Welcome to the Manchester Camerata Blog

Manchester Camerata is one of the UK's leading Chamber Orchestras with concert series at The Bridgewater Hall in Manchester and at the Royal Northern College of Music - where we have a residency - but also regularly in Ulverston, Colne, Crewe and Stafford, and across the North West of England and Cumbria. We also have a vibrant education project with a special relationship with schools in Chester. Visit our main website at www.manchestercamerata.co.uk to read more about the orchestra and its plans and projects, for podcasts and vodcasts and to read news from the classical music world.



Monday 26 September 2011

Hungary for Manchester



Lawrence Jones - the MD of Manchester Camerata's Website partner UKFast, and also a Director of Camerata - was at Saturday's acclaimed concert Portrait of an Hungarian, conducted by Gábor Takács Nagy. Afterwards he blogged about the experience of the evening.
To be truly amazing at something you have to invest huge amounts of time and energy. It requires commitment over and above the call of duty.
This applies to all walks of life, athletes, business, musicians etc.



You require levels of discipline that exceed the norm and the fruits of your labour are usually directly proportional to the effort and care you put in.

This week I was invited to Manchester Town Hall for a civic welcome for Gábor Takács-Nagy. A Hungarian musician who joined the Manchester Camerata this summer as the Orchestra Leader.
After a quick introduction, Gabor kindly treated us to a sneak preview of what can only be described as a new Camerata. The same people, the same instruments, but a totally different sound.
Standing up, casually dressed, the chamber orchestra lit the room. I was spell bound. I have seen the Camerata play a number of times, but never like this.
I am someone who spends a great deal of time studying other leaders in the hope that I may in turn inspire others one day with what I am able to learn and pass on.
This is one of the reasons I take my 2 daughters, 5 and 7, to events like the concert last night at the RNCM where the Camerata did their first full concert with Gabor at the helm. My 2 daughters were captivated and both fell asleep on our knees in their party dresses, to the most wonderful music I have heard in Manchester for a long long time.
It is safe to say, Gabor is an inspiration and if you get an opportunity, you have to go and witness it for yourself. If you can’t afford the ticket, please come as my guest. Either way, you have to come.
Gábor is one of those people you hear about in history from a previous generation, but you never get lucky enough to meet.
Yet here in Manchester, making himself accessible after conducting his first Manchester Camerata concert last night, he is in my opinion one of the most inspirational people I have ever had the pleasure to meet and our Great city of Manchester is a better place for his arrival and efforts.
And I cannot be alone in my thoughts, because the members of his chamber orchestra must feel something special to be able to raise their game to that extent.
I have met him a few times now and each time I leave a better person, lifted to a new level.
So what is it that makes him special?
If I was only allowed to use one word, it has to be “passion.” When someone speaks with so much congruency and feeling it is difficult not to get engaged.
Gabor uses raw emotion to lead his orchestra and watching him at work he balances his very dynamic and energetic movements with carefully chosen words when describing what is about to be performed.
Leadership is about honesty. You have to love and believe absolutely in what you do if you want others to follow you. Even then you don’t have a God given right, these are merely credentials to enter the game. You then need the passion to get people engaged in the challenge you are ultimately setting them. If there is no challenge, there is no game.
Finding the challenge can be a challenge in itself. Its essential though if you are to inspire others to unite and raise someones game. The greater the challenge the more likely you are to inspire the person presented with it. Its too easy to assume that everyone wants an easy life. Why on earth would you want an easy life?
When something is easy, it is no fun. The fun in life comes from developing skills to combat new hurdles.
Something only becomes satisfying when you’ve picked yourself up a few times, dusted yourself off and run headlong at it again. Pretty soon you learn how to solve the conundrum and then its time for a new challenge.
When you sit watching musicians I always reflect on the hours they sacrificed for their instruments. My favourite moment in any film is the scene in Groundhog day when Bill Murray starts to learn the piano. Stuck in a timewarp where each day restarts, he eventually learns that he may aswell make a difference to everyone else’s life if he can’t improve his own. This becomes his challenge!
When you see him hammering the piano entertaining the whole room, it puts into perspective how long he’d been there; literally a lifetime.
And that’s whats required. A lifetime of commitment. If you want to become truly great at something, you better get focussed. There is a long road ahead.  If on your journey you want some entertainment or inspiration on route, please do come and see what I am talking about.
Mohammed Ali said, “I run on the road long before I dance under the lights.”
Gabor you have earned the right to dance.

