Live music at all costs

On the current Katherine Jenkins Guiding Light tour on which I am conducting my own orchestra The London Concert Orchestra, as well as the Manchester and Scottish concert orchestras and Ulster Orchestra, I must give a huge shout-out to Katherine who has mentioned in concerts the orchestra and how important live music is to her and how easy it would be for her to follow others and cut the number of musicians. Of course she's quite right to think of the importance of live music, but I thought I would explain why she's right. In this day and age where profit versus cost seems to hold sway over the most ardent of artists, the end result seems to get lost in the ever-persuing race to maximise the profit. The first thing to be cut in this race are the musicians, but of course there is a limit to the numbers that it is possible to cut, and the danger is we go beyond that number. A normal orchestra is between 70 and 80 musicians depending on the repertoire. But we are realists and realise in this day and age, unless you have massive sponsorship the costs of touring an 80 piece orchestra are too enormous to contemplate without that sponsorship, not just in wages (though God knows those national wages are scandalously small for such highly qualified people), but in hotels and travel costs etc. So we reduce the size of the orchestra to make it more viable. What has to be to remembered though in this over-amplified world is that you cannot amplify what is not there. This may sound obvious, but I'm not talking about a missing trummpet or a missing flute, but the sheer body of sound. 16 1st violins playing together will sound better accoustically than 10, which will sound better than 4, which of course sound better than 1. It is the same when put down some wires to a Yamaha sound desk at the back of a hall. Whatever the big sound desk says, it cannot recreate the sound of 16 violins when only 1 is playing. No amount of reverb or technical wizardry will make it so! Similarly no machine has been invented that can mimic the sound of finger on finger-board, bow on string, vibrato and articulation, no matter who says it, and some extremely well known names have! But of course the accountants will say every finger that touches wood or brass has a cost, whereas one machine, after its initial outlay, costs no more than one human being and a little bit of electricity. We have to compromise and help with the costs and make the accountants realise every single human being on that stage matters and has a role to play in helping the solo artist relax and perform at the peak of their powers. This then makes audiences around the world want to come back. So how do we balance cost versus size? I had to think of a combination that was cost effective yet would create a sound and colour that would be as close to the original as possible, not just to the audience but to Katherine and me. In other words I had to weigh up the balance of the orchestra versus cost. I originally came up with the ideal reduced orchestra line-up in 2004 when Katherine and I first started working together, and whenever a full orchestra is not available she has performed with it ever since: 1 each of flute, oboe, clarinet and bassoon (the woodwind); 2 horns, 2 trumpets and 1 trombone (the brass); 3 percussion who play everything; harp and keyboard; and 6 1st violins, 5 2nd violins, 3 violas, 3 cellos and 2 double bass (the strings). This balances beautifully. The brass do not drown the strings or woodwind, and the woodwind can have their solos, the strings balance aginst the wind: it's perfect! The sound department also have something to amplify. We have a team of wonderful engineers on this tour headed by Steve Carr who has some state-of-the-art equipment supplied by the best in the business R G Jones, and as he says, he doesn't interfere with the process of musical recreation. He leaves the dynamics entirely up to the orchestra and me. The result is as close as it's possible to get if you were standing where I am. Everyone hears the musicians creating the light and shade, and we have had many wonderful comments as a result. There is no chasing by the sound engineer's fingers on a fader of individual musicians; it is set at the rehearsal, adjusted for the hall we're in and left alone. As a result, hopefully we won't get the revue one artist touring with a small cut-down orchestra did of bombastic, loud, terrible sound. I'm assuming the sound department would have been trying to amplify what is not there. There never was a better adage: more is less, but in this case it is more going in is less coming out! Possibly even more importantly, everything we play has been arranged specifically for this combination of players, we do not play something written for full orchestra, then just drop various instruments. I have arranged specially for this combination of musicians all the orchestral music for this tour including the Swan Lake Suite. We do have to make compromises, such as the cygnets, originally written with a prominent part for 2 oboes. The 2nd oboe part has been transferred to the clarinet (as we do not have 2 oboes), and the clarinet part elsewhere within the orchestra. Afficionados will notice, but I think we maintain the integrity of the dance and the music and not many will notice. We just have to be practical and realise that in order to tour, occasionally we have to think outside the box and do things a little differently. It has meant employment for 33 musicians and a wonderful chance to perform great music with a star singer, and hopefully entertain thousands of people in venues up and down the country. Judging from the reaction to Katherine and the orchestra, we have succeeded. So thank you Katherine Jenkins for having faith in the product and helping you on stage. It is a privilege.

click tracks

Click Tracks! Two words immediately designed to set me on edge! Let me start off by saying I have no objection to them being used in a production where it is necessary, or as a brief interlude that adds something to the music that is being performed. In this day and age, it can be of benefit. But for a whole concert? That for me detracts. I know I am a musician and perhaps might notice things others don't, for instance, a small orchestra in vision when suddenly I hear some trumpets or timps playing yet none are visible within the orchestra. That annoys me hugely as I think it's a con! But it's so much more than that. A click track restricts the way a musician performs; it limits hugely his or her performance. They can only do what the track dictates and if is a repeat performance, what the track did on the previous occasion and the previous occasion to that. Also, the musician must surely be concentrating intently on the click/count through some headphones and not listening to the other musicians around them or their own playing, a practise that is so vital to a shared musical experience. They certainly wouldn't need the conductor. There is no room for spontaneity or that freedom that musicians like to call "art". They are confined to the rhythm, tempo and dynamics of the track. I come across music to be played at a live concert that has been written for a recording orchestra to play, and the rit(ardandos) have been written out so they fit with the clicks. For those not cogniscent with Italian(!), ritardandos mean slowing down in Italian, the language of music. So, if the music is written in 4/4 (4 beats to the bar) and the arranger wants it to slow down, the click that the orchestra records to and to which they are all listening, is given 5 or maybe 6 beats in that rit bar. That of course extends the bar and is supposed to make it sound as though it's slowing down. But in reality, all it does is give an extra beat or two to the bar, a pause, and not a gradual slowing down of the music. My understanding is that it is easier for producers to edit a click recording should they need to. I was once asked to conduct a recording session for an international singing group that always perform to playback. The recording session, played by musicians of a full symphony orchestra would all be wearing headphones and listening to a click. I asked what I would actually be doing. I presumably didn't even need to start or stop it, as there would be a count in! Of course I turned it down saying I was a musician who wanted to make music with the orchestra, not a traffic policeman waving my arms about in front of a wonderful body of players, all of whom would be ignoring me! And no, the redundancy of conductors is not really what appalls me about this! To put the opposing view, I can understand that if an artist wants to do the same thing every night, then it is very easy to just stick on a playback CD and do the same as you've done every other night. But surely, if you're a real artist then you want to do something different every night. To get that spark of spontaneity and strive to reach the heights of greatness, you have to live dangerously and do something slightly different every night. You don't want to do exactly what you did at the previous performance. There may be occasions at a live show where all does not go smoothly, but hopefully on those occasions no-one in the audience would notice. We are professionals and never fall below a certain standard. But then you can get those marvellous evenings where the performance takes on a special meaning. It has the indefinable degree of greatness that all who are there know happened, and it was shared by audience and performers alike. That is what we all strive to do every time we walk on to a concert platform. No, for me, keep music and musicians live. One reason why I adore my work with Katherine Jenkins. She is an artist that doesn't use click tracks, always sings live and together with the orchestra I think we make music that never falls below the level of wonderful. We lay ourselves open to failure every single time, and every single time we win. Everyone should do that. That's art.

Rewards in Music

There are so many rewards in music for a conductor, it is difficult to know where to start. But the rewards for musicians in an orchestra are fewer and harder to quantify. They are horrendously underpaid, yet those in the premier orchestras are at the top of their craft. They have spent years studying and have reached the pinnacle of orchestral playing. When they do a live concert, they have a 3 hour rehearsal on the day in addition to the concert (so let's say 5.5 playing hours); got to the venue either by public transport or their own car/bike; parked the same and paid for the privilege. They have had to pay for refreshments/meal, provided their (expensive) instrument and their concert clothing. All this for a fee that is sometimes scandalously in the low one hundred pounds. No, the rewards in music are not of the pecuniary sort for the musicians in an orchestra! Rather, they come in the performance that goes to a level others don't reach. And when the audience react in a way that makes you realise they too have experienced the out-of-the-ordinary, the rewards are of a different kind. This it has to be said is not a regular occurrence, the majority of performances being merely wonderful. Wonderful is good, wonderful is rewarding. But wonderful should be rewarded better, and not just by the reaction of the audience. Wonderful should be financial security. The problem we have here, is that an orchestra is labour intensive. You can't just drop a trumpet because the box-office figures don't stack up. It would be like only booking 2 original members of The Who because you can't afford all 4! Actually that's a bad example, because there are only 2 out of the 4 now left, so only 2 of the original group ever turn up! But those 2 are the originators of their music and have rearranged their music to cater for the band being cut in half, or added extra players to take the parts no longer played by the 2 original members. We can't get in touch with Beethoven and tell him to cut a trumpet and some violins! Then you have to balance the loud instruments with the soft and make sure you have enough of the soft instruments to balance with the loud! No, we are labour intensive and cannot cut. What is the solution? Performance related pay? Only get paid by the numbers in the audience? Sadly, it would be wall to wall Mozart and Tchaikovsky and then only limited pieces. Music would die and we would be thought of as a museum experience. We must experiment to find the next composer; we must experiment to be creative. The best way forward to achieve good audience numbers is for the orchestra, soloists and conductor to take the audience on a journey together. A journey of discovery and creativity. Then ensure they stay with you for life as you perform the interesting and the challenging alongside musical favourites. The problem with all that is the people who are prepared to do that, stay with you through thick and thin of the journey, are not infinite in numbers. In fact quite the opposite. This is where government and the Arts Council step in. Which may be where my next blog takes me. Meanwhile, reward better the musicians who bring you that great art with their huge talent and expertise. Otherwise, fewer musicians will be able to afford to learn an instrument, knowing their financial security for them and their family is pitiful.

Audience participation

I have recently had the opportunity of watching a number of shows from the view of an audience member and am distressed by what I see, or probably more accurately by what I hear. For ages now I have not gone to a public cinema, preferring to watch movies either on an aeroplane whilst whiling away the long hours between long-haul stops or shorter minutes between champagne refills, or else in the comfort of my own home watching Netflix, Apple TV or terrestrial TV. The age of popcorn being munched and fizzy drinks being slurped has long not appealed to my enjoyment of watching other people's performances on the silver screen. At least though the performance is a recorded one and though disrespectful, the performer would have been unaware of that disrespect, even if others were. But now, this age of armchair front-room viewing has hit the West End in a big way and that disrespect is felt by live performers. I saw a West End show recently where I would estimate more than half the audience took either sweets and drinks into the auditorium and consumed them while watching the performance. The sound of hissing fizzy drinks cans being opened competed severely with the sound of quiet contemplative songs being sung by talented performers giving their all. it was almost as though there were lots of suspended cymbals being stroked and I am certain artists don't want added orchestration during their big solo numbers. I certainly don't. The sound of sweet wrappers being unwrapped! Why should I have to listen to this while someone is giving their all on the stage? This of course then permeates further. People are so convinced they are sitting in their sitting room watching their own private TV, they now have conversations with their neighbours. Sitting, watching Phantom the other day there were a number of conversations going on around me and despite others trying to quieten them down, this seemed to have no affect on the perpetrators. Worse is when an audience member can't sit still for the first half of a show and insists on getting up and going either to the rest rooms or to take/make a phone call, thereby making sure everyone in their row and those behind are disturbed. Phone calls! Don't get me started on these devices where people are unaware where the off switch of a mobile telephone is. The glow from the screen when people are checking their Facebook status or Twitter feed or whatever the latest social networking craze is, is a light show all of its own. I switch my phone off when I enter a theatre, concert hall or place of performance, or it is left behind. Of course, audience members are not solely to blame. Theatre owners are keen to capitalise on maximum revenue and part of that revenue is drinks, sweets and food. This only used to be available before the show and in the interval. Now, due to demand from the audience it is available for the whole show, from beginning to end, and very possibly big money is being made from bar takings. But at what cost to the enjoyment of lots of audience members? How soon before this "way of life" during any sort of cultural entertainment enters concert halls and opera houses?

Travel and Work

Quite a lot of us conductors have to travel exceedingly long distances in order to pursue our art. I personally have been known to fly from London to New Zealand and spend just 4 days in that wonderful country before flying back. During those 4 days I had 3 rehearsals and 2 concerts. And all of my Australian concerts are accomplished in 5 days; we have never been able to organise two Australian orchestras in consecutive weeks! One glance at my website will show you that last year I went to the Melbourne Symphony, came back to the UK for 10 days (and 4 concerts) then went back out to the West Australian Symphony in Perth. How does one cope with that distance and then have to conduct orchestras that quite rightly, will not tolerate tiredness? There are a number of factors that have to be in place before I undertake journeys like the above. The first is that on getting on board the B747 I have to turn left (or go upstairs!), or in the case of the A380, get on the top deck. Busines class beds on aircraft nowadays are superb and in the case of the Qantas A380 of fantastic quality. On-board entertainment is superb on all long-distance aircraft in all classes these days, but the difference between sitting bolt upright and lying flat is as the difference between Epsom Downs and Everest. Recently (4 years ago), due to an error in booking, I did a day-time flight from London to New York with my own orchestra and went economy. I spent the entire time fighting on one side with my next-door neighbour for the arm rest; and if it wasn't the arm-rest it was leg space! What is that all about? Young men seem to like sitting with their legs wide apart and they don't seem to have respect for other people's "personal space"! Fortunately on the other side (yes I was in the middle of the middle....horrendous and never again!) was a very attractive young girl. In the end we played each other our preferred music to see whether we liked each other's taste in music. I was flying Virgin and there was not much classical music choice, but in the end she got Beethoven, I got Lady GaGa! She got the better deal! But I digress. A flat bed is a necessity. The next important factor is to make sure the flight arrives late afternoon or early evening. In the past I have done flights that arrive at 5am and in my view that is a huge mistake. You have to spend the day trying to stay awake, and no matter how much sleep you had on the flight, that is very, very difficult. So I arrive in the evening, have a light meal (as let's face it, you've eaten your full and drunk far too much champagne....a tipple my Twitter friends will know I am inordinately fond of), then go to bed with a book, having taken half a sleeping pill! The only time I ever take sleeping tablets is on long distance trips. The next morning I wake up completely refreshed having had 7 hours sleep straight through and ready for almost anything. I generally take half a Zopiclone tablet for the 4 or 5 days I am there and stop the moment I leave. I am then completely adjusted to exactly the same as I am in my own time zone and able to work in the same way. Jet-lag? Hah! I laugh in the face of jet-lag and never suffer from it!

