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This weekend, toward the very end of July 2022, brings to a close a really enjoyable fortnight of music-making for me in the U.K. that not only took me back to the BBC Proms for the first time since 2019, but also to a National Youth Orchestra for the time since 2020.
As in 2019, I had the pleasure to be engaged as Musical Director of the Children’s BBC Prom, a massive scripted television production, this time, involving an 82-piece orchestra, a steelpan ensemble, two world premiere compositions, multiple soundtrack arrangements played live to taped multimedia , six (yes, 6!) presenters, not to mention thousands of children and parents in the packed Royal Albert Hall, London.
Having done the show previously, I was familiar with the on-stage challenges, but this time was also involved in the pre-production process which started as early as March 2022, first selecting and commissioning the music, then working on the story and script presentation. Once again, I had the great pleasure to work with CBBC Producer Angela Young, and I was finally in a position to engineer a long-anticipated collaboration with U.S. composer Mason Bates. I was also delighted to conduct the excellent Southbank Sinfonia with embedded steel pannists, performing a new piece by Dominique Le Gendre.
The day after the double Prom – yes, we did the show twice, back to back on Saturday July 23 – I was already in Carmarthen, Wales rehearsing with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales (NYOW) and violinist Jennifer Pike. I hadn’t worked with a Youth Orchestra since October of 2020 when I did a broadcast for BBC Radio 3 with the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, and this has been a fantastic week, with exciting and challenging repertoire by Rimsky-Korsakov and Korngold, mentoring a group of musicians champing at the bit, not having performed with NYOW since before the pandemic.
As I write this, we’ve just finished our second of three concerts, today’s being presented at the prestigious Three Choirs Festival in Hereford, England. Tomorrow we’ll wrap up the tour with a matinee concert at the beautiful St. David’s Hall in Cardiff, a venue I’m looking forward to, not least of all because this will be my first time standing on its stage since I played there as a teenager in the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain.
What a lovely way to close a biographical circle. Can’t wait!
