trumpet
Hello everyone!
I’m really excited to share with you what a month in the life of a Southbank Sinfonia fellow looks like (though of course, each month is so different!), delving into the activities you might not hear so much about, such as our Artist Development training, and to share with you some other personal projects that I’m really proud of.
While we haven’t been able to meet in person, the Southbank Sinfonia team have been keeping us busy with a number of online workshops in collaboration with guest speakers. We’ve heard from animateur Lucy Drever about how to speak to camera, the musicians of the City of London Sinfonia about their ‘Comfortable Classical Series’, and how best to set about recording with audio recording specialist Myles Eastwood. We’ve also had a number of fantastic masterclasses from guest panellists, including Dot Vogel (Allegri Quartet - viola) and Southbank Sinfonia alumni: Eugene Lee (Philharmonia, violin), Peter Sparks (English National Opera - clarinet), Shelly Organ (Philharmonia - bassoon), Louise Goodwin (Scottish Chamber Orchestra - timpani), and Jonathan Maloney (freelance - horn).
I found it a real privilege to learn from Lucy Drever, who has built an extremely successful series of online music workshops for children and young people. She went into great detail about how to communicate through online platforms, but also how delivering workshops online can be beneficial for participants who might not have the courage to attend in person. Reaching people in the comfort of their own homes can lead to people feeling safer, more open, and more creative, and we should embrace this! It was very refreshing to hear a positive opinion about online learning and communication, and I have come to be a lot more appreciative of the fact that we can still see each other and make music even in a pandemic.
We hope you’ve enjoyed our first Living Room Live concerts! It’s very exciting to be pioneering this new livestream concert format, and its success is paving the way for us to bring our music to even more people.
For those of you who haven’t yet attended, the webinar function allows the broadcast of the concert with a chat window available for audience participation. I’ve really enjoyed viewing a concert without my camera picture displayed; I feel that I can relax and watch the concert while being able to thank the players directly, which is something I felt like I couldn’t always do in concert-going before the pandemic.
Thank you very much to everyone who has attended so far – it’s been fantastic to have such a great audience. We’re looking forward to seeing where our next concert series takes us!
A real highlight of the most recent lockdown has been working with Southbank Sinfonia’s partner organisation, Coin Street Neighbourhood Centre, located across the road from St John’s, Waterloo. I’ve been part of the pilot programme delivering online music-making sessions for the Nursery Centre and for families tuning in from their homes. It’s such a great opportunity to meet new people in lockdown and to learn how to curate the best sessions for children aged 2-5 and their families.
Cathy (flute), Luke (clarinet), George (viola), and I have really enjoyed creating opportunities for everyone to make music together, and we can confirm that holding sessions online has just as much magic as seeing everyone face to face! We have had exciting and colourful journeys into the “jungle” and “outer space”, and we can’t wait to have some in-person sessions outside from April.
The lockdown in March 2020 certainly seemed to close (or at least doorstop!) many doors for musicians around the world, so I feel particularly lucky and privileged to be involved with Dose of Nature, a charity designed to help its clients’ mental health by connecting them with nature. The charity previously encouraged everyone to get outside and enjoy the fresh air, and so in lockdown and ever since it has become our responsibility to bring nature-themed music to everyone while staying indoors.
I’m lucky enough to live with two singers, and every week we pool all of our skills and resources to perform on Zoom. One session even began with all three of us singing a tune from the 1200s, and ended with a violin, cello, and piano trio playing the Beach Boys. It’s been a real challenge and pleasure performing and having meaningful discussions about repertoire that is both close to our hearts and new to us as well. I even managed to rope in some fellow Southbankers as guests! It’s been a great experience and we hope to continue the workshops in person after lockdown!
In addition to Southbank Sinfonia’s online activities, I have been very busy recording for the Orchestra for the Earth (OFE). This has been a steep learning curve, but I now feel much more comfortable operating recording equipment and hearing myself play. Over the three lockdowns I have recorded all of the trumpet parts to Mahler’s Symphony No.2, Elgar’s ‘Nimrod’ from his Enigma Variations, and, most recently, Mahler’s Symphony No.8 (which has eight onstage and offstage trumpet parts!). I wanted to share this with you because it was such an unusual and entertaining way to spend my time, but also because of how much I admire the ethos of this and our orchestras. Where classical music has the potential to come across as "out of touch”, organisations such as OFE and Southbank Sinfonia are bringing issues such as climate change, gender equality and racial discrimination to people’s attention through music. It’s a pleasure and privilege to be part of these discussions!
I’ve had a great month thanks to Southbank Sinfonia, and I’m really looking forward to Welcome Week. We’re moving a lot of our activities to St John’s Smith Square due to the renovations on St John’s Waterloo, so as well as a reunion, we also have new experiences on the horizon.
We’re going to start off with Beethoven’s Symphony No.5, and I am very excited about this because, despite hearing the famous opening so many times, this will be my first time playing it! We’ll keep you all in the loop with our rehearsals, and we really look forward to welcoming you to our livestreams. Stay tuned for our next blog post!
Katie
Find out more about Katie here