The Big Give Christmas Challenge

Earlier this month, pupils from three primary schools in Tower Hamlets took part in a very magical project with our musicians and workshop leader Claire Bloor. October and November were full of magic for the Education team with our Lullaby series followed by our sell-out Crash Bang Wallop! concert at Cadogan Hall and we were so pleased that alongside these projects, we were able to develop a bespoke project for 150 Year 1 and 2 pupils from across Tower Hamlets; the starting point of a new and exciting programme of work in the Borough.

In the spring we met with THAMES, the Tower Hamlets Arts and Music Education Service to explore possibilities of developing work together. THAMES works with schools across Tower Hamlets, providing instrumental music teachers and running ensembles but also have a very strong history of exciting, effective partnerships. They work with a wide range of professional partners and we are proud to be one of them!

The concert was wonderful, something the children would never have been able to experience without you.
Teacher, Thomas Buxton Primary School

Our first project in October saw a special schools performance of our Magic themed show which included arrangements of works such as Dukas Sorcerer’s Apprentice and Mozart’s Overture to The Magic Flute. Around this, we ran a series of workshops with four classes, introducing children to the repertoire and instruments of the Orchestra. Alongside workshop leader, Claire Bloor, the children also wrote their own lyrics to a song about a magical owl which was performed with the Orchestra at the concert. 

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Image: Paul Coghlin

This pilot project has exceeded our expectations and we now plan to visit eight more primary schools in Tower Hamlets, with a series of bespoke schools concerts and workshops, introducing a further 300 children and their teachers to the Orchestra.  In order to make this important work happen we are taking part in the Big Give Christmas Challenge (5-9 December), through which we need to raise £25,000 in order to enable this transformational work to happen. 

Visit our Big Give page to find out more and how to get involved.

Big Give Christmas Challenge
5 - 9 Dec 2011     

CLoSer - The First Review

We asked Laura, our Marketing Intern and newest office recruit, to give us the lowdown on the launch of CLoSer on Tuesday night.

CLoSer, our brand new concert series, launched on Tuesday with a Strings Masterclass in East London’s newest venue, Village Underground.

This renovated, turn-of-the-century, warehouse offered a versatile space, acted  as an atmospheric and edgy venue. A brilliant blank canvas of old brick, hinting at its industrial past, Village Underground transformed for the evening, hosting 200 audience members, free to relax on floor cushions, unwind at the bar and get closer to the orchestra.

The informal evening of orchestral music was led by our charismatic Principal Conductor , Michael Collins and progressed through a programme of three works, and also featured Michael  as a soloist. The minimalist Shaker Loops, by John Adams, opened the evening with energetic motion and electrifying acceleration. Gathering speed over 25 minutes, the orchestra played with vigour as the music gained speed and rhythmic excitement.

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This opening piece was followed by an interview with Michael himself, carried out by our principal cellist, Sue Dorey. Touching on his ability to deftly switch role from conductor to soloist, he spoke fondly of his musical education and how he came to play clarinet as a young boy. One of the leading clarinettists of his generation, Michael’s  performance of Gordon Jacob’s mini-concerto Clarinet Concertino entertained the audience through his persuasive musicianship and buoyant, light-hearted style.

After a brief introduction to the techniques employed by the musicians, the concert came to a close with Bartok’s Divertimento for Strings; a rousing finish to the evening with its gypsy character and dance-like style. The audience  were then free to enjoy the bar and mingle with musicians before offering their feedback on their departure.

CloSer
Wednesday 29th February, 7.30pm,
Village Underground,
EC2A

Tickets: £15 (includes a free drink)
Box office: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

Concert Focus: John Adams & Shaker Loops

Find out about the music behind the concert, with our quick guide to John Adams' Shaker Loops, to be performed at our first CLoSer concert on Tuesday 22 November. 

Shaker Loops
Written in 1978 by American composer John Adams, hailed as one of the great composers of minimalist music, Shaker Loops is one of his most popular and performed compositions.

Formed of four movements:

I. Shaking and Trembling
II. Hymning Slews
III. Loops and Verses
IV. A Final Shaking

Adams says of the piece "the four sections, although they meld together evenly, are really quite distinct, each being characterized by a particular style of string playing. The outside movements are devoted to ’shaking,’ the fast, tightly rhythmicised motion of the bow across the strings.

