A New Season with Cambridge Philharmonic
I’m looking forward to starting my first full season as the new Leader (Concertmaster) of Cambridge Philharmonic this weekend. Taking on a role like this wasn’t really in my plan, but just occasionally an opportunity turns up that seems like an unusually good fit.
I like the energy and ambition of the orchestra, the imaginative programming and expressive musicianship of the music director Harry Sever, and the way in which the group’s sound fits so well with their regular venues (West Road and Saffron Hall). It feels like the right relationship at the right time.
‘The Phil’ is one of the UK’s oldest music societies – dating back to 1887 – so I’m very conscious of not meddling with the long heritage and tradition. However, the group is pleasingly open to new ideas, and we’ve already begun to think about everything from articulation to the orchestra’s blend of sound.
The opening show of the season, Rhapsody for a Rascal, is characteristically bold. It pulls together music from three composers – Stravinsky, Strauss and Gershwin – that all have rascally protagonists at their core.
Petrushka is a puppet who refuses to stay in his lane, Till Eulenspiegel is an irreverent prankster with little respect for authority. And Don Juan is a seducer whose personal morality probably wouldn’t be acceptable in this day and age!
Even Rhapsody in Blue (which we’ll play with rising star pianist Junyan Chen) starts with a prank … the famous wail of the clarinet at the start, which sounds more like an air raid siren than a woodwind instrument, was apparently the product of messing around at a rehearsal … the composer overheard, and it stayed!
20th Century meme culture, perhaps? From moments of silliness, it’s funny how cultural touchpoints sometimes emerge…
All of these heroes may be painfully flawed, but out of their larger-than-life personalities comes music that’s deeply dramatic and great fun to listen to.
I hope you enjoy the show! (4pm, Saturday 7th November, West Road Concert Hall, Cambridge – tickets here).
*****
The rest of the season has plenty to look forward to, too … Spanish violinist and baroque supremo Jorge Jimenez will be leading the Phil in for Handel’s Dixit Dominus in November and Humperdinck’s Hansel and Gretel in December.
Then I’ll be back in the new year for a family concert with the one and only Tim Redmond – who I’ve still not yet met, let alone collaborated with – so I’m looking forward to that enormously!
In March, the programming takes a darker turn with Britten’s War Requiem, which will no doubt be a deeply intense musical exploration that I can’t wait to get stuck into.
Landscapes and Legends (22nd May) includes La Mer and Sibelius’s Tapiola, as well as the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s unique choral work Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
And the season closes with Puccini’s La Rondine, in collaboration with British Youth Opera.
If you’re part of the community in this part of the world, I look forward very much to welcoming you to a Cambridge Philharmonic Orchestra concert soon!