Shropshire Life Magazine Article

There's a nice article about me in Shropshire Life this month, catch it on the shelves to see it in all its shiny glory - or catch it online here without all the photos:

http://www.shropshirelifemagazine.co.uk/people-and-places-lightning-conductor--153477

Let me know what you think.

It would be interesting to know if you think where you grew up influenced your musical interests or careers.

F

A bit of a mixture - linking the digital and real

We are in the part of the year where orchestra’s and opera houses programmes for the next year are nearly all published and also in the midst of the various awards for classical music. Does it all make sense in this digital age? With blogs, twitter, spotify, the Berlin Phil’s digital concert hall and the likes, everything seems to becoming closer to the performer. But is this actually doing the opposite. By giving everything to the audience from within their own home and brining them so close to the performer, in such a personal fashion, does it negate the need to go to the concert hall. Or does it do the opposite? Does it create a yearning for the adrenaline of the concert hall, that tactile excitement it gives when sitting amongst a mass of people experiencing live music?

So many questions and I don’t think we will see real proof of either outcome for another five years, when people will have found more ways of creating ‘access’ to classical music. I certainly believe that the most important thing with increasing audience’s and bringing new generations to classical music is getting young people to a concert for the first time. This is where I think new music can really maximise on new audiences. Live, new music can be heart pumping and adrenaline creating. It is this excitement that is going to bring people in, in the initial stages of their appreciation of music.

What needs to happen is a bridge between the digital and the real: the computer and the concert hall. I don’t think that the Berlin Phil’s digital concert hall helps that problem. It does create a yearning for the real, but only once the real has been experienced.

Most things are now established they just need a bridge. The best way? Firstly, outreach which most orchestras in the UK seem to achieving impressively on the budgets they have. Secondly, filling empty concert halls with students and a real cooperation between orchestras and education, not just by outreach programmes, but by planning programmes with input from the education system. It’s being done in some places, but its success lies in making the concert hall and the orchestra’s friendly, by making them the friend of the community rather than dumming them down. The orchestra’s have to really become part of the fabric of the community. It’s harder to achieve in London but the Hallé seems to be leading the way. It’s getting the young to enthuse the younger. We’re getting there. Now let’s shout it from the roof tops and tell others rather than keep it to ourselves.

I haven’t answered my initial question, maybe for another time, but they seem to follow in the footsteps of ‘popular music’. They reward the hard work done and publicise some of the important hidden work of the real troopers in the business. Some rewards are obviously better to get than others and some are driven heavily by the recording industry. They add a bit of glam but perhaps they could do more. Could they be linked into the whole structure? We have all these separate pods of great goings on but if they could be linked maybe we would not only have something world class but really world leading.

Messiaen - Part 1

Ok, so I have got my act together and managed to publish my first Messiaen article on the Web.

It is entitled:

How important was orchestral composition (until 1933) in the early compositional career of Olivier Messiaen, and what role did poetry and religion play in the construction of those works?

It is available to read here:

www.issuu.com/ensemblecb3

Hopefully my second article, on Messiaen's influence as a teacher will be available to read on the same site in May.

Yours

Fergus

Things to come....

Ok - so still no Messiaen but that is coming, I might have to link it to a preview sight as my initial piece about Messiaen's early orchestral works is pretty long....but am working on another Messiaen article at the moment concerned with his teaching style and influence!

Also nothing about photos - but have had quite a few done recently for various things - John Batten at www.johnbattenphotography.co.uk is fantastic, I couldn't recommend him highly enough!

Have recently done an interview with Shropshire Life so in the next issue between sheep and cows there will be a bit about music!

Will write more about up and coming projects v soon!!

Ferg

Boulez and Luzern

In March last year I was invited to study conducting (along with 3 others) under Pierre Boulez at the Luzern festival for a week in August.

Boulez, is without doubt a phenomenal individual. Much of what the Luzern festival is, especially the Luzern Festival Academy, is because of him. There a few musicians of the 20th Century that one could call 'genius' but Boulez must number amongst them (as possibly does his teacher, Messiaen). Whether you appreciate his compositions or not is not the factor which I feel makes Boulez great (as an aside, if you dont 'like' Boulez then try listening to his Rituel in memoriam Bruno Maderna: 1974-75). It is his persona and understanding which makes him iconic. He was seen as a revolutionary in Paris when he was young, but he made the world stand up and listen and as result IRCAM and EIC now exist and new music is what it is today because of him. You only had to be in the hall at Luzern to see his effect, when he entered, on the 100 strong orchestra, fresh from the conservatoires of the world, to see that he will be loved by the generations of today and tomorrow, once he is gone.

His teaching has a very 'fatherly' approach. When he criticised what we did, which was most of the time, he always did it with a smile on his face. It was certainly constructive, yet after the first session with him, when he stopped you, you knew what he was going to say, yet he always found a different way of expressing it. He may have been seen as brash and big headed when he was younger, but now, in his teaching role at Luzern, it is as if he sees his one duty to the world is to shape and enthuse the musicians of the future about new music. He has criticised the past, moulded the present and now he has turned to the future to resolve the problem of new music education of the young.

It's true to say that he has a pretty easy audience, all the orchestra and conductors have applied to this course, and been selected from many, to work with Boulez and the EIC coaches on a heavily 20th Century programme. Boulez, has a conducting style that is small. It is not restrained. He feels the orchestra gives what it gives, it is his duty to correct and ensure that the orchestra plays as one. He is certainly no Dudamel in his actions, yet the quantity of energy that comes from the podium is easily as much. He stands there. Every movement his body makes is as concentrated and distilled as it could be, and so each movement delivers its maximum effect. He has the benefit of 80 years of experience but when he is on the podium he ensures that it is the composer who is central to the work.

It was certainly a life changing experience, mainly because of Boulez, but also from the insight of the analysis sessions with Theo Hirsbrunner, and the setting of the academy and the nature of the festival itself. However what was so beneficial was the group of conductors working on the Rite of Spring, Symphonies of Wind instruments and Concertino. Eva Fyodor, Pablo Herras Casado, Geoffery Patterson and myself were able to discuss openly our styles of conducting and the problems we saw with the conducting styles of our fellow participants, as well as offering maximum support to each other all the time.

One should always only speak as they find, a motto I think more of the music world could do well to adopt, and for me Boulez is a confident yet supportive, generous and understanding master of what he does.

www.lucernefestival.ch

Posts to come (hopefully)...

Just some of the things I hope to blog about...

Boulez & Luzern

Messiaen

Publicity Photos

Tokyo Philharmonic

A little behind...

After my first blog things seem to have dried up slightly, but one of my new year resolutions is to correct this!

So stay tuned...

Yours,

Fergus