This year’s education projects have got off to a flying start. In our first project of 2012, regular RPO resound partners, the Ismaili Community Ensemble (ICE), under the leadership of Paul Griffiths have been involved in not one but two separate collaborations!

Firstly, Composer Niraj Chag shared one of his compositions, called Kanya, with ICE. With the help of Paul and the RPO resound musicians, the ensemble arranged and adapted the piece to suit their different strengths and ideas.

Secondly, the ensemble engaged in a series of visits to the Orpheus Centre – an organisation dedicated to providing disabled over 18s with performing arts opportunities and preparing them for future responsibilities. RPO resound musicians and ICE members worked together with students at Orpheus and Paul to create a fantastic new piece that brought together musical ideas from everyone involved.

Ismaili Community Ensemble and Orpheus Centre musicians

Of course there was time for ICE to work on their own material too. Taking London’s multiculturalism as a starting point in the very first session, suggestions were flying from every corner of the room as the ensemble brainstormed some ideas by listing the sorts of sounds one hears when travelling through different areas of London. Once rehearsals got underway, the creation of music progressed organically and continually until the very end.

The culmination of the project took place on Saturday 28^th January at Cadogan Hall, featuring the music of each of the different partners in this busy term of work. Though the members of Orpheus were not able to be with us on the day, they were certainly there in spirit when ICE performed their composition in its entirety. All the pieces went down a storm and the ensemble received a standing ovation from the audience, with the performers eagerly playing an encore: a carnival-style piece that gradually increases in speed until the final two bars are exploding with excitement.

We look forward to further opportunities to collaborate with all these different groups in future months.

After a week of snow, -30C temperatures and an emergency landing (our plane broke whilst flying into Ottawa), we have arrived to glorious sunshine on the West Coast for the final week of our USA 2012 tour. The trip so far has been successful and hugely enjoyable. Playing-wise my highlights so far have been the joint concert in Ottawa with the National Arts Centre Orchestra – who were was brilliant to meet and perform with – and the concert in Chicago with Maestro Dutoit.

The joint trombones and tubas of the RPO and NACO - quite a sound!

It’s always difficult being away from our families for such a long period, but by enjoying ourselves and having fun the time passes a lot quicker. We stay in a lot of hotels every year, and if you just stay inside you don’t get to see much of the city you’re in, so we try to make a point of getting out and wandering around to get a feel for each place. This can result in finding some amazing places to eat and drink, such as the restaurant we found in Louisville, a city I’ve never visited before. When we arrived I didn’t have much hope for finding anywhere really nice to eat, but we ended up having the best meal of the trip so far in a brilliant little restaurant called Jack Fry’s. Some cocktails to get us in the mood, amazing fish starters, sublime meat main courses and huge puddings (plus a few bottles of wine) resulted in an excellent evening, along with a bit of a fuzzy head the next morning! I can thoroughly recommend it to anybody visiting Louisville.

We also like to fit in a game of golf whenever we can. When we are in the UK I don’t get the chance to play any more, so my golfing is reserved for tours – in fact the last time I played was on our last tour here in 2008! As you can imagine I was a little rusty for the first couple of rounds we played in West Palm Beach, and was a great disappointment to our Chairman, Andy, who had the unfortunate privilege of being partnered with me against two much more competitive members of the orchestra. Needless to say we came second, and my individual score was so poor that people gave up counting! Luckily a morning off in Palm Springs offered the perfect opportunity to redeem myself. I was one of only two of us to clear the water on the 1st hole,and thought my game was improving, but as you can see from the photo below it all fell apart when I found a tree between my ball and the green!

Spot the ball...

We have four more days left of our month-long tour, and whilst I can’t wait to get back and see my family it has been a brilliant trip and I’m already looking forward to coming back in 2014.

