Contemporary art has done it, even museums have done it, but orchestras, collectively, still don?t seem to have got the message across that there is much more to them than ?7.30pm performances in penguin suits?. Not that it is for want of trying. Russell Jones celebrates the many facets of the 21st century orchestra.
Orchestras too often find themselves branded, unreasonably, for being elitist and not doing enough to attract young people to their concerts. But as Richard Morrison said in The Times last summer, ?as someone who goes to about 150 concerts a year, I am blowed if I know what it is, or what more can be done to break down the barriers that they are not doing already. The presentation of concerts is livelier and more varied, the audience more broadly based and the welcome friendlier than ever.?
Misrepresentation
Is it perhaps that orchestras make an easy target for those who delight in throwing the worn cliches of orchestras being elitist bastions of privilege, outdated product, pandering to white, middle class audiences that only want to listen to a handful of safe works? But the simple truth is that this representation of contemporary British orchestras is outdated, if it was ever accurate at all. The eminent French composer and conductor Pierre Boulez once described the orchestra as ?an ensemble of possibilities.? The evidence suggests that British orchestras have proved him right!
Beyond the 7.30pm performance, and for the record there were over 3,000 last season, the Association of British Orchestras? (ABO) 54 member orchestras make an enormous contribution to our cultural life. From my recent visits to orchestral association conferences in Toronto, San Francisco and Paris, it is clear that in many spheres British orchestras are the envy of the world. Foremost is the laser-like vision which puts the quality of music-making at the heart of their agenda. As David Whelton, Managing Director of the Philharmonia Orchestra says, ?it is about putting every possible resource onto the platform?. And of course the platform varies. Last year British orchestras performed in concert halls, cathedrals, churches, stately homes, parks, universities, colleges, schools, prisons, community centres, old peoples? homes, hospitals, hospices, shopping malls, offices, canteens, restaurants, factories and even a quarry ? perhaps the record holder being OSJ, the Orchestra of St John?s (see p 7), which played 200 days in non-concert hall venues last year.
A diverse constituency
The ABO?s membership ranges from major symphony orchestras to the smallest chamber ensemble that can be, in the words of The Ambache, ?a full chamber orchestra, a piano trio, a wind ensemble and everything in-between.? This flexibility enables live music provision to take place in the largest concert halls to the smallest venues, in rural settings or city churches. Many orchestras tour internationally, some for most of their work, such as the Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) which will give most of its concerts in the first part of its 30th Anniversary season in Vienna and the United States.
Perhaps the most successful development for orchestras in the past 20 years has been the means by which their unquenchable desire to pass on and share their music has manifested itself. Education and community outreach work has been a transformational re-definition of the orchestra in Britain. In the early 1980s Education Departments were in their infancy and schools concerts left much to be desired. Today such work is at the heart of what orchestras do and they punch above their weight in enhancing music education in thousands of primary schools where there is little or no music specialism amongst teaching staff. It is no wonder that Gillian Moore of the London Sinfonietta and Richard McNicol of the London Symphony Orchestra (LSO) are in demand from Los Angeles to Berlin to assist the creation of education and outreach programmes. The LSO has just opened LSO St Luke?s, a state-of-the-art converted Hawksmoor church, now home to its education and outreach programme, LSO Discovery.
What orchestras are playing, broadcasting and recording is also ever changing. Creating tomorrow?s classical music is essential to refresh the repertoire and to give each generation of composers their opportunity to express their creativity in the orchestral genre. Last season ABO orchestras commissioned 83 new works and gave countless performances of music by living composers. Many orchestras, such as the London Sinfonietta, Birmingham Contemporary Music Group and the Britten Sinfonia, are dedicated to new music and this forms the majority of their output. In addition, several orchestras have their own contemporary music ensembles, such as Kokoro, from within the ranks of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra. At the other end of the spectrum, looking back to the earliest days of the orchestra, AAM, Hanover Band, Orchestra of the Age of the Enlightenment (OAE), London Handel, Monteverdi, London Pro Arte and other orchestras are re-interpreting music from the 17th century onwards and exploring performance techniques on instruments of the period. Other orchestras, such as the Cobwebs in the North East, and the Rusties in Poole, are for people who learnt to play instruments as children or young adults and who wish to start playing again.
Beyond the stage
Although hearing music live may be the ideal way to experience it, attendance at a live performance is not always possible. The spectacular growth in listeners to both Classic FM and BBC Radio 3 proves that recorded and broadcast music is a crucial part of the mix for music lovers. Several orchestras are now making their own CDs, notably the LSO, Hallé and Royal Liverpool Philharmonic to critical acclaim and marketing success.
Orchestras have also run cross-artform collaborations. The OAE has worked with the National Portrait Gallery, and the Hallé with poet Terry Caffrey and Manchester City Football Club players, where 150 children from Moss Side and Hulme worked alongside Hallé musicians in the creation of their own football chants and the MCFC Rap! In the area of social inclusion and health, the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields continues to work on a long-term programme of workshops at the homeless shelter at St. Martin-in-the-Fields, Trafalgar Square. Since 1998, City of London Sinfonia has worked in Great Ormond Street Hospital School and wards for 15 days each year. Eight members of the BBC Philharmonic and Ann Dante, a 1930?s private investigator, invite children to become ?private ears? to help her crack two extraordinary murders in the Dante casebook. In the north east next year, the Northern Sinfonia will be moving into a new home, the Sage, Gateshead, with Folkworks, the folk art development agency.
Audiences and sponsors
Orchestras are also at the cutting edge of marketing and audience development initiatives. The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra?s recent re-branding, with its emphasis on penetrating new, culturally diverse markets, has been very successful. Last year ticket sales and development income were up by 17% and 25% respectively. Mindful that Birmingham will be the first ethnic majority city by 2020, the orchestra is reaching out to its Asian community and will include the South Asian Youth Orchestra and two concerts, Hooray for Bollywood, in its main subscription season. In Derby, ViVA: the Orchestra of the East Midlands has worked with Rolls-Royce, South Derbyshire District Council and Rosliston Forestry Centre and primary school children to create a spectacular contribution to the cavalcade procession at Pride Park, as part of Her Majesty the Queen?s Jubilee visit to the city.
Fundraising is never far away from any orchestral activity, and beyond traditional marketing and hospitality-led sponsorships British orchestras have been at the forefront of responding to the new requirements of sponsors in the delivery of their corporate social responsibility agendas. Perhaps the most imaginative is the City of London Sinfonia?s three year, £1m association with March & McLennan Companies (MMC), which includes a testing arts-based training package for MMC?s graduate programme.
And there?s more: the Stratford-upon-Avon-based Orchestra of the Swan saw their violin-playing chairman perform Mozart at a sponsors? cultivation evening; the London Mozart Players have established a successful community residency in East Lindsey, Lincolnshire; next season the London Philharmonic will hold a Charlie Chaplin Festival with screenings of his most famous silent films accompanied with live new music composed by Carl Davies; the BBC National Orchestra of Wales? Ammanford/Corwen project enabled two classrooms, 120 miles apart, to make music together in real time with BBC NOW players; and if you haven?t played The Celebrity Game on the Royal Scottish National Orchestra?s website you are missing a treat!
To quote Richard Morrison once more, ?organisations should never stop dreaming up new ways to reach new audiences. Complacency would breed elitism. But I see no complacency among orchestra managers?. If you think British orchestras are complacent and above listening to criticism from their audiences, click on the Have Your Say section of the Philharmonia Orchestra?s website!
Russell Jones is Director of the Association of British Orchestras
e: russell@abo.org.uk