London Mozart Players start recording their Classical Club concerts

   

It’s been a pleasure to be working with the London Mozart Players these past few months. In years to come I suspect I’ll look back on this year with a similar kind of warped fondness as I do on my early years in orchestral management.

From lockdown came a series of blog posts for the Scala Radio website. And from that, a media partnership between the two organisations. I can’t lay claim to all of it. Maybe the introductions and the digital aspect of the partnership. Being able to play a part in making something happen which has the potential to support a transformed activity, and drive revenue at a point in time when its needed most, is energising. There’s more information on the London Mozart Players website. Subscription on-demand concerts premiere on 24th September.

What I’m returning to more and more at these performances is the benefits of proximity and stillness. Last night’s recording was ticketed for a socially-distanced audience, meaning masks, sanitiser, and a chair. Adjusting to this setup as an audience member brings into the light some of the unexpected benefits being a socially-distanced audience member in the concert space. Even if the severe reduction in number of chairs is a visible sign of the urgency of finding sustainable revenue streams via digital, having the space around me before the next bank of two or three chairs counter-intuitively makes for a more intimate concert experience. The feeling of solitude is actually rather heart-warming.

So too, being able to see more detail on the faces of the musicians. (The wind players were necessarily miles away, meaning the demands placed on all to ensure ensemble playing whilst negotiating a boomy acoustic must have been considerable.) It’s going to be a long time before I see the expressions on the faces of wind players, but seeing the expressions between string players mid-performance was uplifting. The orchestra is not a machine that is switched on or off. It’s a collection of spirited energised individuals all expressing something. Getting glimpses of those moments – a smile or a glance to a colleague – is very special and adds to the live-ness of the experience, details that might otherwise be lost when sat further back.

Young Classical Artist Trust cellist Maciej Kulakowski was a good fit for the concert bringing a warm, rich and unwavering tone that exuded confidence and strength. And with no conductor, direction was left to effervescent leader Ruth Rogers. That only added to the intimacy and unfussy-ness of the occasion too, changing the dynamic from the hierarchical structure often implied at the platform to something altogether more collaborative.