I’m writing this blog entry from the fireside in the Meridien Hotel, Philadelphia, where the thermometer is showing a pretty fierce -7 degrees centigrade. It’s come as quite a shock to the system, considering that I started the week filling up as much of my spare time as possible by the pool in balmy Florida…. Ahem, I mean practising…

Free time (or travel time) is one of the great touring challenges. There are a lot of spare mornings, spare afternoons and seemingly endless bus rides from town to town and, once the rehearsal and any necessary practise is done, everyone fills their time in a variety of ways. In my bass section alone, we have some voracious readers, two rather expert scuba divers, several keen cyclists and some of the most committed museum and gallery-goers I have ever met.

The free day in Florida last week was a little out of the ordinary even for this eclectic bunch. One of our second violins decided that he wanted to throw himself out of an airplane at 10,000 feet. Yes, as Helen mentioned, a sky-diving plan was circulating. Much to my other (and some would say, better!) half’s constant chagrin, once a sneaky, admittedly daft, but nigglingly exciting idea such as this is put in my head, I’m incapable of saying no. I tried to convince myself that it was crazy, terrifying, stupid even. But eventually I just had to face up to the fact that I would never forgive myself if I didn’t do it. As they say here in the US, “Hell, YEAH!”

After much talk and some persuasion, we managed to find six fellow lunatics who fancied it so we hired a car, met in the lobby at 9am and headed off to Wellington, a town on the edge of the Everglades. After about half an hour following the directions given to us by the internet, we turned onto a dirt track at the side of the road and started to doubt whether we hadn’t gone wrong somewhere. We were expecting a hi-tech sky dive centre, not a dirt track. The sun beat down and, as we drove along, all that seemed to be there to greet us were the turkey buzzards by the side of the track, feasting on a carcass. The thought that it could be some poor unfortunate from an earlier jump hung in the air of our hire car and we all gulped in an attempt to get rid of the knots in our stomachs.

The hi-tech skydive centre

At the end of the track, we found the centre (check out the photo… It was an old caravan!!) and the guys who were going to be jumping with us. They were so relaxed about the whole thing, they simply batted away our worried questions with sarcastic jokes about death rates and how under-experienced they were. In truth, they had nearly 20,000 jumps between the two of them and their relaxed style was just what we needed. We watched a training video (about 10 minutes’ worth!) and then it was time. My fellow bass player, Becky and I were to go first. We were going to jump. Out of an airplane. At 10,000 feet. I wasn’t absolutely terrified. No sir. Not at all… Maybe a little.

The plane was just big enough for two of us to fit in with the two instructors who would be strapped to our backs. We climbed for 15 minutes, circling over the beautiful green and brown swirling Everglades, listening to the instructors talking about the millions of alligators waiting below us. The views were amazing; the swamps to one side, the coast and the beaches to the other; Miami, just visible in the distance, shrouded in its own hazy cloud.

All of a sudden, there was movement. We were getting strapped up and ready to go. Becky was next to the door and I watched, kind of numbly, as a gaping, roaring hole appeared to her right. The door was open and the noise was deafening. So much so that I couldn’t hear Becky’s screams as she put her legs out of the aircraft and sat on the ledge. I shouted some encouragement and then, in a split second, she was gone.

My turn! We edged to the door and I forced myself, against every instinct in my body, to put my feet out on the tiny metal plate below the open door. The wind howled and buffeted my feet and legs with ferocious power. But then, just as I’d seen happen to Becky, the instructor pushed and we tumbled out.

How did it feel? It’s hard to describe, particularly at that first moment when you plunge towards the ground at upwards of 125 mph, the wind roars and your brain doesn’t quite know what’s happening, which way is up and whether you should be smiling or screaming. Exhilarating, unbelievable, coursing with adrenaline. If you’ll pardon me my language, here’s the video of my jump, taken by a camera on the arm of my instructor. I think it’s far more eloquent than I could ever be on the subject!

