The Revolution Lives!
Soho’s first Classical Revolution was raw, but a definite success. I can think of a million things to improve, and several things to change, but at the very least we hit all our targets (making the bar, if not the artists, a viable profit), a lot of people had a good time, and we were invited back for 24th April (tickets on sale here next week!)
There’s a review, which I think is fairly on-the-mark, on the Cross-Eyed Pianist blog [disclosure: Gavin Dixon is a shareholder in my company, Consonart]. Dixon makes a fascinating point about Eric Satie, and without giving too much away at this point, I think the Parisian ‘furniture music’ needs a more thorough investigation before we write off background noise as undesirable. But more on that later.
Genre is another issue that I’m obsessed with, and again we need to decide if Classical Revolution has to push the boundaries here, or whether the focus is more strictly Classical than the contemporary-music orientation of others (such as Nonclassical). Or do we want to get into the whole argument of what Classical music is anyway? To be continued…
Underlying all of this is the question of demographics – is Classical Revolution for ‘musos’, or ‘newbies’, or both? I think this is becoming clearer, and I’ll write about this again soon.
The ChamberJam was a great success. Ironically, this is the part of the evening I’d been most worried about, but it kind of just flowed. I think this was a result of having really great musicians there (like – really great musicians, who were happy to play just for fun, and a few drinks), and a little bit of pre-planning (I organised the music/players for the first three pieces in advance), and telling people to buy a lot of drinks!
But I think there’s a real opportunity to create something special here; a little bit of Prussia Cove in Soho, perhaps… if all London’s pro musicians, and people passing through on tour, know that the last Tuesday of the month is ‘late night chamber music in Soho’ night, then you could get some very special musical interactions happening indeed.
Vive la Revolution!
Classical ‘Evolution’ – First Night Reflections
Richard Harwood performs Bach
Classical Revolution London opened in Highgate last night at The Red Hedgehog in Highgate, an absolute gem of a venue that will be great for developing Classical Revolution in North London. There were some seriously terrific performances from the featured acts (Richard Harwood, Busch Ensemble, Christine Stevenson), the Open Mic worked well, and although I curtailed the ChamberJam at the end (we were running very late), the show had a nice flow and lots of people had a good time.
But I don’t think I’ve got the format right. Don’t get me wrong, it was a great concert. But it was a great classical music concert in a classical venue that certainly didn’t feel like a revolution. I don’t exactly know what was wrong, either, but I think I have a good idea of what wasn’t right. It felt like we were again falling into the ‘exclusive’ club… the club of ‘this is classical music, this isn’t for you’.
A little bit of this may have been down to our approach to audience building – we were focused on attracting the core local audience, people who are already into classical music, and growing it from there. But maybe I’ve got that all upside down. Maybe we need to take bigger risks, and go straight to the people who have NO knowledge WHATSOEVER of classical. Perhaps, in Soho in Tuesday 27th, that’s exactly what we HAVE to do.
Maybe I’m wrong about classical club nights being more traditional than we think.
The feedback I got from a couple of audience members who didn’t consider themselves ‘knowledgeable classical’ people matches this assumption. The whole point of a club night is to subvert the etiquette of a traditional classical concert. But they didn’t feel free to clap when they wanted to last night, for example. For that matter, I had the same problem. When the Busch Ensemble built up a thrilling crescendo at the end of a movement of Mendelssohn, everyone wanted to acknowledge it, but for some reason no one felt they could, and the classic ‘awkward silence’ of a between-the-movements-of-a-classical-piece pause ensued.
I have to get to the bottom of that. And the message I’m getting back from people is that no detail of presentation is too small, and nothing is too basic to explain. This is hard for ‘traditional’ classical musicians to grasp, but we’ve got to if we have any chance of making this work.
So we’ll try a different tack on Tuesday. No black clothes. No suits. Plenty of (moderate) background noise. More compelling verbal presentations from the performers. Proper, highly basic explanations of where the breaks will be in the music. Maybe a few suggestions of what to listen out for, or how to listen to the music.
And zero assumptions that anyone knows anything about anything, ourselves included.
Classical Clubbing: Changing the Rules, or Playing the Game?
There’s an interesting article in the Guardian today, asking whether the ‘Classical Club Night’ trend is ‘tearing up the rulebook’ or ‘playing the game’. You can read it here:
And here’s my response… (I guess I’m coming down on the side of ‘playing the game’!)
A timely piece… we are launching ‘Classical Revolution’ in London tonight. It’s one of the longest established of these Club Nights, having been founded in 2006 in San Francisco.
The link is http://www.
For us, revolution is an easy word to use, but we’re not really reinventing the wheel – we’re putting really great performances of really great music into a nice bar. As I wrote here, there’s nothing wrong with the music, and it doesn’t need any help. Classical club nights just change the context and the presentation of Classical music. Why do this? To cater for two distinct types of people:
1) People who already love classical music but want to have a choice of environments to enjoy it in. Sometimes you’re in the mood for a full-blown tails-and-bow-tie evening out with a major symphony orchestra playing in a major concert hall. Other nights you just want a really intimate, low-key environment in which to experience a Beethoven String Quartet at close quarters. You get a very different experience if you’re on a sofa in a small room with a glass of wine, than if you’re sitting amongst a large audience in a big auditorium. Neither is the ‘right’ way of doing it, they’re just different.
