Educating young musicians

Over the last few weeks the BBC have been broadcasting highlights of the BBC Young Musician of the Year competition. As always, there have been a lot of comments about the format of the show and discussions about what can be gleaned from the competition about the state of music education in the UK. I remember being hooked on the programmes when I was growing up. I loved being able to see every stage of the compeition as well as the masterclasses that they used to have. Some of the masterclasses were filmed at the old BBC studios at Pebble Mill which was just around the corner from where I grew up so I got to go and listen to them. It was all very inspiring stuff for me.

I read with great interest the Guardian article by Mark Simpson which picked up on the high number of privately educated BBC Young Musician competitors and winners and warns that given the current climate, things are unlikely to change. Mark's article reminded me of my experience when I started at the Royal Academy of Music in London as an undergraduate in 1996. I was really shocked how many of my peers had come from either a private school, a specialist music school (such as Chethams, Wells Cathedral School, Menhuin School or Purcell School), had attended a junior music department (Junior RAM, RCM, Guildhall, Trinity etc etc) or played in the National Youth Orchestra. This had not been my trajectory into music college and, at first, I was very daunted. Many of them had known one another for years, many were reminiscing with anecdotes of their experiences in National Children's Orchestra together and very many of them already knew the various professors well. People were friendly and excited about what lay ahead but initially I felt like an outsider and was somewhat intimidated by the cliques. It turned out that, really, there was very little that I had missed out on. 

Over the years I've really appreciated the amazing musical experiences and training I had as a kid growing up in Birmingham and it has really bothered me that current and future generations around the UK are less and less likely to have such an experience. It is my absolute belief that there is no way I would be doing what I do today if it wasn't for the Birmingham Music Service. What is probably even more important though is for every professional musician like me that came out of Birmingham, there were plenty more people going on to a huge range of careers and jobs. Many of these people have continued to have music very much part of their lives. These people love music, listen to music, go to concerts, play in amateur orchestras etc etc.

It was unlikely that I would go through my childhood without learning an instrument at some stage or other. My parents love music and both had played instruments when they were children. It was that sort of family where music was very much part of the furniture, but not necessarily the be all and end all.

I went to a local primary school in Bournville, an idyllic place to go to school and, as far as I'm aware, the only UK primary school to boast a carillon tower with 22 bells. I remember being tried out for violin lessons at one point and being told that my arms were too short and replying that that was fine as I really wanted to play the flute. My mother recalls being shocked at this as I hadn't ever mentioned the flute (and I don't think I did ever again), I suspect this was bravado in having been "turned down" for violin lessons. At some stage I started going to Heather Wastie's Saturday morning recorder group at the Midlands Arts Centre and started piano lessons with a local teacher, Becky Storey.

Like many primary schools there was one teacher who was in charge of the school music and she, Miss Reed (if memory serves me right), was my form teacher in what we now call year 5. I get the impression that the visiting brass teacher from the music service was scouting for new students and Miss Reed picked a handful of us to try out.

Initially I was allocated the trumpet. I was TERRIBLE at the trumpet. I remember really struggling. As I was making very little progress eventually my teacher, Bob Vivian, made an ultimatum. Shape up or stop. I was quite keen on playing the tenor horn so I was allowed to continue but switched to the tenor horn which I LOVED!

Pretty soon I joined the South West Area Birmingham Schools' Wind Band (conducted by Cormac Loane) as second tenor horn in Eb. This was absolutely no indication of any prodigious talent, just what the music service did. They ran a series of such ensembles and joining the local area wind band was the first step in a journey that could take you all the way up to the main symphony orchestra or in other directions, with young musicians finding repertoire or ensembles that suited them. To give you an idea just how basic my abilities as a tenor horn player was at that stage, I vividly remember copying the fingering of the 1st tenor horn player as I had no idea what I was doing and some how busking through what was required of me.

The local wind band was the first step. I could then audition for the Birmingham Schools' Training Wind Band where I played tenor horn for a while (my favourite piece was Birdland) and then, thanks to my teacher at the time Mike Bates, swapped to French Horn. From the Training Wind Band you could go on to the Birmingham Schools' Wind Orchestra or the Concert Orchestra (conducted by the chap who started me off, Bob Vivian). String players had a similar "pathway" with local groups, then Junior strings, Intermediate strings followed by the Concert Orchestra. By this stage I was at secondary school and had continued lessons with my beloved teacher Mike Bates. However, as he was a trumpet player it was wisely suggested that I changed to the "proper" French Horn teacher at the school, none other than Richard Duckett, author of the Team Brass series. I already knew Richard as he, along with the rest of the brass teachers would put on "Brass Days" when all the local brass students, of all sorts of standards, would get together for a day of en masse playing. I loved Brass Days, and not just as it was a day out of normal school.

