little 10-year-old who took up the horn, can’t believe his luck that all these years later he is able to help keep the music playing.

Dougie Scarfe

Chief Executive | Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra