Out of Office: Ruth

It feels strange to be writing a blog post called Out of Office, when my internship at CLS, which began in June, is the only time I have ever worked in one! For eight months of the year, I pretend to be vastly intellectual at the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (nicknamed the Paul McCartney Fame School), studying for a degree in arts management. While there, my time is usually divided between lectures (on subjects ranging from the theatrical management philosophies of David Garrick to Twitter tips), getting involved in Liverpool’s thriving arts scene and trying to work out who will be the next Beatles so that for the rest of my life I can exaggerate about how close we all were at uni!

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Last weekend, I returned to ‘the north’ to move, with three course-mates, out from the constrictions of student halls and into a house, where we all agreed that true student liberation could finally begin. With the help of an old (and rather cliché) shopping trolley we found in our halls, no doubt an abandoned trophy brought back by some revellers a few nights before, we set about moving the vast quantities of items that had suddenly accumulated in our tiny student rooms. The fact that the new house was literally across the street seemed irrelevant as we battled with oddly shaped bags, printers and the sideways drift of the trolley due to a particularly dodgy wheel. By the end of a number of sweaty hours, all I wanted was to collapse on my new bed and never move again.

I am hoping that my return to Liverpool in September will bring with it some more of the exciting cultural experiences I was fortunate enough to be involved with throughout my first year at university. As a meek-faced fresher, I expected the city to be continuously living in the shadow of the ‘fab four’ with John Lennon shrines on every other street corner and endless repeats of ‘Eleanor Rigby’ on local radio. However the advancement, innovation and sheer enormity of the arts scene in Liverpool is one to be marveled at and, if you get the chance, thoroughly participated in. I was lucky enough to witness a free concert by the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra in my first week, which set the bar for everything that was to come. From fashion shows in night clubs, films in bombed-out churches and Kim Cattrall in Shakespeare, Liverpool really does have it all (so much so that my friends from home are beginning to suspect that I am getting paid to advertise the city to them). All this being said, I am so excited to be working ‘in the big smoke’ with CLS. I know my work in the office will help me so much when I’m out again.  

Ruth Meekings
Marketing Intern

Flashback - Opera Holland Park 2004

For our Flashback feature we’ll be taking a trip down memory lane and remembering important moments in our history which have been both hugely enjoyable and musically impressive.

For our first instalment, we’re going back to the summer of 2004. The Athens Olympics were in full swing, Lance Armstrong had just won his sixth Tour de France and more bizarrely the pickled heart of Louis XVII France had just been entombed in the royal crypt at Saint-Denis in Paris! It was also our first summer as Resident Orchestra at Opera Holland Park where Bellini’s Norma, Strauss’s Die Fledermaus, Puccini’s La Fanciulla del West and La Bohème, and Verdi’s Luisa Miller created a fantastic series of exciting productions for our first time at the Park.

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Established in 1996, Opera Holland Park has become well known for its focus on adventurous productions, mixing well known classics with more obscure repertoire. Over the years we’ve been incredibly lucky to have had the privilege of working with many highly-renowned conductors throughout our time with the company including Brad Cohen, the late Noel Davies, Jane Glover, Stuart Stratford, and Richard Bonynge.

This year, we’re delighted to be returning for the eighth year running to perform among others Donizetti’s Don Pasquale, Mozart’s Le nozze di Figaro, Puccini’s La Rondine, Verdi’s Rigoletto, and Catalani’s La Wally.

There’s still plenty of opportunity to catch an aria or two before the current season ends; so make sure you don;t miss out and book your tickets now.

The Score - Jane Carwardine

For this installment of The Score we decided to catch up with Jane Carwardine, our Principal Second Violin and long-standing member of the Orchestra.

Your CLS career to date

The world of music works in mysterious ways so I am not sure how I came to do my first date with CLS, but I recognised the warmth of the Orchestra very early on. After a few years I became a member of the first violin section and enjoyed the challenge but I now feel more at home leading the seconds, contributing more directly to the overall performance and sitting right at the heart of the Orchestra.
 

Your most memorable concert?

It was amazing performing Beethoven to an audience in China that was hearing it for the very first time. There was also a very memorable concert where certain members of the Orchestra suffered an acute attack of the giggles which was exacerbated by a cello string snapping and ending up around the player's ear!!
One of the most moving performances for me was Benjamin Britten's Death in Venice. This and their other collaborations are a fine testament to the musicianship of both Richard Hickox and Philip Langridge who are sadly no longer with us.