Wednesday 16 March 2011

Digital Inspirations from Zurich

Manchester Camerata's Head of Development - Charlotte Spencer - took a trip to trip to Zurich, to find out more about what our friends at IC247 are up to with the Tonhalle Orchestra, and the live streaming of concerts. 

Happening twice a year, TonhalleLate are concerts specifically designed for younger people, and it was this event that was to be streamed. Starting at 10pm, the concerts are shorter than standard, and followed by several DJ sets in the bar afterwards ‘til the wee small hours. The concert and the after party were being streamed live to www.ustream.com which both increases the audience, and, through the social networking that surrounds the online events, encourages new audiences to come to further events.

When I arrived at the Tonhalle, the contrast of the elegant and opulent building with the piles of cables, amplifiers, lights, cameras and general techno-equipment was hilarious, but soon the team had all of their gear set up in unobtrusive places ready for the evening’s concert. The doors opened just after 9pm, and as I sipped a rather lovely cold glass of prosecco, the stream of people arriving in the bar increased rapidly as people grabbed a drink before bagging a good place in the auditorium, as seats are unallocated. I joined them just before 10pm and was amazed to see the place completely full, with most people aged between 16 and 40.

There were couples on dates, boy-band look-alikes and gaggles of young girls, all obviously eager to hear what was on offer. The orchestra, conducted by David Zinman, didn’t disappoint. A viola concerto by film composer Rozsa (of Ben Hur fame) performed by Tonhalle’s principal viola, Gilad Karni opened the concert. I felt the piece was a little meandering, but Gilad played amazingly, and it was great to see another orchestra featuring a principal player as soloist in the same way that Camerata do. This was followed by Bartok’s Miraculous Mandarin, and Zinman gave a cheeky listening guide before the performance proper, clearly relishing the rather risqué storyline! You could have heard a pin drop throughout, and there was rapturous applause at the end.

Everyone then pushed out into the bar, where the DJ set had already started, with SomethingALaMode and Kejeblos in full swing. The set was really clever, with live solo violin and cello set against recorded samples and electronica, which had the audience dancing away to, amongst other things, the theme from Winterreise! The Zurich crowd are pretty conservative compared to Manchester, with only a few of the boy-band-alikes and their entourage dancing very much, the rest seemingly content to watch them (and me...) dancing like lunatics! I got chatting to lots of people, including Tonhalle musicians and Nicholas, an engineer, who told me he had just started coming to classical music recently after having been at the last TonhalleLate with a friend. Since then he has been listening “mostly to Haydn, as I thought that was a good place to start.” I told him Dougie Boyd would definitely approve of his listening choice, and he asked me out to dinner the next evening! (Apparently single women are in short supply in Zurich; I might go back for their October event....)

It was fantastic to see such a young and enthusiastic audience for classical music, and I hope that we can perhaps start to see more of these type of events happening in the UK. I remember student events in nightclubs in Glasgow, and I know OAE have their Night Shift events - let’s see what else might pop up soon.

Find out about Manchester Camerata's recent Digital Activities

Zurich Tonhalle

Read more about IC247

Friday 28 January 2011

Manchester Camerata Live and Worldwide!

Here we go - it's the Big One!
Camerata’s critically acclaimed cycle of Beethoven symphonies reaches its conclusion on Saturday night with the performance of Symphony no.9 Choral conducted by Douglas Boyd.

We're so excited by this we're making it available to audiences across Manchester and online around the world.

