Helen Jamieson of Music at Paxton tells us about the people who have guided her to her “perfect” music management job.
Paris days - Colin McMordie and Madame Savitsky
My start as a music professional was probably unlike many of my peers. After a musical upbringing, a determined rebelliousness took me, not to the hoped for university music department or music college, but off to Paris to earn a living and learn French.
A few years later, an impromptu performance of one of Satie’s ‘Gnossiennes’ by the flamboyant Irish art dealer Colin McMordie at his small gallery on rue Bonaparte inspired me to return to the piano. I squeezed a rented upright into my tiny studio and signed up for lessons with the 89 year-old Madame Savitsky at the Conservatoire Rachmaninov (which had a renowned café serving blinis and pirog aux choux, and was staffed by grumpy Russian ladies). Madame Savitsky had met Rachmaninov himself and was rather inclined to long periods of reverie when asked about her long teaching career since leaving Russia at the time of the revolution, where she had witnessed her own husband being shot. I used to drive her to the station in my Mini after lessons, and I remember having to brace her with my arm at traffic lights, so unused was she to travelling in a ‘motor car’. Any repertoire post Chopin was ‘modern’.
Anna Butterworth
Back to Edinburgh, mid-twenties and time to take music really seriously. Napier University was recommended to me and there I was lucky enough to have the wonderful Anna Butterworth as my tutor. A fellow lover of France, she introduced me to the world of Mozart and chamber music. Anna was a complete inspiration to me and I loved every minute of her teaching. I graduated from Napier with a Guildhall Performers’ Diploma, and a medal to boot, and also the Napier Music Prize.
Anna would come back into my life 30 years later with the challenge of setting up a music festival at Paxton House, which is in her locality in the Scottish Borders. Without her encouragement and passion for music, my life might have turned out quite differently and I wouldn’t have ended up with the perfect job (see later)!
Ursula Richardson
After my mature student days, it was time to go back to work and I took a job as Assistant Administrator at the newly opened Queen’s Hall in Edinburgh. The brains and energy behind this new venue (converted in 1979 as a new home the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and Scottish Ensemble) was the indomitable Ursula Richardson. Ursula was a hard task-mistress but from her I learned the basics of concert management, the importance of checking and double checking, of cherishing artists and of treating audiences as if they were your dinner guests.
Richard Chester
Five years later, in the mid-eighties, I got a lucky break with the chance to work as Music Officer at the then Scottish Arts Council (now Creative Scotland). This was a huge step up for me and a terrifying prospect. But there I learned how much high-quality music is out there in small communities throughout Scotland, and I made valuable contacts. I also found out how impossible and heart-breaking it is to try to distribute funding fairly and appropriately when there is never enough money available.
Sharing my frustrations were a great many distinguished performers, composers and arts managers, with whom I had the privilege to work through the Music Committee and its panels. Of particular inspiration to me at that time, and since, was Richard Chester, then Director of the National Youth Orchestras of Scotland and a phenomenal musician himself (one of the founders of the Nash Ensemble and principal flute with the Scottish National Orchestra). His calm and measured manner made him a perfect Music Committee Chair and he taught me, among many other things, that no meeting should last longer than 2 hours! Richard was also to come back into my life later on, with a proposal to set up and run a week-long summer school for amateur musicians. This has been going for 11 years now, taking place in Ullapool, Wester Ross.
Sheila Colvin
Another great influence while at the Scottish Arts Council was Sheila Colvin. I first met Sheila while she was Associate Director at the Edinburgh International Festival; she then went on to be Artistic Director at Aldeburgh Music Festival. With such a background and experience, Sheila has been – and continues to be – a wonderful mentor to me in setting up, programming and managing the annual Music at Paxton chamber music festival which is now in its 10th year. To see people moved by the music I love is the ultimate satisfaction and the performances themselves are spine-tingling. Fortunately, although I hand over the reins of managing the Festival later this year, I shall continue to programme it – the perfect job!
Helen Jamieson is Festival Director at Music at Paxton, a summer festival of international chamber music, taking place in Paxton House on the banks of the River Tweed in the Scottish Borders.
www.musicatpaxton.co.uk
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