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image: Margaretta Mitchell

Part II is deliberately slower and languid followed by the melodic third movement, with "the celli playing long, lyrical lines (which are nevertheless loops themselves) against a background of muted violins, an activity which gradually takes speed and mass until it culminates in the wild push-pull section that is the emotional high of the piece.” 

The piece takes its name from both the distinctive 'shaking' of the strings as they oscillate between notes, and the image Adams’ had of ‘Shakers’ (members of the Millennial Church), dancing and worshipping to repetitive, energetic music.

John Adams occupies a unique position in American music, with his works renowned for their depth of expression, brilliance of sound and the profoundly humanist nature of their themes. His operatic works include Doctor Atomic and The Death of Klinghoffer and his composition On the Transmigration of Souls written for the New York Philharmonic to mark the first anniversary of the World Trade Centre attack, won three Grammys and the Pulitzer Prize for Music in 2003.

He has said of London audiences "they are my ideal listeners - sophisticated, musically literate, enthusiastic and of course a little bit insane!"

Listen to our Spotify playlist for a preview of Shaker Loops.

CLoSer
Tuesday 22 November, 7.30pm
Village Underground, EC2A

Tickets: £15 (includes a free drink)
Box office: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk

Flashback - Music for Children 1998

For this installment of Flashback, we're looking back to the beginning of Music for Children, which began in 1998 as part of our Education and Community Programme. This project was launched at Great Ormond Street Hospital for sick children in September 1998 with three CLS musicians (Jo Cole 'cello; Duke Dobing flute; Nick Ward violin). An initial 'Pilot Day' enabled the musicians to familiarise themselves with the hospital, staff, patients and different wards.

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The CLS team then visited the Hospital School with creative work based on Italy, the in-school topic for the term. The Venice Carnival was re-created over two mornings of music-making workshops, as well as pizza-making and other fun activities. The afternoons were shared between visits to the Mildred Creek Psychiatric Unit and the Dialysis Ward, with several new pieces of music being created and performed.

Following these successful project days a three-year partnership with the Hospital, which is now in its thirteenth year! Nadezna Wilkins, the Hospital School's Music Co-ordinator, was extremely enthusiastic: "The musicians are extremely friendly with the staff and young people both in the school and on the wards. They display excellent skills when teaching children of all ages and abilities."

CLS are delighted to announce that we have recently received a generous grant from the City of London Corporation's City Bridge Trust for £85,700 over three years in order to expand our hospital work to Guy's and St Thomas' hospitals next year.

Meet the venue - Village Underground

Our newest concert venue and home for our infomal concert series CLoSer is Village Underground on the City fringe. We asked our friends and CLoSer concert partners Spitalfields Music to tell us what make's the venue such a treat to visit.

Village Underground is one of those places you could only really find in East London. In many ways it’s quite unassuming (to enter you have to go round the back of the building), but then there’s the fact that on the roof are four old tube carriages serving as offices and the side of the building is London’s most public art gallery, The Wall, showcasing street art in all its various guises. So it’s not without its quirk!

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Image: Andy Schonfelder

The space inside is a brilliant blank canvas of old brick, hinting at the building’s industrial past. It forms an intimate venue for classical concerts, allowing performing and audience spaces to blur and letting the audience get up-close with the artists, making for an unusual and exclusive listening experience.

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Image: James Berry

Of course, the other great thing about Village Underground is its absolutely fantastic location. Not only really easy to get to from Shoreditch High Street on the Overground or, further down the road, Liverpool Street on the Underground and mainline, but there is a whole host of fantastic bars, restaurants and cafes to go to before and after events. There’s everything to choose from, with fine dining at somewhere like Les Trois Garçons; something simpler at Pizza East, or the Albion cafe; or just drinks at a Rivington Street bar. In addition, a five-minute walk down Commercial Street will take you to Spitalfields Market and the surrounding streets which have even more to offer!

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Image: Celine Smith

Now, all this combined with music from City of London Sinfonia has to make for an unmissable night out!

Michael Duffy
Spitalfields Music

CLoSer is CLS' short, informal concert series starting on 22 November:

 Tickets: £15 (includes a free drink)
Box office: 020 7377 1362/spitalfieldsmusic.org.uk
 
Strings Masterclass - Tuesday 22 November 7.30pm
Spirit of the Voice - Wednesday 29 February 7.30pm
Jazz Finale - Wednesday 25 April 7.30pm

Concert Focus - Nicholas Maw

A former student of Lennox Berkeley and Nadia Boulanger, Nicholas Maw was one of the great British composers to emerge in the late 1950s/early 1960s. A contemporary of Sir Peter Maxwell Davies and Sir Harrison Birtwistle, he came to prominence with the premiere of his Scenes and Arias at the BBC Proms in 1962. He is famous for his attempts to reconnect with the Romantic tradition and its preoccupation with sweeping melodies, which he believed had been broken by the onset of Modernism. His repertoire includes orchestral, chamber, solo instrumental, choral and operatic works, and our concert on Sunday 30 October includes some of the biggest milestones of his career.