Thanks to the Manchester Digital Development Agency (MDDA) and Acrobat we're streaming the second half of the concert - Beethoven’s Symphony no.9 itself - live on the Manchester Camerata's website and into the heart of Manchester’s city centre via the big BBC screen in Exchange Square, starting at 8.20pm.

So, Beethoven and Manchester Camerata fans can experience the event in the following ways:

Join the audience at The Bridgewater Hall for the unrivalled live concert experience

Live and free at www.manchestercamerata.co.uk from 8.20pm

Live on the BBC Big Screen in Exchange Square in Manchester from 8.20pm
Via Medici TV http://www.medici.tv/  from w/c 7 February (for 60 days)

Sunday 5 December 2010

Incomparable Tenor Wynne Evans

Welsh tenor Wynne Evans, best known perhaps for his cheesy Italian singer character Gio Compario in the Go Compare TV adverts, joins Manchester Camerata on New Year's Eve for its ever popular Opera Gala. 

He'll be singing alongside fellow Welsh soprano Natalya Romaniw.  

Evans has a bulging diary of conventional operatic appearances, and has just released a Christmas Single - Santa Claus is Coming to Town.

See details of Manchester Camerata's New Year's Eve Opera Gala

Monday 8 November 2010

Review: Camerata on Fire in Stafford

Chris Ramsden reviews Manchester Camerata's concert at the Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford on 5 November in his blog Notes from Middle England:
Bonfire night. Fireworks outside the Gatehouse Theatre in Stafford and inside as the Manchester Camerata was put through its paces by its music director designate Gabor Takács-Nagy. You probably expected me to use that line, but clichés become clichés because they express a truth.

It was the maestro's first appearance in Stafford with his orchestra-to-be (there's a final appearance at the Gatehouse in May with Douglas Boyd, the man who's meant so much to the Camerata; not to be missed.)

He began by conducting the audience. What I mean is, this is a man so accustomed to expressing himself through his arms and fingers that he used them just for talking, as he told us about Mozart.

For conducting, he used them even more, carving the notes out of the air, pulling them from the violins and pushing them into the brass.

His background is in the string quartet -- he helped found and was leader of the famous Hungarian Takács Quartet. I think that showed in his attention to detail; he was continually adjusting bits of the orchestra to produce the sound he wanted.

In this case, the concert was called "Spirit of Mozart", and he was surely full of it. His overture to Don Giovanni was full of strong accents and explosive moments; the Jupiter symphony, number 41, was swift and strong, apart from the third movement, which was slower and with much more swing than I've heard before. It somehow re-created the atmosphere of a grand Viennese ball.

But the most remarkable for me was his conducting of Elgar's Introduction and Allegro for Strings. It seemed to be completely free of the excesses of "English" performances, without slides, pauses or emotional hesitation. It was just a fine re-creation of a first-class composition which ought to be in the international repertoire. The Camerata's strings fought hard to respond to his vision.

Also outstanding was the performance of Mozart's 23rd piano concerto, K488, the one which opens and closes in bright sunlight, but has an astounding, troubling slow movement which digs deep into some pit of introspection.

The soloist here was also new to the audience in Stafford; well, actually, she was new to any audience in Europe. After starting her career in China, she moved to the United States in 2000, and her trip to Europe is apparently her reward for winning the gold medal in the Virginia Waring International Piano Competition. Remember, we saw her here first.

She's plainly completely at home in front of an orchestra, responding to them and playing precisely with them. She flung off the runs and scales which make up so much of the work with fluid ease, and her strong left hand was there to point up the phrases. Could she have put more into that slow movement? But then, could anyone fully do it justice?

She's contracted at the moment to work with the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra. I must confess I'd never even heard of Jacksonville before, but it's apparently the largest city in the United States in land area. It has even more rain than Manchester, but is in Florida, so has warm winters and very hot summers. Hmmm.... Manchester or Jacksonville... which is best? She'll be back.