After a minute of freefall, the parachute opens (as you can imagine, the moment we were all praying for!) and, with a jolt, the atmosphere changes completely. Following your mad hurtle amid the noise and craziness, you start to float serenely and quietly through the air. The gentleness and the peace of it is quite startling and there is little to do other than enjoy the views, feel the sun warm your face and try to figure out exactly what just happened up there…

My partner is sleeping more soundly now that there are no more opportunities for extreme sports on the horizon. This free day in Philadelphia has found me on a historic walking tour and tucking into a Philly cheesesteak. With the grease dripping, I’m not completely sure whether my heart suffered more from the cheesesteak than the sky dive, but, you know, when in Rome…

Double Bassists Roy and Benn tucking into Philadelphia cheesesteaks

The crowd came to Fort Lauderdale to hear Pinchas Zukerman conduct and solo with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, in a concert that demonstrated that Zukerman, at 63, still stands with the world’s top violinists. Zukerman played and conducted Bruch’s Violin Concerto No.1, giving what may be South Florida’s  finest performance in years of this overplayed work.

The London-based Royal Philharmonic Orchestra…is a highly capable ensemble with strong, agile playing in all sections and a vivid, often sumptuous tone.

Click to read the full review from the South Florida Classical Review.

Zukerman gave the Bruch Violin Concerto a lovely performance. He conducted with his bow, a cruder implement than his baton, but it worked well…Throughout, Zukerman played with the assurance of someone who has played the work for decades – an old friend, yet ever fresh.

Next up was Brahms’ Symphony No.4. It is a rich tapestry, and Zukerman and the Royal Philharmonic had what is required for a great performance…The final movement was unforgettable. It needs a conductor and orchestra that understand the movement’s complex architecture. Now, they’ve got it.

It was a powerful, memorable performance by a magnificent orchestra and superb conductor.

Click to read the full review from Palm Beach Daily News.

On Wednesday night, the RPO played the first of two concerts at the Kravis Center as part of the venue’s Regional Arts series. Eighty-two strong, they played to an exacting standard rarely heard in most concert halls.

Although this intelligent group of players could have gone conductor-less, Zukerman had a rare old time leading and playing the Violin Concerto No. 1 of Max Bruch. Appropriating a “Mr. Cool” approach, Zukerman spun around and around, playing, then conducting, with his unwieldy bow…there was much synergy between soloist and orchestra.

Now it was time for the orchestra to shine in the Symphony No. 4 of Brahms. They played vigorously and with enviable refinement…The orchestra received a standing ovation and many well-deserved bravos from the large house.

Click to read the full review from the Palm Beach ArtsPaper.

Happy New Year to all blog readers from West Palm Beach where the Orchestra is staying while we give concerts around Florida before moving on to the rest of the country! I’m Helen Kamminga, the RPO’s co-principal viola. It’s been a few months since my last post about the infamous Verona trip – hopefully things here will go a little more smoothly!

The first few days of our epic four week tour are worryingly easy and civilised. By that I mean lots of free time and no real touring yet – we get to stay in one nice hotel for several days, and travel to different venues each day. Last night (3rd January) it was Fort Lauderdale, an hour away. Tonight and tomorrow we play in the Kravis Center which is only a stone’s throw from the hotel. Then a day off – and the sun is shining! Rumour has it that some people are planning a sky dive. No doubt there will be news of that in next week’s blog post – meanwhile my feet are staying securely on terra firma!

Kravis Center, West Palm Beach

The idea of 21 concerts ahead is a daunting one. It feels like a bit of a mountain to climb actually. An average month back home might consist of two or three concerts per week, mixed up with sessions and rehearsals, but more to the point, we get to go home each night. A month like this definitely has its challenges. Luckily we are all seasoned travellers and get on pretty well (should I be saying that on Day 3 I wonder…..!) and musicians are well known for managing to have fun wherever they are.