Conducting something we don't want to do!

We've all had to do it at some stage of our careers! Conduct something we have no affinity for, no allegiance towards and for which we have no sympathy and nothing in common! But I can honestly say, there is no job from which I haven't learnt something. Even if it was something as mundane as during the run of an American ballet company and I had been booked to play the piano part of a piano quintet version of The Blue Danube. I went out drinking with a viola player (the legendary Brian Mack) and thought I could hold my own with him. Never try and out drink a viola player. He made sure I went under the table....and stayed there. That taught me a valuable lesson. But mostly, it is matters of musical education in which I learn something. It may be technique, it may be the ability not to hear what you want to hear, but hear what the audience are hearing. That is quite complicated to learn: the ability to divorce yourself from the emotion of whatever piece you are conducting and conduct from a technical point of view, yet at the same time impart to the orchestra the emotion you are feeling. It is called self-control: going up to a certain point but not straying over it. If you stray over it, the music you imagine you are hearing is not actually what is being performed. You think it is better than actually it is. Some of my best performances I have known about at the time and known they were going well. You can feel the audience are with you as well. However, the reverse is also true. Some years ago I gave a performance of Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet Overture with one of the world's great orchestras and I was completely wrapped up in it. The strings, for which they are famous, sounded lush, rich and full of searing heartache. The brass were like fighting families and the woodwind had all the solemnity of Friar Tuck. I thought it was ruddy marvellous! Yet, I had not yet learnt self-control and the performance happened to be recorded. It was not nearly as good as I had thought! Tempi were wrong, dynamics not always well controlled and worst of all, the emotion was all on the surface. I learnt an important lesson that day: do not get so involved in the music as to lose all rationale.

Learning scores

How do conductors learn the music they are about to conduct? Actually an anology of how I do it is very easy. For me, it is like reading a book, only you then have to memorise the contents, or at least know all the reltaionships intimately. Let's say you are reading one of the great classics: a Charles Dickens. And let's take Oliver Twist. When you read the book, you are taken on a journey by Mr. Dickens, from the birth of Oliver to his eventual happiness where we leave him with a bright future and wonderful prospects. But the journey of how he reached this state is what interests the reader. The relationships he has on the way. The disasters he encounters. It is very much the same with a conductor. I sit in my favourite chair and read the score as I would a book. I let my imagination enter the world of the composer and imagine how an orchestra would sound playing these notes. I think of the relationship between the oboe and the clarinet and the various themes they are playing. Why does it sound it one way when the oboe plays it and another when the clarinet does? Why does the composer play it piano the first time through but forte the second? There will be a reason and one must know them before attempting to conduct it. I never listen to a recording, because all one then does is conduct the music the same as someone else. This is how mistakes are perpetuated. A rit here, a tempo change there, all become with constant repetition accepted as "tradition". People are surprised when I show them my ipod. There is very little music on it. I have it for my own recordings (so I can learn where I went wrong) and a few that I consider can never be surpassed, so should not be attempted. Mainly these are the recordings of Rudolph Kempe, a conductor I consider certainly the greatest I ever saw, and to my mind probably the greatest that ever lived, though I do think Karl Bohm was up there with him. My recodings are there not because I listen to them, I only rarely do, but on the occasion of repeat performances, I can play them and think what can I do to make it better. So the life of a conductor is a solitary one. Either you are sitting in your favourite chair wrapped up in your sound world, or you are sitting in your hotel room in some far away country, waiting for a rehearsal to begin so you can put into practise all the work you have done in your favourite chair. Ah, but when that rehearsal does begin, all that solitude has been worth it!