Who or what inspired you to pursue a career in music, and who/what have been the most signficant influences?
When I heard the sound of the oboe I was done for. It was on a BBC education music programme, and I could have been no older than nine, but I remember it like it was yesterday. It was “Morning” from the Peer Gynt Suite; obviously the flute starts, but as the oboe came in, that sound had me within four notes. I lived in a rural community with extremely limited access to instrumental tuition, so a nine year old with a desire to play an oboe was likely to have their hopes (albeit temporarily) dashed… Fortunately, I was one of the last generations to benefit from extensive free instrumental tuition (present music hubs do so much with so little, it is such a different world), and so when I got to secondary school I was able to begin learning the instrument that stuck in my head all those years ago.
Conducting started early, and I suspect I have the Schubert Octet to thank for it! We were at a Youth Orchestra Summer School and had a chamber concert one evening: Schubert’s obvious oversight not to include the oboe meant that my services were not required, but there was a requirement for someone who could keep the thing held together. A conductor (for better or worse) was born…
Any conductor is going to roll their eyes when I say Carlos Kleiber – it’s an in-joke in the musical world that conductors have a love of Kleiber’s freedom and absolute musicianship. Aside from that, Vaughan Williams, Britten and Elgar were my big three (in order). Crucially, they understood that music was not something to be performed from an ivory tower, but that it involved education and engaging the community. People in Aldeburgh knew who Mr Britten was, and many of them would have been conducted by him as children. That is how you build a legacy, and why these people have taken their place in the pantheon.
What are the most challenging aspects of being a condcutor, and the most fulfilling?
The most challenging element is certainly the schedule (and scheduling…) we have to be all over the place, sometimes conducting wildly different music which needs different head spaces in a matter of hours; it requires huge flexibility.
There are two things that get me in the car though:
Firstly, the people, you have to love people to do this job. It is a joy to work with so many different musicians, who bring something totally different to the performance. I am a keen tennis player and there is a saying that you have to “feel the ball”, when everything is working really well (and as a conductor you are doing your job properly), you feel music being shaped by the people around you – it’s a collective effort.
The second one is sound – connected to the first, I love being able to help create sound. A conductor is ultimately completely useless insomuch as they don’t make a noise, a point that can sometimes be rather embarrassingly made when you move too quickly, show a downbeat when the orchestra isn’t ready, and nothing happens. You were just the person waving a stick around! However, your influence on the sound can be enormous (for good or ill…), I love making small changes to balance and hearing the moment the sound unifies. It never gets old!
As a conductor, how do you communicate your ideas about a work to the orchestra?
This changes wildly; you have to be able to read a room. Some musicians need guidance, some just need you to keep out of the way! You need a clear idea of what you want, but you need the sensitivity to mould that depending on the people around you. A key thing that I tell conducting students is that it is important to make communication about the music, and not personal- we are working on the music together. A musician is not sharp, flat, late or early, but the music sometimes can be. It is our job, collectively, to fix the issues. It creates a much happier working environment.
How exactly do you see your role? Inspiring the players/singers? Conveying the vision of the composer?
Firstly, your role is practical. You are there to keep the performance (especially larger scale performances) together. You are also there to be a mediator, and arbiter, a conduit. Musicians have so many ideas of how to shape a performance – the vast majority of them valid. Someone has to pick a direction in order to create an interpretation and the most efficient way to do that is to have a conductor in the middle creating a global view of the performance (this can be achieved by consensus, certainly, but it takes much longer).
You also have to find meaning in a series of dots and dashes, written on a page by someone often hundreds of years ago, using a highly flawed system which allows for a great deal of ambiguity. All you can hope is you find an interpretation that is faithful. I am suspicious when someone occasionally makes reference “X conductor’s interpretation of X composer” that indicates to me that there is a little too much of the conductor in there…
Is there one work which you would love to conduct?
I’ve done a lot of them nowadays, I’m lucky to say! But, I think that “The Drop That Contained The Sea” by Christopher Tin gives me real hope that classical music has a future with a more international voice.
Do you have a favourite concert venue to perform in?
I do, as it happens, and it’s on my doorstep: the Fairfield Halls in Croydon is probably the best large concert hall acoustic in London (and certainly better than its predecessor, the Festival Hall). It is a gem, and it needs to be nurtured, protected and championed. It’s time to see bigger orchestras going back there and chucking their marketing budgets behind making it a success!
What do you do off stage that provides inspiration on stage?
Preparation is everything. You have to know the dots better than anyone else in the room. I was never a very good actor…
What do you think needs to be done to grow classical music’s audience?
Education as marketing, marketing as education. We have a generation of people who have been lost to music through the erosion of musical education. They haven’t had the experiences at a young age to make them see the importance of music in their lives. It is now the role of professional and community ensembles to help comprehensively tackle that. Make people feel welcome – educate them in what to expect, how to dress, what to do, when to clap. All the things that make them feel not part of the club. It is not about dumbing down music – those who come to music with a fresh pair of ears often come with far less musical preconception than those people who fell in love with classical music at an early age, meaning they are often more open minded. We also need to go to them – the London Mozart Players have been known to play chamber music in nightclubs…. I think it’s the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment who now run their operations from a secondary school – meaning that children see them every day, and have permission to aspire. I’ve been saying someone should try that for years – bravo to them!
As a musician, what is your definition of success?
When you can feel the magic in the room. It’s very difficult to describe or pinpoint, and it’s impossible to simulate. You just know when it’s there.
What advice would you give to young musicians/aspiring conductors?
See as much music as you can, be open minded, say yes (especially when it scares you). Don’t be scared to know your weaknesses and acknowledge them. Work with people, don’t work at them! Professional musicians know when you’re inexperienced, if you let them do their jobs and try not to pretend you have all the answers you will be much more respected at the end of a long and I’m sure illustrious career.
What’s the one thing we’re not talking about in the music industry which you feel we should be?
I want to see much more focus on networking all the branches of classical music. Education, professional, amateur. All these amazing pockets of work occur, there are fantastic bodies looking after their interests, but for me there isn’t enough joined up thinking going on between all the branches to tackle some of the larger problems. I think (much as Britten did in Aldeburgh) we could think more geographically, bringing together the three sectors in local communities to create strong local networks that could then bridge together nationally.
What is your most treasured possession?
My MINI, ‘Sprout’ (because it’s round and green). We’ve had some adventures over the years, that’s for sure!
Christopher Braime conducts the Hertfordshire Festival String Orchestra in the closing concert to this year’s Hertfordshire Festival of Music, Saturday 14 June at All Saints’ church, Hertford. The programme features music by Bridge, Holst, Elgar, Vaughan Williams and Britten’s Serenade for Tenor, Horn and Strings, with Chloe Harrison (horn) and Guy Elliott (tenor). Info/tickets here
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