It’s great to be performing with Pinchas Zukerman again. He is conducting Brahms 4 and Elgar’s ‘Enigma’ Variations, and directing the Bruch and Beethoven concertos from the violin. He has an easy going attitude which everyone enjoys, and when he plays the violin – well, it’s a privilege to be on stage with him.

West Palm Beach is an easy place to be, great climate, good restaurants and shops, everything close by. Any thoughts of the customary January post festive detox were quickly dispelled on our first visit to the local steakhouse, with its colossal portions – even a side of spinach is swimming in cream, and frankly it would be rude not to sample most of the wines on offer. This kind of indulgence will need to stop next week, not least because there won’t be time!

It’s now our final morning in West Palm Beach. Later we head to Naples and the touring really starts. Look out for more blogs as we make our way round America plus a flying visit over the border to Ottawa. Meanwhile there’s just time for a last brunch in the sunshine!

As we say goodbye to 2011 (perhaps a relief for some!) and welcome in 2012, I would like to wish all our readers a Happy New Year on behalf of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. 2011 was a fantastic year for the Orchestra with some very memorable concerts, but while some of us were cheering in 2012, members of the Orchestra were preparing for what is regarded today as a mammoth tour, spending 30 days travelling around the USA visiting some of the key musical hotspots with renowned conductors/soloists Maestro Charles Dutoit and Pinchas Zukerman. The Orchestra’s first port of call was Fort Lauderdale last night, so at least a sunny start compared to the windy London office where I am.

As the next few weeks progress, the Orchestra will be travelling to West Palm Beach, Naples, Sarasota, Louisville, Ottawa (ok, a whistle stop visit to Canada!) Chicago, San Diego and Santa Barbara to name just a few places. So please keep an eye on the blog as over the coming weeks four very kind volunteers from the Orchestra will write their accounts on how the tour is going…and perhaps a bit of gossip too!!!!    

Watch out for the first post next week, and see below for a map of the mammoth route!

Hannah:  You played a huge part our Family Matinée at the Cambridge Corn Exchange, Meet the Brass, at the end of October. Was there a particular part of the day that you enjoyed the most?

Brian: My favourite part was meeting all the children when they had a chance to come and try the instruments. It was great for them to have the chance to get up close to the people and the instruments they had seen performing on the stage. It was also nice for us to meet them, offer encouragement, inspire them to learn about music and hopefully even learn to play a brass instrument! It was also fun performing to so many people. I think they all enjoyed getting closer to the music and being drawn in through the interaction with the players.

Hannah: A Bigger Sound, our recent partnership project with Music in Prisons and Rideout Theatre at HMP The Mount, was a landmark project in terms of its scale and cross-genre art collaborations in prisons. What were your thoughts on it?

Brian: A Bigger Sound was an immensely rewarding project, both for the inmates and the musicians. We had a brilliant outcome with the gig, but there were several elements that contributed to the overall success of the project. We built up strong relationships with the inmates over a period of time through the process of creating all of the music and drama together. Eventually we reached a point where we were all interacting really effectively for the final performance. Every musician’s contribution was essential to the group dynamic.

It had an enormous impact on the musicians and the inmates have been extremely enthusiastic in their responses both during and after the performances, telling us that it was a unique and uplifting experience for them. It was the social and professional fusion of personalities that created such diverse creative ideas for a collective collaboration; I’m sure they will take away a great deal from this project and look back on it in the future. By the end there was an amazing amount of regard and affection between all concerned… A very emotional experience!

You can read more about both of these projects in the latest issue of RPO resound, available from www.rpo.co.uk.

Judith Templeman, First Violin

How did you become involved with the RPO?
I auditioned two years ago for the No.5 position in the First Violins and was given a trial – it went from there and I became an official member in 2009.

What is the best thing about being a member of the RPO?
The variety of the work is constantly stimulating; you never know what you’ll be doing next! Recently we rehearsed Lutosławski in the afternoon before going straight to a pop recording session for the evening.

What inspired you to become a musician as a child?
My elder sister played the violin and I always wanted to play too – I nagged my parents until they let me take lessons!

