On Northern Shores

ALISTAIR PEEBLES contines his discussion with Glenys Hughes, the director of the St Magnus Festival, focusing on the festival itself

ALISTAIR PEEBLES: With the inclusion of the Malawian visitors this years, you might seem to be confirming a pattern that Ian Ritchie began with his focus on Bosnian music and writing in 2005. Or is it just one of those things?

GLENYS HUGHES: The Bosnian theme was a very successful element last year and it arose quite naturally out of Ian’s experiences. The Malawian element in 2006 similarly relates to my own, but I don’t think that every year there should necessarily be such a focus to the programme. In the past our programmes have generally not had a theme running throughout – in fact I’ve tried to avoid that. A larger festival, Edinburgh for example, can accommodate various themes and strands while still giving a diverse range of experiences. With a small festival like ours, working too closely to an overall theme could become confining to the programming. But there are often hidden links within the programme which combine to create unity, but without too much overt signposting.

AP: What’s the thinking behind the Festival programme in general this year?

GH: Well, having said that, there are one or two threads running through this year’s programme! As well as the Malawian theme – which incidentally also includes readings by Jack Mapanje, the Malawian poet who lives now in England – the tenth anniversary of George Mackay Brown’s death is being marked in a number of ways. Our community production is “A Hamnavoe Man”, a promenade performance written by Pam Besant, which will lead the audience through George’s home town of Stromness, and Morag McGill will give a lecture entitled “The Sea, The Street and the Story” (see review by David Simpson). And a feature of many St Magnus Festival programmes has been George’s collaborations with Max, so several of our visiting ensembles will be performing pieces by Max which are inspired by George’s work. And we’re paying a little bit of attention to the Mozart anniversary – not too much, because I’m sure Mozart will be a focus of many festival programmes this year – but the Festival Chorus will be performing Mozart’s Requiem with the BBC Philharmonic.

AP: A further development following on from last year is that once again you’ll be showing films as part of the Festival.

GH: Yes, we’re screening the film recently shown on BBC2, “An Orkney Friendship”, documenting Max’s collaboration with George, and also the three films the BBC made in Orkney in 1977 for Play for Today, based on stories of George’s. Many local people were recruited as extras and apparently when the films were televised colour TV had not reached Orkney so people could view in black and white only!

AP: And introducing animation into the programme too.

GH: Our animation project, “Nocturne in Sea Shark”, is something new for us and it represents an important part of our work with schoolchildren this year. The jumping-off point is the film that three professional artists – a filmmaker and a toymaker/puppeteer and a musician – are making as a result of an Arts Council ‘Creative Scotland’ Award. Their film is inspired by the Sicilian marionette tradition and based on an updated version of the Italian Renaissance poem “Orlando Furioso”, which is the story the children will be working from too. The story links Sicily and Orkney – Orlando is shipwrecked off the north coast of Scotland. The children will create their own sets and puppets and then go through the whole filmmaking process, including the creating of a film score. Both the professional film and the children’s will be premiered at the Festival. The Italian Cultural Institute in Edinburgh have been very supportive in developing the Italian link, and are sending us a Sicilian puppeteer to give workshops during the Festival, and also an Italian guitarist who’ll be playing towards the end of the Festival. And of course we’ll be taking things out as usual to the isles, including “Nocturne in Sea Shark”. So the programme is as eclectic and wide-ranging this year as ever.

AP: The end of the Festival features a large-scale combination of forces, similar to last year’s.

GH: Last year a brass group came from the RSAMD in Glasgow and they took part in the last-night event. We want to develop that link with the Academy, so this year we’re bringing up some of their most talented string players who will be part of the “Festival on Tour” round the isles and also take part in a big strings event in which they’ll join forces with local players of all ages. It should be an exciting climax to the Festival. In 2004, the visiting orchestra, the BBC Scottish, performed on the last night, when we had the big orchestral birthday salute for Max. But often the resident orchestra departs before the final night and this gives us the opportunity to put together a different sort of programme. This year will see a huge group of professional and local string players in the premiere of a new piece we’ve commissioned from Edward MacGuire.

AP: That’s “Ring of Strings”?

GH: Yes, it’s a crossover classical/traditional piece, involving the Scottish Ensemble and RSAMD students plus a number of local groups, both traditional and classical – Orkney Camerata, Sanday Fiddle Club, Orkney Traditional Music Project, Haadhirgaan, Shoramere… there will be about 120 string players on the stage. And James MacMillan will conduct the premiere.

AP: I remember Nigel Osborne saying last year that one of the great things about the St Magnus Festival was its commitment to new music, and you’ve just mentioned “Ring of Strings”. Will new music feature strongly in this year’s programme?

GH: Our commissioning and performing of new works by established composers and by those at the start of their creative careers has been one of the defining elements of the Festival since the beginning. This year we have, I think, more than the usual number of contemporary British composers represented. James MacMillan is our featured composer. Although it’s not quite true to say we discovered Jimmy, in 1989 the Festival commissioned his orchestral piece “Tryst”, and that same year he was our first composer in residence when he led a major education project called “Upbeat to Tryst”. “Tryst” brought his work to the attention of audiences and critics and he is now of course one of the UK’s most successful and frequently performed composers.