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His sumptuous Violin Concerto, an expansive piece composed in a Brahmsian manner for a typical nineteenth century orchestra, jointly commissioned by the Philharmonia Orchestra and the Orchestra of St Luke's, New York, will be performed by international violin superstar Tasmin Little.

Sophie's Choice was Maw's final opera, based on William Styron's eponymous novel on the tragic subject of Auschwitz and a mother's choice as to which of her two children to send to the gas chambers. The suite will receive its UK premiere at the concert and was drawn from the opera a year after its world premiere at the Royal Opera House, Covent Garden in 2002. The Suite does not follow the sequence of the opera, but includes the sumptuous orchestral writing (one of the most highly praised facets of the opera).

The concert closes with two beautiful choral pieces, featuring the Holst Singers: One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand, based on a poem by Edwin Muir on the subject of mankind's Fall in the Garden of Eden, and Hymnus, Maw's sole work for mixed chorus and orchestra based on two early Christian texts.

Royal Academy of Music students
Holst Singers
Stephen Layton conductor
Christopher Austin conductor*
Tasmin Little violin

Violin Concerto*
Sophie's Choice Suite
One Foot in Eden Still, I Stand
Hymnus

Nicholas Maw: The Master
Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank Centre

Sunday 30 October 7.00pm
FREE pre concert activities from 4.00pm

My Top Five iPod tracks - Robert Peate

Robert Peate is a composition student at the Royal Academy of Music. His new piece Images Part One (for nine instrumentalists) will be premiered during the pre-concert chamber music at our upcoming Nicholas Maw:The Master concert on Sunday 30 October. We asked him what his favourite iPod tunes currently are and here are the results!

Robert_peate_web
Vaughan Williams An Oxford Elegy

Although familiar with most of Vaughan Williams music, I was introduced to this piece relatively recently. Written for Chorus, Orchestra and Speaker it uses texts by Matthew Arnold and is one of the most powerful and moving pieces I know, with its messages of humanity and timelessness.

Stravinsky Agon 

Apart from its brilliantly conceived and infectious cocktail of early music meets serialism meets neo-classisism, all sounding unmistakably like Stravinsky, this witty and characterful score always fills me with energy and good humour.

Knussen - Symphony No. 3

From its opening glimmers of sound I am always transfixed by the clarity and musicality of this symphony. I find the way Knussen carries the listener through all kinds of varied, effecting and inventive sound worlds completely seamless in its masterly judgement of pacing and tensions.    

Castiglioni - Quodlibet (piccolo concerto for pianoforte and chamber orchestra)

As with the Stravinsky and the Knussen, I find the clarity and character of this music very affecting indeed. The humour, eccentricity, but complete control of material, seems to effortlessly bridge the gap between different musical worlds and historical perspectives. 

BirtwistleThe Fields of Sorrow

When hearing this music I become completely engrossed by the dark, brooding and fluid world Birtwistle creates. The simplicity and directness of the material lures one in to a veiled, almost ceremonial atmosphere, and from the opening of the piece one can feel the overwhelming power of its dramatic vision.      


To listen to a selection of Robert's favourite iPod tunes, check out our Spotify playlist.

Hear the world premiere of Images Part One at 4.00pm on Sunday 30 October at QEH, Southbank Centre.


Nicholas Maw: The Master
Sunday 30 October, 7.00pm
Queen Elizabeth Hall

Out of Office - Becca

As the newest member of staff, I’ve been waiting to be asked to write an Out of Office blog, and have to confess, I’ve slightly dreaded it. "Just write about what you do in your spare time," says our lovely Marketing Intern Kathleen. The concept of ‘spare time’ is, sadly, wishful thinking, as in between working for CLS, running a choir and still doing a fair bit of singing and recording work, I don’t really have any! So far, all of my annual leave is earmarked for festivals – either performing in them, or working at them! The photo below was taken this summer at the Larmer Tree Festival in Wiltshire, where, when not getting rained out of my tent, I worked as a volunteer (and got rather muddy!).