Read the whole review on Chris Ramsden's Blog

Read more about Gábor Takács-Nagy 

Wednesday 3 November 2010

60 Seconds with a Great Conductor

Manchester Camerata's Music Director designate Gabor Takács-Nagy leads the orchestra in performances of Elgar and Mozart at this Saturday's Concert as part of the Leeds Concert Series.  He spared 60 seconds in a very busy rehearsal schedule to answer some crucial and revealing questions!

- How long have you been working with Manchester Camerata
Since January 2010- What has been the highlight of your Orchestral career to date? Being nominated to three excellent orchestras as Music Director (Manchester Camerata, Verbier Chamber Orchestra and MAV Symphony orchestra, Budapest)
- Who has been the biggest influence on your career? My three chamber music teachers at the Liszt Academy (Andras Mihaly, Ferenc Rados and Gyorgy Kurtag)
- When did you start playing? At the age of 8
- What was your earliest musical experience? My great grandmother singing folk songs when I was 4
- Do you enjoy practising or find it a chore? I am not practising anymore
- Do you play any other musical instruments? Only viola
- Were your parents musical? No
- If you could play a different instrument what would it be? A singer
- What piece of music do you most enjoy playing? Always the piece I am working on as soon as I feel close to it
- What is you favourite piece of music? Always the piece I am working on as soon as I feel close to it
- What’s the best and worst things about touring with the orchestra? To both questions - the human factor
- How do you deal with pre-concert nerves? By trying to be myself and not wishing to impress anyone
- When was the last time you went to a concert as a member of the audience? To my student's concert in October
- What was the first record that you bought with your own money? Mahler 5th Symphony conducted by Barbirolli
- What was the last CD you bought? Mozart Sinfonia Concertante KV 297B
- When you have time off how do you relax? Walking with my wife in the forest
- Who would you invite to a dinner party (historical, musical or otherwise – living or dead!)? Joseph Joachim, Joseph Haydn, Furtwängler, Carlos Kleiber, Simon Rattle, Claudio Abbado and Roger Federer
- What music do you listen to in the car? The pieces that I am working on at that time
- What’s your favourite drink? Our own fruit juice made from our own fruit
- If you weren’t a musician, what would you be? Actor or doctor (brain specialist)
- Where’s your favourite holiday destination? In the Swiss mountains
- What is your favourite book? Anna Karenina
- What's your favourite film? Casablanca
- What's your most annoying habit? Talking too much
- And your favourite concert hall? Wigmore Hall

You can see Gabor Takács-Nagy and Manchester Camerata at Leeds Town Hall this Saturday as part of the Leeds Concert Series.

Sunday 31 October 2010

Getting into London Town

Camerata's Head of Development Charlotte Spencer blogs about her work and a recent trip made down to London to play an exclusive concert.

"One of the things I enjoy most about my job is meeting new people and introducing them to our wonderful orchestra, and I get to do this quite regularly. I have lots of meetings with people in their offices, where I tell them all about our brilliant musicians and learning projects, which of course is my job, but I always make sure I bring them along to one of our events so they get the full Camerata experience as soon as possible. I never tire of hearing people say “Wow – that was so different to what I was expecting; the orchestra is fantastic!” So, I was especially pleased to have nearly 50 new people say this to me and my colleagues at a special concert we organised in London.

Thanks to the generosity of music supporters, Bob and Elisabeth Boas, who gave us the use of their home for the evening, we were able to introduce Londoners to the orchestra, our amazing new leader Giovanni Guzzo, and Music Director-designate Gabor Takacs-Nagy, and show them what exciting music making is happening outside the capital city! In the beautiful surroundings of a Georgian-period drawing room, complete with columns and enormous fireplace (I had hoped Mr Darcy might appear as a guest!), we were treated to stunning performances of Debussy’s Danse sacree et danse profane, and Prelude a l’apres-midi d’un faune. We were then joined by Soprano, Jane Irwin, for Berlioz’s Nuits d’ete, which certainly chased away any thoughts of the chill winter evening outside. The orchestra and Gabor really deserved the rapturous applause they received, and have helped us make some new friends for the future."

Find out more about Supporting Manchester Camerata

Find out more about the Nicholas Boas Trust