2) People who aren’t already into classical music, and who are coming to it fresh. How do we make classical music attractive to people who haven’t spent several years going to classical concerts, and don’t really have any preconception of what a classical music concert might be like? (or who have a negative preconception). This isn’t an age thing – it’s equally applicable to young and old people. What’s important is that we’re re-imagining the context in which this great music is presented, so that it feels relevant to a contemporary urban audience. Then it won’t feel like a foreign or unapproachable culture to people who are new to classical music.
Once again, I’d reiterate, there’s nothing wrong with classical music itself. Classical music doesn’t need our help. It’s fine. What classical club nights can do is offer a unique type of setting in which people can enjoy classical performances in a different way. Offering these ‘alternative’ classical music experiences helps to reinforce the genre’s place at the heart of our musical culture.
Harry White is absolutely right to use historical examples of classical performance too – just take a look at 19th Century Vienna etc. and you’ll find plenty of examples of such models in action…
Ain’t No Revolution
I’m looking forward to Classical Revolution London starting this week – one show on Friday in Highgate, then another on Tuesday in Soho.
It did occur to me that ‘Revolution’ is an easy word to use. But basically what we’re doing is just presenting really amazing classical music played really well in a nice bar.
Not so much a revolution, as an execution of the bleedin’ obvious. We’re not trying to change the music. The music is great, it doesn’t need any help. We’re just tweaking the context and the presentation (as I have been banging on about for about 7 years) so that people who already like classical music have a choice of environments to enjoy it in. And people who don’t have a really easy way in.
It works. You’ll see.
Violinspirations No.4: Fritz Kreisler Plays Fritz Kreisler
I’ve been listening non-stop this week to Fritz Kreisler. Famous for his rich, warm sound, and for his ‘rediscovery’ of hundreds of old pieces (which he later admitted were his own work!). He’s one of the greatest violinists of all time.
Sadly, there doesn’t seem to be any video of this incredible musician. Or at least, none with any sound of him playing. Only this silent video: man, violin, dog…
Here’s Liebesleid, one of his faux-traditional Viennese dances:
And you know what? He’s also a virtuoso (in his own inimitable style)…
Violin Lessons in London
For a while now, I’ve given occasional violin masterclasses and workshops in London, and there seems to be such an enormous demand that I’ve decided to offer them regularly.
If you’re in London, UK and you want to learn the violin, the violin workshops I’ve created are all about getting the basic principles of violin playing right: the relationship between the violin and the body, how to hold the instrument and bow and how to stand, and the fundamental ways of serving the music to create great performances (playing the right thing, at the right time is a large part of it!). It’s perfect both for total beginners or as a refresher for more advanced players.
There are also new weekly group violin lessons on a Saturday which I’ll be directing myself in Central London. You can check out the programs here: www.londonviolinstudio.com
Violinspirations No.3: Willie Hall
For someone who’s actually a trombonist, you don’t get much better violin playing than this…
Incredible, no? OK, it’s not the most refined playing (indeed, it’s a ‘vaudeville’ act), but the level of virtuosity is quite extraordinary. Apparently this was Willie Hall‘s main novelty trick – the rest of the time he played the trombone in Paul Whiteman‘s orchestra.
The clip is taken from the film King of Jazz.
Classical Revolution London
When I was studying in Berlin, I came across a group of renegade classical musicians who used to borrow a space at a local cafe every Sunday evening, and read chamber music together. They called it ‘Classical Revolution’.
It soon transpired that the collective in Berlin was not a local group of eccentrics, but an offshoot of a vast global movement. In 2006 a group of students from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music met at Revolution Cafe in San Francisco’s Mission District for public chamber music reading sessions. The success of these events led to a residency, and before long a busy program of concerts and ‘classical jam sessions’ had begun. The idea of performing in a far more relaxed environment than the traditional classical recital hall appealed to musicians visiting San Francisco.
Several of these musicians returned to their home cities with the idea of generating a ‘Classical Revolution’ in their own home towns. In just a couple of years, the idea had spread far and wide, including to Berlin. There are now several ‘chapters’ of the movement across not just the USA, but the whole world!
Check out this article from the New York Times, which explains the concept.
I met up with Charith Premwardhana (the violist who founded the movement) in the States last year. We played a festival together and then put on the first Classical Revolution event in Boston (at the Lilipad in Cambridge, MA). It was a raw event, but the energy was amazing. It made me think: if ever Classical Revolution comes to London, I’d like to play in it!
Last month, I was looking for a low-pressure ‘classical open mic’ night to try out some Paganini Caprices (for a little side project of mine, coming sometime in the next year or two!). But there’s nothing like that here in London. So, I figured, why not start the Rev over here? Up in Manchester, some RNCM-based musicians have been doing this for a while now, with great success. I think it’s time London saw some of the action!
So we’re going ahead and – with a little help from the inimitable Peter Gregson – I’ll be putting on the first Classical Revolution London this Spring. The format will be a 30 minute ‘set’ from a ‘featured act’ (like a well known string quartet or vocal group or soloist), followed by an ‘open mic’ slot for pro musicians, composers and students to showcase new music and repertoire. The night will end with a ‘chamber jam’ – where people can get together and play chamber music with new and existing musical partners.
We’re aiming for February or March – just need to find the right venue. Any suggestions?
In the meantime, you can follow CR London on Facebook, on Twitter, or at the website www.classicalrevolutionlondon.org. If you have any suggestions for a venue or for live acts, email music@<theabovewebsite>.
See you soon at Classical Revolution London!