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How do you relax away from CLS?

The most relaxing time for me in a day is taking the dog for a walk. I feel it keeps me in touch with the world as does reading The Week. As for hobbies, I occasionally do a bit of kayaking but don't have time for much else. I was thrown off my allotment due to a large crop of brambles!

What would be your choices on Desert Island Discs?

I’d go for the tingle factor. A couple of pieces that get me every time I hear them is the opening of Bach's St John's Passion and the last few pages of Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony.

To read the full version of this interview visit our website.

Concert Focus - Antipodean Celebration

On 29 June we’ ll be celebrating the work of two contemporary Australian composers, as part of the City of London Festival in the elegant Plaisterers’ Hall, the largest livery hall in London. Elena Kats-Chernin’s Ornamental Air an evocative piece written especially for our Principal Conductor Michael Collins and the Orchestra, and Brett Dean’s Between the Spaces in the Sky a moving tribute to our founder the late Richard Hickox, will make this concert a particularly personal one for us.

Here we take a brief look at the two extraordinary Antipodean composers and what influences their work and music.

Elena Kats-Chernin was actually born in Uzbekistan in 1957 and rained at the Gnesin Musical College before moving to Australia in 1975. Her highly energetic and dramatic works have been performed world-wide, with a particular focus on music for dance, as well as opera, orchestral work and  music for film and theatre. The rhythmic dynamism of her music displays the influences of cabaret, tango and ragtime, and the extreme contrasts between fun and melancholy are a hugely important element of her compositions and will bring an atmosphere of intense excitement to the beautiful setting and acoustics of Plaisterers’ Hall.

 

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Brett Dean studied in Brisbane, Australia before travelling to Germany in 1985, where he was a permanent viola player in the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra for fourteen years. In 1988 he began composing, initially as an arranger, and was an improvising performer for film and radio projects in Australia, where he returned in 2000. His compositions are produced mainly from literary, political or visual stimuli, including the paintings of his wife Heather Betts, and often provide intellectual references to the past or present. We’re delighted to be performing the world premiere of his latest work Between the Spaces in the Sky, a City of London Festival commission.

Tickets: £20, £10 (includes a glass of wine)

Mozart Symphony No.1
Elena Kats-Chernin Ornamental Air
Brett Dean Between the spaces in the sky World Premiere
Mozart Clarinet Concerto

 

Wednesday 29 June, 7.30pm

 Plaisterers' Hall

The Score - Fiona Bonds

For our next instalment of The Score we thought we’d catch up with our newest principal player Fiona Bonds, who has just been appointed Principal Viola.

Your CLS career to date
Steve Tees who was CLS' principal viola, rang me in 2008 and asked me if I'd like to come in as the orchestra were looking for a No.2. Having always loved working with Steve and enjoyed playing guest principal with the orchestra on previous occasions, I jumped at the chance. When Steve announced he was leaving it seemed the natural thing to ask to be considered as principal. During my trial period I very much enjoyed the friendly, welcoming atmosphere in the orchestra and some great music making, so was thrilled to be appointed.

Your most memorable concert?
I have mostly specialised in chamber music and chamber orchestras, since for me personally the buzz I get from communicating with my fellow musicians in this way can't be beaten. Having said that, I have also enjoyed working on many film and TV commercial sessions and have most recently been touring with Peter Gabriel which has been wonderful. I love my work and feel very lucky to be doing what I'm doing.

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How do you relax away from CLS?
When off the concert platform, my main priority is to spend as much time with my family as possible, as my job inevitably involves time away. I love to go running both at home and while I'm on tour as I love the time it gives me to think and it's a great stress-reliever. Lots of musicians seem to be getting into it now, as it counteracts the more sedentary nature of our work - there's a lot of sitting involved!

What would be your choices on Desert island Discs?
Ravel's String Quartet, Faure's Requiem, Mozart's G minor Viola Quintet and any of the string quartets, Beethoven's Symphony No 7, Mozart's Piano Concertos, any of them...plus any number of the tracks from Peter Gabriel's Scratch My Back album. That's off the top of my head, there's really too many to choose!

To read the full version of this interview visit our website.

Six operas sitting quietly on a table...

We’ve just started rehearsals for our eighth season as resident orchestra at Opera Holland Park. This pile of six operas has been sitting quietly on a desk for the past few months waiting...