Who have you enjoyed working with the most whilst in the RPO?
For me our Artistic Director and Principal Conductor Charles Dutoit is a great conductor – and playing Brahms’ Violin Concerto with soloist Lisa Batiashvili and Charles Dutoit at the Montreux Festival this September was a real treat.

Where is your favourite place to perform?
Playing at Carnegie Hall, New York was a dream come true for me! Whilst I was studying at The Juilliard School all the students talked about how wonderful it was. It has a great acoustic and fantastic warm atmosphere.

What has been the most valuable piece of advice you have been given in relation to music, and who was it from?
‘Hear the sound you want to make in your head and then make sure it is that same sound that comes out when you’re playing.’ – David Takeno, acclaimed violinist and teacher.

Do you have a defining favourite moment of your musical career? What is it?
I have had many to date but playing the solo violin part in Schindler’s List with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra in Symphony Hall, Birmingham must be among them – a wonderful experience!

If you could learn to play another/different instrument, which would it be and why?
The harp – I love it. My parents put their feet down when I asked to learn that as well!

What was the first recording you ever bought?
Ravel’s Daphnis et Chloé.

What do you listen to in your spare time?
I often listen to jazz – I love Frank Sinatra and the music from that very glamorous era!

Here’s a video of the final performance:

RELIABLE RUSSIAN REPERTOIRE

SHOSTAKOVICH              Festive Overture
RACHMANINOV               Piano Concerto No.2
PROKOFIEV                       Symphony No.5

Kirill Karabits · conductor
Barry Douglas · piano

Concert programming techniques are changing on the classical music scene.  Many orchestras and companies now offer alternatives to the traditional mould, with events such as short concerts with drinks, lecture-recitals and films with live soundtracks.  Against this trend, it is good to see orchestras such as the RPO celebrating the traditional overture-concerto-symphony format popularised over the last hundred years.  Although I play in them regularly, it has been about a year or so since I have actually attended a “normal” orchestral concert.

Ukrainian Kirill Karabits, principal conductor of Bournemouth’s lively Symphony Orchestra, took to the podium at the Royal Festival Hall for this programme of popular Russian gems.  It was refreshing to see such a young Maestro, dressed in a black suit with upturned collar, and with much more hair than in his promotional photo!

The evening opened energetically with a tantalising whistle-stop tour of Shostakovich’s Festive Overture.  The increasingly jubilant brass fanfare at the opening dissolved to reveal incredibly tight flourishes in the winds and strings.  The communication between the players was captivating to watch and this heightened awareness allowed the players to have fun, the cellos even laughing at the twists and turns in the music.  This was especially enjoyable to watch considering classical musicians are often accused of taking themselves too seriously.  Semiquavers flew around the hall and we passed through a cheeky pizzicato section before a slower, almost Waltonesque theme.  Approaching the finishing line, I worried that any more enthusiasm from the timpanist would send his beaters into the choir stalls behind him!

As the 1^st violins left to allow the piano to be rolled on, an excited buzz from the enthralled audience filled the hall.  Looking around me I was glad to see a packed and diverse room full of music lovers of all ages.  I also used this time to read some of the programme.  One quote regarding the next work, Rachmaninov’s much-loved Second Piano Concerto, caught my eye:

‘I feel like a ghost wandering in a world grown alien.  I cannot cast out the old way of writing, and I cannot acquire the new’.

Rachmaninov’s words are very apt for students reading this blog.  I have seen many of my composer colleagues struggle in their first few years at Music College to find their own personal voice whilst striving to fit with current trends.  It is encouraging to learn that a composer as successful as Rachmaninov had the same struggles.  It was also comforting as an instrumentalist to read that Rachmaninov’s teacher, with whom he lived for a short time, made him practise three hours a day.  So many musicians seem to forget that quality is better than quantity and that nine hours of brainless repetition is often less help than three hours of focused work!

