How do you introduce an orchestra to ordinary modern kids?
This was the question composer Jeremy Holland-Smith and I asked each other when we embarked on this unusual commission. With Britten’s Young Person’s Guide and Peter and the Wolf as established attempts, we wanted to create something fresh and funny and modern, but also classic and sweeping and with integrity. Our answer?
The Caretaker’s Guide to the Orchestra!
After four performances, and thousands of children, this fabulous project has now been premiered in London’s Docklands.
Jeremy’s extraordinary, beautiful, dazzling music sounded truly wonderful and the Docklands Sinfonia, under their founder-conductor Spencer Down, played superbly and joined in the fun with open minds and hearts. It was a real team effort. Spencer has worked tirelessly to get the necessary funding to allow over 2000 Tower Hamlets children hear an orchestra live for the first time at The Great Hall of the People’s Palace, Queen Mary’s University. A remarkable achievement.
For myself, the challenge was to remember all the words, and musical cues, as I “acted” (I use the term loosely) the role of The Caretaker that I had created in the script. As we rehearsed, revisions to that text made holding the lines in my head all the harder. However, the script creates a situation where a caretaker is sweeping up music from the stage, so I hid a spare copy of the script in with the music scores, allowing me to discreetly glance at it. By the fourth performance (at St Anne’s church in Limehouse), it was firmly in my head, and so with a caretaker’s coat and cap, and brandishing a broom and bucket, I managed to ignore my broken wrist (well, just about…) and fully inhabit the role.
Overseeing all of this was the remarkable Will Tuckett, Royal Ballet dancer and choreographer and theatre director, he has the rare gift of seeing with fresh eyes what everyone else has obscured. With penetrating insight he really helped me up my game, in body language, vocal delivery and in terms of audience communication.
It was an honour to work with them all and to hear hundreds of children shouting their approval is the best reward of any new project. We all hope this important new composition will be repeated widely – I truly believe it deserves to be!
In all four performances I had the further challenge of then narrating and illustrating Swan Lake in time to the music. This was harder with a broken wrist, so artist Antonio Reche-Martinez joined me on stage to, literally, be my right hand man! As this was his debut painting live on stage, huge bravos are due to him for his professionalism and courage!
Thank you everyone for this unique and exciting opportunity – a career high!
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