Friday afternoon at Barbican Concert Hall. An opportunity to sit in on rehearsals for the Classical Pride concert – the first ever – featuring the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra conducted by Oliver Zeffman. On the programme, a world premiere by Julian Anderson, Tchaikovsky’s Romeo and Juliet Overture, Bernstein’s Candide, Poulenc’s gregarious Concerto for Two Pianos, plus Caroline Shaw’s song cycle Of a Rose.
It’s not an especially convention-busting format. The concert is presenter-led (Nick Grimshaw) with an orchestra on stage joined by high profile well-loved LGBTQ+ performers including tenor Nicky Spence, bass-baritone Davóne Tines and soprano Ella Taylor in a programme that joyous programme that celebrates LGBTQ+ composers dead and alive. “If it hadn’t been attached to Pride, I do wonder whether the concert would have been difficult to sell to an audience on the programme alone,” I suggest to the PR when we speak at the rehearsal break. At the same, there’s a question about whether it might appear a little gimmicky or opportunistic.
Either way, that hook has helped with coverage. Zeffman’s vision for the first ever classical concert as part of Pride has grabbed the attention of copywriters and editors, securing attention online, in print and on-air. Zeffman and tenor Nicky Spence have cropped up on Radio 4, Times Radio and Sky News with Kay Burley, this all gleaned simply from social media on which Zeffman consistently demonstrates a mastery of how best to use the tool. I don’t recall many classical concerts who have secured quite so much coverage in such a short space of time outside of the classical press. Zeffman and his team at Apple have achieved something quite special: pre-concert buzz.
And that’s paid off in ticket sales too. Last week the Barbican’s ticket site displayed the stalls looking full of coloured dots. Hours before the concert is scheduled to begin there’s no availability in the stalls and only 100 or so in the balcony area – 94% house in the space of a week for a fundraiser (assuming its not papered). That’s an impressive achievement for a simple format targeted at a specific audience segment.
In our five-minute conversation during the rehearsal break, Zeffman looks as though he’s already conducted an entire concert. He appears grounded, impervious to compliments, or invitations to take the credit or grandstanding. There is no sense that he has put together a spectacle of otherness, rather that this is another day at the office where his business-like approach brings results.
I ask him about the coverage and ticket sales success. What’s made that happen in his opinion? “It’s all about partnerships – us pairing with Gay Times for example and joining forces with HBO for the performance of the White Lotus music,” he explains (audience members will get porkpie hats with ‘the Gays are Trying to Murder Me’ emblazoned on them – a line from the hugely successful comedy-drama series). Viiv Healthcare is part of the partnership too. Leveraging this kind of support is key – not only in terms of money but access to audiences who may not otherwise have considered the event. This helps someone like Zeffman to reach beyond a conventional venue database. And that to me says something about him. Not just a conductor, but someone who has an eye for the ‘business end’ of things. “Do you think that’s unusual in the classical music world?” He responds with irritating modesty that it’s not, pointing to the same strategy Jay Z deploys. I say it most certainly is in the classical music world.
Yet the image that’s emerging of the 30-something conductor is one that’s different from most. On the podium he is, as anyone would expect a conductor to be, business-like and efficient. He draws on a clearly articulated beat, gestures with his entire upper body to great effect. He’s energetic, contained and precise. He is to my mind a great communicator.
Off stage he warmly greets piano soloists Pavel Kolesnikov and Samson Tsoy, themselves bounding in with an understated style that exudes youthful enthusiasm. When tenor Nicky Spence steps onto the stage for rehearsal exchanging heartfelt appreciation to Ella Taylor loud enough for us to hear, Zeffman greets him with a hug and a kiss. It is effortless, automatic and oddly inconsequential, and yet it is a key element in the vibe here this afternoon. This is a serious event with a serious message, but its not tied to formality. It is friends and colleagues joining together to do something they love because they all connect with one another on a fundamental level. This visibility is a world away from the arts world I worked in twenty-six years ago when homosexuality was notable rather than normalised, when the presence of a gay man or lesbian woman was something whispered about. In Aldeburgh at the time, even ‘Ben and Pete’ were still talked on by those old enough to remember them as ‘good friends’ whilst the rest of us sniggered at their primness. What a difference a generation makes.
In some respects, it doesn’t really surprise me that Zeffman has put this event on. I am reliably informed that he knew exactly what and who he wanted back in January when the idea was first mooted with Apple Music (he’s an Apple Artist). That the event was turned around so quickly is impressive. People were either available or wanted to shift their diaries around. That says something about the person who drives it.
The spirit is reflected elsewhere on Zeffman’s CV. A graduate in politics and Russian at Durham University, Zeffman pursued postgraduate studies at the Royal Academy of Music, set up his own orchestra and in the pre-pandemic season ended up conducting the London Chamber Orchestra. The pandemic did – as it did for many artists – drive creative thinking by virtue of the constraints restrictions created. The result was a creative partnership with Apple Music and a 40-minute opera Eight Songs from Isolation, filmed entirely on mobile phones.
His series of museum concerts took the Philharmonia and Academy of St Martin in the Fields to the V&A, British Museum and Cutty Sark in Greenwich to perform a range of repertoire, some familiar others less so. It was on these projects that I first became aware of Oliver after he – rather than the PR company involved in the Greenwich project – invited me to attend. Here was someone who knew how to use the internet, it struck me, simply by doing some research. Whilst its always nice to receive an invitation from a PR, it’s considerably more flattering when the talent extends one. That kind of focused execution demands closer scrutiny.
“Thanks for coming this afternoon,” Zeffman says to me as he grabs his water bottle at the end of the interview. “See you later this evening.” I blurt out I can’t be there, momentarily relieved my lack of knowledge of rap won’t be exposed. The real confession is that I’m choosing my middle age privilege over tribal allegiance and choosing not to attend. An unexpectedly busy schedule means that Friday night is one of only a few I can have a night in with my husband over the next two weeks. I am therefore A Bad Gay, though I reassure myself I can provide more value writing about the rehearsal than the concert. There are only so many reviews the classical music world needs, after all.
The insight from the experience is about Zeffman himself. I’m hugely impressed by his energy, focus and drive. His understanding of the different components of large-scale concert production, its promotion and its appeal to audiences makes him the complete package. As a digital producer, for example, I appreciate how much easier it is to work with someone who gets digital and therefore who is more willing to participate in it. Imagine a young conductor – relatable, unfussy, business-like – joining forces with an orchestra to bring his vision and expertise to bear on their programming, building connections with different audience segments as a result? Wouldn’t that be a thing?
An EP of Caroline Shaw’s song cycle Is a Rose performed by Nicky Spence, Ella Taylor, Davóne Tines and the Philharmonia conducted by Oliver Zeffman is available via Apple Music.
Zeffman’s British Museum performance of Beethoven 6 with Academy of St Martin in the Fields was reviewed on Thoroughly Good.
You’re welcome to use any copy from Thoroughly Good Reviews in return for a link back, crediting either ‘Thoroughly Good’ or ‘Thoroughly Good Classical Music’.