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To the Opera Holland Park administration they represent the culmination of negotiations with artists, conductors, directors, publishers, costume & set designers and, of course, City of London Sinfonia. To readers of this blog it may mean a night out, with a tasty meal and a glass of wine culminating in a sublime evening of music and drama under the stars (weather permitting!). To orchestra members it is often a late night, not forgetting your glasses and paying bills – although definitely a great way to earn a living!

But to a music librarian the pile represents friends and colleagues, pencils and erasers, lots of sticky tape and a few big boxes.

Each of the operas has its own story – that’s pretty obvious really – but for me the stories are different. For Don Pasquale, the main character has been the guitar – do we need two, as Donizetti has written? Do we replace them with the harp which he gave as an option? Or do I talk nicely to the friend who has been booked as the guitarist and get him to fuse all the dots into one part. Accompanied by tambourine, of course!

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L’Amico Fritz should be renamed L’Amico Stuart (the conductor). Between us we’ve sorted out the off stage brass band, erased lots of previous productions’ markings and stuck the pages back in the right order!

The Marriage of Figaro and La Rondine should be straight forward (always a dangerous saying) as both operas have been produced before at Opera Holland Park, they are nice clean sets (that’s librarian speak for no blue pencil) and all the bowings match – the majority of my work is making sure all the violins up-bow and down-bow at the same time!

The final pair, Rigoletto and La Wally, will make up for the lack of time I need to spend on the previous two. Bowings have to be coordinated, off stage bands integrated, cuts inserted. Plus all the Japanese writing removed – yes, all of these operas have a story, that of previous performances, other orchestras, occasionally the same cast, but all representing different things to different people and in different languages.

Jacqui Compton

Librarian

Looking Back: Patrick

So, it’s time for me to move on from my position as Marketing Intern here at CLS. After encouraging everyone else in the office to write about themselves, it would hardly seem fair if I didn’t follow suit myself...

It almost seems mandatory to mention just how quickly my time here at City of London Sinfonia has gone. There have been some fantastic concerts, some stressful deadlines, some creative designing and of course, some truly epic fluctuations in temperature! Coming into an organisation such as CLS has been a fantastic experience. I sit in the same small space as all of the managers, which allows me to eavesdrop, ask questions and pick up any interesting scraps of work as they go begging. There’s a definite sense of teamwork here – everything overlaps in some capacity or other and everyone is pulling in the same direction. Everyone’s lovely too which helps somewhat!

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My time here has been spent predominantly in the marketing department. Alex, the Marketing Manager, was more or less a new starter when I bowled up in February so it’s been really interesting working together over the last 3 months, throwing out ideas and thinking forwards. It’s been invaluable learning first hand, on the job from someone with so much experience and I’m very grateful for that. I’ve also been fortunate enough to tag along with Gillian on some of her outreach programmes. It’s great to see the orchestra really throw itself into this area of work, the players love it and the audiences are happy - hardly feels like work sometimes!

There were many reasons why I wanted to get involved with an orchestra like CLS. Needless to say I love classical music (a prerequisite!), but for me it was more about understanding how it all works in a busy arts organisation. Doing my MA at City University I was quite comfortable analysing everything from a distance with my curricular goggles on. Down here, in the middle of it all, in an organisation the size of CLS is the best place to learn. It’s an exciting time for the arts in the UK. Yes things are unsteady, but all I can do is dig in, listen, learn and contribute wherever I can.

Hopefully I have been irritating and useful in equal measure.

Patrick Elliott

Marketing Intern

Out of Office: Sophie

When Patrick, our fabulous Marketing Intern approached me and said 'Soph, would you like to write our next Out of Office blog post?', I said 'yeah, why not, I’ll give it a go - how hard can it be?'. Then I realised, YIKES, what do I do out of the office?  As the Orchestra Manager and fixer I spend most of my out of office hours working, especially around busy times such as the Opera Holland Park season.  I can often find myself answering players’ calls at 10pm, and fixing last minute hiccups before rehearsals and concerts the next day.  Working such hours has meant I have had to find hobbies which are flexible and can work around the orchestra's schedule.  