Now I was in the Concert Orchestra, things started to get much more interesting. The Concert Orchestra would go on trips and have holiday courses. We would compete in the Music for Youth festival which meant we got to play at the Festival Hall and the Royal Albert Hall and get to hear fellow young musicians from the length and breadth of the UK. We took part in an offshoot of Music for Youth, "Let music live" where local Birmingham hero Simon Rattle conducted a massed choir and orchestra of 2.000 young musicians as part of a "Keep Music Alive in Our Schools" day. By the time I got to the end of my schooling in Birmingham I had a hectic week. Monday after school was the school orchestra (conducted by Simon Palmer), Tuesday the Birmingham Schools' Brass Ensemble (a dectet based on the Philip Jones formation, conducted by Bob Vivian), Wednesday could be, when they needed horns, the Birmingham Schools' Baroque Orchestra (conducter by Alan Davis), Thursday was Birmingham Schools Chorale (conducted by Jeffrey Skidmore, of Ex Cathedra fame), Friday was the Academy of St Philips (a chamber orchestra, separate from the Music Service run by Peter Bridle, recent winner of the Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year, Lifetime Award) and Saturday was the Birmingham Schools' Symphony Orchestra (also conducted by Peter Bridle). My parents were the best of taxi services you could imagine.

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Throughout this time, all lessons, instruments and these orchestras and ensembles were provided by the Birmingham Schools Music Service to students such as myself - for free.

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I received the most wonderful of opportunities. I received the most excellent training. I met other young musicians from all over Birmingham, many coming from all sorts of different backgrounds but being brought together to take part in these ensembles. You had a peer group which could provide the complex mix of camaraderie - the support but also competition that helps you progress. You'd be inspired by older students in the system who you could aspire to emulate (Heather McNaughton, a young musician brass finalist in 1992 was a few years ahead of me). You'd also be inspired by other students, who after term after term of doggedly trying to master some aspect of playing suddenly would be racing ahead of everyone.

Even with the most inspiring of teachers, learning a musical instrument will be a very limiting experience if all you're doing is having a weekly half hour lesson. Having all the ensembles and groups in Birmingham gave young musicians a reason to play. It gave us context, both of the music itself, but also the journey of learning an instrument. We could see and hear where we could get to on our instruments and thus returned each week to our instrumental lessons, maybe having done zero practice, but having got the instruments out of the cases and learnt ever so much from our fellow students and the rehearsals in general.

As long as I can remember we've had to fight for music to be respected in the curriculum and for pupils to have the chance to learn to play an instrument. Fewer and fewer opportunities to have lessons and instruments for free exist. Music Services get closed down. Happily, Birmingham seems fighting fit and I hope will continue to thrive for many generations to come.

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Not everyone aspires to be a BBC Young Musician of the Year. Not everyone wants a career in music. But everyone deserves the opportunity to access this level of music education.
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A bit of detective work

One of the things I did during my time in Paris on my Finzi Scholarship was to compile a catalogue of Jacques-François Gallay's works. It was an interesting task and was very helpful in me getting a good overview of his work. There were quite a few anomalies that have crept in over the years - a mysterious "2nd concerto" that some allude to for example, it may have been mooted but never transpired. 

I was able to put together a catalogue and managed to track down a sizeable portion of his works. Various libraries around the world were very helpful, especially the Bibliothèque national de France and the Biblioteca del Conservatorio di Musica "Giuseppe Verdi", and slowly I've been putting together my own library of copies of first editions of Gallay's works.

All of these works are out of copyright (though I've had quite a fight with one particular Italian library who seemed to think this was not the case, more another time) but of course libraries need to at least cover the costs and so many charge for "reproduction". Some libraries you have to go through quite a process to order copies of music in their collection. A laborious series of websites that you have to subscribe to, bank details to fill in, library codes and all sorts of brain ache and then eventually a few months later the photocopies arrive in the post (BnF I'm looking at you). Every so often though I would be delighted to email a collection only to receive in their reply a scan of the work I was looking for almost by return of post (Biblioteca Conservatorio Statale di Musica "G.Rossini" were wonderful!).

Back in 2011 La Revue du Corniste (the biannual magazine of the Association Française du Cor) published the catalogue I was working on and included with it my plea to any readers who might have any of my missing  works to contact me. 

One chap did, Yves Tramon (professor of horn at the Conservatoire de Lille) contacted me with a number of works. One of them was of particular interest, he had a copy of the Troisième Mélodie sur La Somnambula de Bellini (Op. 28), one of the operatic fantasias I was searching for with this recording in mind. But... it was missing the final page!

I received the incomplete score back in January 2012 and over the last couple of years have been diligently searching for a version with the final page. The Op. 28 Mélodie was, frustratingly, not turning up in various library catalogues. I was beginning to consider actually reconstructing the final page! 