I was interested to see what kind of soloist Irish pianist Barry Douglas was, considering he often directs orchestras from the keyboard.   His opening seemed to start from far away, drawing us in before growing to fill the hall.  The strings blended beautifully, introducing the first movement’s main theme in octaves and creating the musical equivalent of a warm bath for the audience.

Control was handed to the principal flute and clarinet at the start of the Adagio Sostenuto, freed by Douglas’s flexible yet well-moulded weaving accompaniment.  The piano then rose to take the limelight in solo interludes without disturbing the calm atmosphere.  The general pause at the end of the central section was handled expertly: many virtuosi would use such a moment to draw attention to themselves in anticipation of the following solo passage, but here the silence just opened a door on Douglas’s personal world, the pause feeling completely natural as his hands floated to the lower regions of the piano.  Humbly hunched over the keys, Douglas let the music speak for itself.

Rather than leaving us to bask in the stillness at the end of the movement, Karabits pounced on the last movement Scherzo like an excitable child.  He obviously enjoyed the moto perpetuo and encouraged the whole orchestra (and audience!) to join him.  The energy returned after a more docile central section before a massively romanticised version of the melody, bringing this captivating journey to a close.

Despite taking the soloistic freedom given them by Douglas boldly and graciously, the orchestra were incredibly sensitive to the piano’s solo lines, even when Douglas chose to use the gentlest of colours.  In keeping with his humility, Douglas, in a black suit and t-shirt, beckoned the orchestra to bow but Karabits rightly refused.  Douglas had brought Rachmaninov’s work to life through his sensitive interpretation.

In contrast to the struggles felt by Rachmaninov, Prokofiev rattled his Fifth Symphony off in just one month!  Karabits returned to the stage with great stage presence and poise despite his diminutive size, which I think is achieved by the way he stands: feet apart with squared, straight legs that power a nervous energy which drives the orchestra in a bubbling yet controlled way.

Simple flute and bassoon in bare octaves opened the work, underscored by a bagpipe-like effect in the lower strings.  We were transported into Prokofiev’s trademark sound world of hope with a tinge of unrest.  The orchestra’s incredible ability to blend reminded me of a comment made by a past professor of mine – that ‘a composer creates new instruments by mixing their sounds together like ingredients in a recipe’.  The orchestra’s sounds were constantly changing and, later in the movement, the power of the brass and percussion was really felt as they drove us to one of those endings that just makes you want to clap, even though you know you shouldn’t!

The opening of the second movement reminded me of Romeo and Juliet, written eight years earlier, with lithe and playful strings and a mischievous jumpy theme introduced in the clarinet.  Karabits held the tension, keeping the music on its toes with energetic simplicity.  In parts, it sounded like Karabits was opening a door on a jazz club, the orchestra having the freedom to really let themselves go before being reigned in again. 

The third movement began with a glassy, heartfelt string texture which framed the bolder central material.  I found it amusing to see one percussionist reclining as though waiting for a bus as his colleagues were giving it their all on the tam-tam, bass drum and cymbals – for him, it is just another day at work!  With the return to the opening material I felt that perhaps the pleasant simplicity of the piece had gone on a bit too long.  This continued into the start of the final movement, but this was more a drawback of the piece: for me, Prokofiev’s musical language works best in programmatic form and the slower sections of the symphony seemed to amble around the same trademark colours a bit too absent-mindedly.

After the sober opening, the last movement crept back to life.  The playfulness returned, with rustic open E strings in the scurrying violins and particularly characterful oboes and clarinets.  Karabits pushed towards the close with an exciting build in dynamic and drive, high woodwinds evoking memories of Italian marching bands.  All of a sudden, the orchestra fell away to reveal a brief moment of frenzied string solos, before a glorious rush of sound to the end.

The sounds and rhythms of the closing bars remained in my head for hours following the concert, thanks to the infectious energy of Karabits and the RPO.