It was taking part in the St Endellion Festival last Easter that introduced me to CLS in the first instance. Many CLS musicians have been involved with the festival over the past thirty years through their work with Richard Hickox, as have a number of my friends, and I wanted to find out what all the fuss was about.

As a result, I found myself in a beautiful little church not far from Padstow (or ‘Padstein’ as it is nicknamed, due to Rick Stein’s fish restaurant empire!) and sat next to soprano Sarah Fox. Now, at this point in my career, I am probably not supposed to get star-struck (especially not when I ought to be concentrating on sight-reading an alto solo at short notice), but it was impossible not to find my jaw hanging in a gormless manner whilst listening to the seemingly effortless sound that she makes. This pretty much set the tone for the week.  By the end of it, I had performed all manner of music under the baton of Jamie Burton and chorus master, Fanny Cooke, alongside a choir of 50 professional and keen amateur singers, an orchestra of talented musicians and some world-class soloists – and all for the love of doing it.

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The incredible thing about the festival is its ethos – nobody is paid for their work. In fact, the performers actually pay to come to the festival. There is no hierarchy of conductor, soloist, chorus. All are equal during the festival week, everyone makes music together, everyone mucks in with the washing up, and (possibly) most importantly, everyone socialises in the pub together afterwards. The musicians are like a large self-made family; many have been coming to St Endellion and taking part in the festival for years – it is their annual holiday. Newcomers needn’t worry though, you are welcomed in with open arms!

By the end of the week and the final chorale of Bach’s St. John Passion, I was physically and emotionally drained, but desperate to return the following year, which reminds me... Barry, about my annual leave next Easter...

Becca Newman
Office Manager

Concert Focus - War and Peace

Our new season Playing London is almost upon us and our first performance is on Tuesday 27 September, focusing on the themes of War and Peace. We’ll be performing alongside the hugely talented London Concert Choir, who celebrated 50 years of music making in 2010, in our first performance at the Queen Elizabeth Hall this season.

Haydn’s Mass in Time of War (1796), also known as the Kettledrum Mass because of the prominence of the timpani, was written at a time when Austria’s troops were struggling against the French in the European War that had followed the French Revolution. Austria feared invasion, and Haydn’s music reflects the troubled mood in its potent integration of references to battle. The work has an unsettled nature not usually associated with Haydn, making some believe that it was written with anti-war sentiment. However, there is no explicit message or clear indication of this intention and most of the mass is of a joyful nature, with the trumpet fanfares which brighten the words Dona nobis pacem (Give us peace) celebrate the hope for peace.

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Vaughan WilliamsDona nobis pacem (1936) is a cantata for soprano and baritone soloists, chorus and orchestra and was commissioned to mark the centenary of the Huddersfield Choral Society. Anti-war messages are conveyed through texts from various sources and the work combines Latin liturgical material (sometimes translated into English) with biblical texts, a political speech by John Bright, who tried to prevent the Crimean War, and three poems by Walt Whitman (American poet and humanist) which describe the carnage and tragedy of war using musical imagery of the drums and bugles.

Haydn Mass in Time of War
Vaughan Williams Dona Nobis Pacem

 For a flavour of this concert listen to our Spotify playlist.

London Concert Choir
Helen Meyerhoff soprano
Jeanette Ager mezzo-soprano
Nathan Vale tenor
Colin Campbell baritone
Mark Forkgen conductor

Queen Elizabeth Hall
Southbank Centre

Tuesday 27 September,  7.30pm
Tickets: £10 - £30 (concessions available)

The Score - Sue Dorey

We caught up with principal cello Sue Dorey. Sue studied at the Yehudi Menuhin School and the Royal Academy of Music. She has also performed as part of the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields and the Trio Zingara.

Your CLS career to date
Steve Orton, then principal cello, invited me to play and I've been here ever since!

Your most memorable concert?
A memorable project with CLS was our A Midsummer Night's Dream with Richard Hickox: a week of performances at Sadler's Wells followed by a week or so at Abbey Road. Fabulous music making and great camaraderie.

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How do you relax away from CLS?
As for relaxing: what's that? Oh well, baking bread, playing Canasta with Mike and Tommy, coastal walks, reading for my book club, theatre outings, a good meal with friends.

What would be your choices on Desert Island Discs?
Schubert Piano Trios, Richard Strauss' Der Rosenkavalier, Bach's St Matthew Passion.