Every so often I try a google search for various terms hoping something might crop up. Some Gallay works appear in transcription for cornet à pistons so a bit of lateral thinking will help you find potential sources (more on this subject anon). 

A couple of weeks ago I tried another of these fishing trips and stumbled upon this interesting pdf about the Meir Rimon collection held at the Bar-Ilan University in Israel. Meir Rimon (1946-1991) was an eminent horn player. He was principal horn of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and his collection now resides at the University. Amongst it is a first edition of the piece I was searching for.

So a couple of emails later, low and behold, in my inbox is a lovely scan of the COMPLETE Troisième Mélodie sur La Somnambula de Bellini. Totally mixing my fairy tales, now this sleeping beauty can go to the ball! Many many thanks to the Bar-Ilan University, their wonderfully helpful librarian Efrat Mor and the memory of Meir Rimon. 

  

Mulling over money

So, as mentioned in much earlier posts - I'm hoping to complete the Gallay Trilogy with a recording of the Gallay opera fantasias, more about this anon I'm sure...

In a way I've been working through these discs in an economical fashion - starting with the solo works which is probably the cheapest place to start, this though was made a lot easier in having the support of the wonderful Finzi Scholarship which didn't finance the disc but did finance the preparation for it. The next disc involved co-opting my marvellous friends and colleagues in Les Chevaliers de Saint Hubert for the quartet and trios. This got slotted in amongst other work we had in France near a very good venue recommended by our top notch sound engineer. 

Throughout these other projects, at the back of my head was the possibility of recording some of the Gallay opera fantasias. These works are hardly known of as much of the music is not available or even known about. Much digging in archives and libraries around the world plus many hours work in producing new editions of all these works have meant that a new wealth of nineteenth century works for horn and piano have been rediscovered.

These works are typical of both Gallay's compositions and style of horn playing, mixing incredibly virtuosic music with beautifully lyrical melodies deeply influenced by his position as solo horn of the Parisian Theatre Italien. In many ways these works represent a "missing link" in today's repertoire for horn illustrating a sizeable body of works that come between the classical concerti and sonatas of Mozart/Haydn/Beethoven and their contemporaries and the later nineteenth century Romantic tradition typified by Franz and Richard Strauss.

These charming and entertaining works are still capable of captivating audiences in the 21st century and by recording the music and publishing editions of the works I hope to help renew interest in this important period of musical history.

To date we've got an excellent team together, both with musicians, the producer/engineer and technician for the piano plus a great venue and perfect instruments for the period. Period pianos can be hard to source, tune and move. Venues with good acoustics and no risk of external noise don't come cheap. Accommodation, travel, food to eat, all mount up. All this means that to do this last disc is going to cost a far bit when all is added up. We'll be looking at the region of £10,000 and that's with a number of people giving their services for free (controversial at the best of times).

Recently, many artists have turned to crowd funding to raise the much needed capital for projects such as recordings. At the moment a fabulous Australian ensemble, Ironwood, are in the middle of such a campaign on Pozible. This group is doing really innovative, ground breaking work, especially in 19th century performance practice. I was lucky enough to work with them recently and part of the funding they're trying to raise will be to support a recording project with them so I'm keeping everything crossed that they reach their target.

I'm currently investigating running a Kickstarter campaign. I've spent the last few days coming up with the bumpf and the all important "rewards". Actually this part I've found quite fun - I've divided the rewards into four categories:

• Thanks! (quite self explanatory, a donation of £5 gets a thank you email and a track of music working up to donations of £100 getting a thank you in the sleeve notes.

• Hear the music Various options giving donors advance downloads or advanced copies of the new recording through to snazzy "deluxe" boxed editions of the three Gallay CDs plus the Bate Collection recording. I'm a real sucker for elegant packaging so I'm having great fun playing with ideas for this. Ribbons? Deluxe boxed set would also come with a personal thank you in the sleeve notes.

• Play the music. Having done all the research, found all the source materials, made all the editions so that we have the dots for the recording, it would be great to share the music with other musicians. So there are various options to buy sheet music of these works. Like the boxed editions above I've been looking at the various options of getting the music properly printed as it'd be nice to have good editions rather than something dashed off on the home printer. I'm also contemplating getting a small factory line going at home and making some really good hosepipe horns (in F at A440) - inspired a little by the success of the P-bone so people can buy the music then have an "instrument" to try it out on!

• Meet the artists. This has been a fun one to plot! Need to check a few logistical things but we've got options from horn lessons, drinks with the musicians after one of our concerts in 2015, attending one of the recording sessions, through to a private concert at the donors house. But my favourite one here is a possible event involving the wonderful Bate Collection and afternoon tea...

