The nature of nurture

The Scottish Ensemble is a string ensemble. Guest musicians are invited to join as repertoire demands, but the sense of large-scale chamber music is never lost. With the players standing in a semicircle, Artistic Director Jonathan Morton leads from the violin. The ensemble promotes a subscription series of five tours across Scotland annually, with concerts in rural areas in the summer. Wigmore Hall is the ensemble’s ‘home’ in London, and it regularly plays at the BBC Proms and other festivals across the UK. The ethos of nurturing young talent pervades the organisation. As part of its touring programme, the Scottish Ensemble gives young musicians the opportunity to join them in ‘Side-by-Side’ projects, when student string players perform literally side-by-side as equals with the regular members of the ensemble. Performing music of this scale without a conductor is always a challenge, even for experienced professionals. Standing on the stage, there are no hiding places. Everyone is visible, and all are responsible for jointly shaping the music and creating the performance. These Side-by-Side projects differ from many other similar schemes, in that the students do not just join the Ensemble for rehearsals or low profile concerts, but are part of the subscription concerts, playing on Scotland’s major stages, and next season also performing at Wigmore Hall. On this occasion, the students will be from the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. On a previous project, strings from the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland joined the Ensemble for candle-lit performances of John Tavener’s ‘The Protecting Veil’.

On the job
The management team also creates opportunities for young talent. During the application process for my current position, all contact was with a highly efficient member of the team in the Scottish Ensemble office. I remember being impressed by the tone of the letters I received, and was surprised and delighted when I finally met this person. The Ensemble’s ‘Admin Assistant’ was a very young and charming lass – not at all the intimidating administrator I had been expecting. At that time, she was employed part-time, and it soon became clear to me that she was ready for new challenges. I was keen not to lose her, so by reallocating certain jobs which had previously been undertaken by freelance help (particularly in the areas of fundraising and education), I was able to create a full-time position. Such was her success with the new role, that when the ensemble’s Concerts Manager left some ten months later, I felt that here was another challenge which she was ready for. She leapt at the chance, so at the age of 25 took on major responsibilities within our organisation. I had always intended, however, that the Concerts Manager role should also have access to a mentor from outside our organisation, and a suitable person has recently been identified. After a slightly tentative start, the first meeting was a great success, and has already thrown up some interesting questions. The mentor also pointed out the wealth of opportunities which are open to her through her work, and encouraged her to learn all she can.
Graduate opportunity
Another new role which we have recently created is the position of Graduate Trainee.
In principle, I have strong reservations about the current emphasis on internships as a route into the music business. Interns can so easily feel exploited, and it also leads to a lack of fairness in that only those who have financial support (or who have parents living close to the organisation they wish to work for) are able to take up the opportunities. I was first made aware of this when I visited the Education Department of an orchestra, where a lively debate about the unfairness of this system was going on amongst the younger members of staff. However, the benefits are absolutely clear when all the circumstances are right. Shortly after I had started working at the Ensemble, I received a letter from a post-graduate student at Edinburgh University, asking if she could come and work on education projects with us as an intern. She had enclosed job descriptions from some of the London orchestras for the kind of thing she was hoping to do, and explained that she was not in a position to apply for them as her parents lived in Edinburgh and she could not afford to support herself in London. The Scottish Ensemble is a lean organisation, with a small staff covering all aspects of our work, and although we have a very active Lifelong Learning programme, we felt that we could not sustain a position exclusively in this area. I was, however, impressed by the CV that accompanied her letter, and suggested that a more general internship would be possible, working across all the areas of running a musical organisation. After a very happy six months with the Ensemble, our intern was successful in being appointed as the sole Administrator of a prestigious group based in Scotland, immediately putting to use all that she had learnt in the previous six months.
Talent-spotting
Wanting to learn from this experience, and with a few staff changes happening, we took the opportunity to create a Graduate Trainee position which would be paid a living wage, slightly above the National Minimum Wage. Here similar opportunities for learning and development could be combined with administration duties, and supporting our part-time Marketing and Fundraising managers. Our current Graduate Trainee is rapidly discovering the areas of music management which interest him most – over the space of a year he is being encouraged to gain as many experiences as possible, whether through supporting members of the team in the office, going out on tour with the ensemble, doing short placements with other organisations or attending courses such as those offered by the ABO Brass Tacks training programme. Encouraging individual development, fostering young talent, and creating music leaders of the future is both exciting and rewarding, and I feel very privileged to be part of this process. Audiences would perhaps be surprised to know that the talent which they see and hear on the stage is also reflected behind the scenes.