AP: And other new music?

GH: We’re commissioning a piece for the Nash Ensemble from Alasdair Nicolson, one of the composers we invited to write short pieces to celebrate Max’s 70th birthday in 2004. Alasdair’s piece was very impressive so we’re invited him to develop it into a longer chamber piece which the Nash will premiere. And Kenneth Dempster, who wrote the music for “Peer Gynt” in 2004, is providing music for “A Hamnavoe Man”. A composer new to the Festival is Brian Cope, who’ll be working with the children on devising music for the animation project. And we’re featuring music by other British composers, from both north and south of the border – Simon Holt, David Horne, Oliver Knussen, Julian Anderson, and Max of course, so there will be a spread of contemporary music throughout the programme.

AP: Lastly, I’d like to ask you about the conducting course, which will be continuing this year. What makes it successful, and is there a big demand for places? 

GH: This is its fourth year, which is remarkable. First and foremost it’s the quality of the teaching that makes it such a success. We’re very fortunate to have Martyn Brabbins as director of the course, because not only is he a very fine conductor, he’s a great teacher. I think there aren’t too many conductors who combine both skills. And we have Charles Peebles as Martyn’s regular assistant director and this year Sian Edwards will be making a return as co-director, a collaboration which worked very well in 2004.

AP: As well as great teachers, it’s also much more than the usual sort of summer school that a young conductor might attend.

GH: The course is really unique in this country. There are music summer schools which have conducting courses as part of range of activities, but the Orkney Conducting Course is totally focussed on conducting. It’s also residential, and pretty intensive, but at the same time it’s still part of the Festival, so students can go to Festival performances as well. Further, it’s in a very special place, of course – in Orkney. And very importantly too, there is the opportunity to work with professional orchestras and ensembles, whereas in many summer schools conductors would work with ad hoc groups.

AP: How did James MacMillan come to be included in the programme this year?

GH: I wanted to invite the Scottish Ensemble to the Festival and one of the pieces that MacMillan had written for them, some years ago, involved a collaboration between the Scottish Ensemble and Cappella Nova, a fine professional choral group from Glasgow that I was also keen to invite. The work was “Seven Last Words from the Cross” and it seemed an exciting idea to combine those two groups again and to perform this wonderful piece for choir and strings, with Jimmy conducting. Since he’s also composer in association with the BBC Philharmonic, our resident orchestra this year, it was an opportunity to feature Jimmy as both composer and conductor.

AP: And that’s able to happen because the orchestras and ensembles are resident here during the Festival.

GH: Yes. This year the students will be working with the BBC Philharmonic and the Nash Ensemble. The whole idea behind the course is that it will enable conductors to make that quantum leap from working with student and semi-professional groups to directing a really top class orchestra and ensemble. And the fact that the course is part of the Festival means that the students have a ready-made audience. Indeed it’s quite amazing how many people come up during the week before the Festival to attend the course every day and see the students develop over the ten days.

AP: I sat in on the seminar session last year, and that was very impressive, and quite compulsive viewing, I could see that clearly.

GH: The seminar event this year will be a composer-conductor forum in which Martyn Brabbins, James MacMillan and Max will discuss the relationship between composer and conductor and how the roles intersect and complement each other.

AP: There are eight places for students, and I believe there were about forty applicants last year. Is it difficult for the organisers to make a choice?

GH: It is. Applications are generally of a very high quality, and come from the UK, Europe and the USA. The numbers have increased steadily from about thirty in the first year. As well as the usual application material they have to send in a video of themselves in action – conducting – and in March, Martyn, Charles and myself will meet to go through the applications and look at the videos and select the eight participants.

AP: Has there been any measurable success in terms of career development for the participants?

GH: James Grossmith has just been appointed Chorus Master at Scottish Opera. James was a student here in 2004, as was Chris Younghoon Kim, who also attended in 2003 and is now Director of Orchestras at Cornell University, amongst other conducting posts in the States. And Mark Eager who was here last year has been appointed Principal Conductor with Welsh Sinfonia and MD with the Hertfordshire Wind Sinfonia. So yes, and it’s nice that they keep in touch. Angela (Angela Henderson, Festival Administrator) looks after the administration for the course, and enjoys corresponding with them from time to time.

AP: So, finally, how does it feel to be back at the helm?

GH: I’m sure it’s true what they say, that a change is as good as a rest. My year away was a wonderful experience and I do feel refreshed and am enjoying the work of planning the 2006 programme – though it did take a little time to get back into the routine of funding applications and board meetings. I do think the opportunity to bring in fresh ideas and new ways of working was a refreshing and rewarding experience for the Festival too.

© Alistair Peebles, 2006

Related links

• St Magnus Festival website