Having dreamt all that up (and gone through to make sure none of the rewards cost so much that they end up negating any donations) I've now spent some time playing with the Kickstarter website plus a bit more time coming up with a emailout for it.

But the big question is this - Kickstarter and their ilk work on the premise that the campaign only gets money if the target is reached. I'm hoping that this is a campaign that will attract the horn playing fraternity and hopefully other music lovers. But with more and more people running these sorts of things have we reached saturation point? Is it like the frequent emails we all receive from our very well meaning, athletic, friends and colleagues running another marathon for a deserving course? It looks like social media and "reach" (how many people you're connected to on Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn etc etc) play a big part in crowd funding - but is it not like a lot of social/political/fundraising things you see on social media i.e. people are trigger happy clicking "like" for things but rarely follow through with a real life action? 

Either way - it's been a long day of beautiful Mozart in Copenhagen, teaching an enthusiastic Masters student, and then looking at a computer screen for way too long trying to figure out funding. At the moment I'm going to sleep on it a bit but in the meantime would be fascinated to know of other's experience with crowd funding - either as artists themselves running a campaign or as potential philanthropists!

This year marks the bicentenary of the birth of Adolphe Sax. Whilst most people will immediately associate the name of Sax with, of course, the saxophone this was but one of very many instruments he invented or developed.


Over the past few months I've been involved with a group of musicians who are delving into the history of another of Sax's inventions - the family of brass instruments known as the saxhorn. This group, The Prince Regent's Band, takes it's name from the private band of the Prince Regent, later George IV,  late eighteenth/early nineteenth century. The original Prince Regent’s Band was an elite ensemble of musicians from throughout Europe and the new group has set out to explore much of the wealth of music for brass and wind instruments from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The Prince Regent's Band decided to mark the Adolphe Sax bicentenary with the reconstruction of a programme music influenced by the Distin Family, one of the earliest and most famous of brass ensembles. 

Founded by John Distin, a former member of the original Prince Regent's Band, the group comprised himself, his four sons George Frederick, Henry John, William Alfred and Theodore, and his wife Anne Matilda Distin (neé Loder). In their earliest formation in 1836 the ensemble included John Distin on slide trumpet, keyed bugle or even "walking stick cornet", George Frederick on trombone with Henry, William and Theodore on horns and Mrs Distin appearing on piano. Over the course of three decades the ensemble travelled the length and breadth of Europe and Northern America giving more than 10,000 concerts and gaining many important and influential admirers.

"Never have I heard wind instruments played with so much splendor, purity, and precision; to add to this, that nothing equals the grandeur of their style" (West Brighton and Cornwall Advertiser, September 19th 1851) 

"The combination of bugles, horns, and trombones in a concert room might be presumed too noisy an exhibition for the tender ears of a fashionable auditory, but such is the beautiful tone and perfect understanding between this family of musicians, that unmingled gratification and delight attend their efforts." (The Musical World, February 9th 1838)

In 1844 the family travelled to Paris where they were engaged to perform for a month. Here they heard the great cornet player Jean Arban performing on a new valved brass instrument by Adolphe Sax in a concert organised by Hector Berlioz. The Distins were so taken with the instrument that they immediately arranged a meeting with Sax from which they came away with three new instruments. The family quickly aquired a full set of five of the new instruments which they claimed to be the first to call "sax horns". These instruments are today the instruments that make up the modern brass band. In keeping with one of Adolphe Sax's main tenets these instrument provided a homogenous group of valved brass instruments from covering all ranges from the Soprano in E flat down to the Contrabasse in E flat providing performers and composers with a new sonic world for brass instruments.

The Distins were resourceful arranging and rearranging popular works of the time, including many works from the genres of opera, ballad and folk song. Their programmes often advertised works by composers such as Rossini, Donizetti, Bellini, Meyerbeer, Handel and Beethoven. Sadly no arrangements by the Distins remain but inspired by their pioneering work the Prince Regent's Band has set about similarly arranging works for sax horn ensemble which are performed alongside similar arrangments from the time.

The group has two concerts coming up:

Holywell Music Room, Oxford. “Oldest custom built concert room in Europe” 

Friday 30th May 2014 - 7.30pm 

Tickets £12 - available on the door or from: www.oxfordplayhouse.com/ticketsoxford

St Cecilia's Hall, Niddry Street, Edinburgh EH1 1LJ 

Saturday 31st of May 2014 - 7.30pm 

Tickets: £14 /senior citizens £10 / students and unwaged £5. 

Available on the door or from the Queens' Hall Box Office, 85-89 Clerk Street, Edinburgh EH8 9JG. 01313 668 2019. www.thequeenshall.net

So I desperately need to get practising this beautiful Courtois alto sax-horn in Eb that I've been lent by the fantastic Bate Collection in Oxford who are kindly loaning us a number of instruments for this project.