Sophie

 

I moved to London last May after graduating from university and decided to start attending a church I already had connections with. That church was a New Frontiers church called Christ Church London. There I started to play netball again. Now, like many girls I played netball during high school - I was quite good at it too - and I remember the broken fingers and skirts with built-in shorts very well. Like most people however, I found that in the end, other commitments got in the way. The Christ Church Ladies Netball Team had a rough start to their first season last September, having only won something like two games out of ten. But our luck was about to change and during the spring season we excelled ourselves by coming joint 3rd in the table. Rediscovering netball was such good fun, it reawakened my competitive streak as well as my team spirit.

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Aside from playing netball, I spend a great part of my free time out in Kent where my partner’s family keeps horses. I often help look after two of the horses, one small pony called Charlie, who is a beautiful grey, and Jo, an enormous chestnut. Both have their individual characters - Charlie is a juvenile delinquent who likes to bite and kick, so a firm hand is often needed with him, and Jo is just a mischievous old man who can get very over protective.

 So there you go, I suppose I'm not so dull after all!

Sophie Plumb

Orchestra Manager

 

What's on my iPod: Karen Geoghegan

Having first made her mark in the finals of BBC’s Classical Star competition in 2008, Karen’s warm personality and sense of style and musicianship have made her one of the most highly acclaimed and sought after young soloists in the UK. We’re delighted she’ll be performing with us again on Sunday at Central Theatre, Chatham.

We caught up with her to find out what the four most played tracks are on her iPod and why she just can’t stop listening to them...

E lucevan le stelle from Puccini's Tosca
I fell in love with this aria when I saw Tosca live at the Royal Albert Hall a few years ago. This is probably the best-known aria from the opera, and is sung by Tosca's lover whilst he awaits his execution. It is a final reminiscing of what used to be – there is a real sense of heartache and desperation.  I love the clarinet obligato, which plays a huge role in this aria. This is an absolute must to listen to - it really is heart-wrenching stuff; tissues at the ready!

The Swan of Tuonela – Sibelius
This tone poem by Sibelius is not one of his better-known works but is my absolute favourite piece of classical music. The cor anglais takes the main role in the work, representing the swan, who swims around Tuonela - the island of the dead. The cor anglais is one of the most beautiful instruments in the orchestra - always getting the solos, and for good reason!

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Piano Concerto No. 2 - Second Movement - Shostakovich
I first heard this work in a theory and musicianship class when I was around 16, and I remember my teacher absolutely raving about it, and going on about this heart-wrenching chord where the piano enters after a beautiful string introduction- and then we heard it and we all knew why! I could listen to it again and again! Shostakovich is one of my favourite composers. His symphonic writing is great for the bassoon!   

The Stolen Child and Non Aurumque from the album Light and Gold – Eric Whitacre
The harmonies and suspensions Eric Whitacre uses are really quite spectacular. This music evokes so many different emotions - I can't just have it on in the background as I get so carried away every time I listen!

Sunday 5 June, 7.30pm
Central Theatre, Chatham

Flashback: Meet the Music

It’s been a busy few months for our Community & Education programme:  Meet the Music. Alongside our regular projects at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH) and L’Chaim, Living Music, in Jewish Care Homes, we’ve also had our busiest ever family concert as well as children’s workshops in Harlow, Chatham and High Wycombe. We thought we’d take a moment to take a breather and look back on all the activity so far this year.

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Fifteen CLS musicians have been involved in our sessions at GOSH, where we’ve shifted focus slightly to spend more time on the wards, reaching more children who otherwise have little or no social contact throughout their stay in hospital. CLS string quartets have visited 9 Jewish care homes in North London where we have developed a new partnership with the large charity, Jewish Care.There are now many new homes keen to be involved and plenty of scope to develop and grow the existing project which is fantastic!

In March, we welcomed a huge audience of close to 600 for our regular Crash, Bang, Wallop! concert at Cadogan Hall in London.  The concert focused on Stephen McNeff’s Jemima Puddleduck and we were really fortunate to have members of the Beatrix Potter Society on hand to help with our pre-concert activities. 

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We’ve also run children’s workshops in Chatham and Harlow and are in the middle of a series of Early Years sessions in High Wycombe. If that wasn’t enough we’re planning a new project at GOSH, working alongside the Royal Academy of Music’s outreach programme Open Academy and are deep into planning with Orchestras Live for this year’s Early Years Lullaby tour in Suffolk, which will again happen over the October half term break. 

We’re really looking forward to all of these exciting projects (and hard work) to come!

Gillian Hunter

Education Manager