THIS SEASON WARWICKSHIRE’S ORCHESTRA OF THE SWAN CELEBRATES ITS TENTH ANNIVERSARY. RACHEL CROW CHATTED TO ARTISTIC DIRECTOR DAVID CURTIS ABOUT ITS STEADY RISE IN TEMPO.

David Curtis describes the Orchestra of the Swan as, to take Pierre Boulez’s statement, an ensemble of possibilities.

“If you ask someone what an orchestra is they will generally answer fifty or sixty men in penguin suits on a platform playing Mozart. But being in the Orchestra of the Swan is about much more than that. We’ve played in private houses, care homes, village halls, an airport, worked with children on school projects – there are all sorts of possibilities for players and audiences.”

The orchestra was formed in 1995 after David, who spent much of his professional career playing the viola in the Coull String Quartet, travelling the world and performing in BBC commissions, was invited to lead a local orchestra in the Stratford festival. So he proceeded to hurriedly phone round friends and acquaintances to put one together. It was a success and from then the seed of the Orchestra of the Swan was sown.

“I thought that Stratford should have its own orchestra and could support it, so we started performing in the Civic Hall, the orchestra’s home and it’s taken off from there,” he tells me. David’s aspirations for the orchestra have certainly been met and from quite modest beginnings of a string orchestra with 15 or so players, it now gives 50 concerts a year, performing at numerous venues, as well as having a unique residency at Birmingham International Airport and running a comprehensive education programme with numerous schools.

“It was a case of striking a balance between growing cautiously and knowing what the audiences were ready for. Orchestras are expensive animals and we have always been careful but not overly cautious. We started with safe programming and as the funding and income increased, have been able to increase the range of performances,” he observes. But David admits, if someone would have told him five years ago that they would have had a regular commissioned programme, an Arts Council funded tour and good reviews, he would have been sceptical. “I think the orchestra has exceeded what could have been expected, but then, we keep raising the standards.”

The Swan is a chamber orchestra, which has a vibrancy and immediacy of contact that you can’t get with a larger symphony orchestra.Most chamber orchestras are in the region of 20 to 30 players and can cover most classical symphonies. But a chamber orchestra has a difference in approach and attack and is more intimate.

“We make sure our players are regular players with chamber orchestras, or soloists, as they need to have a more immediate attack. For instance if you have a first violin section with six as opposed to 14 players, there will be more of a spotlight placed on each of those six players. The sound is quite different than that say of the CBSO, which, with about 100 players, can produce a bigger, louder, and lush type of sound. A good chamber orchestra will have less dynamic range but more dynamic immediacy,”David elaborates.

You can’t help but get caught up with his enthusiasm and energy for the orchestra, which he has nurtured over the years. And in keeping with his enthusiasm for what they are doing he ensures that they only book players who smile. “As Miro said, ‘spirit is everything’. You have to convey this to the audience and involve them in it. You can’t have a performance without an audience and QED, if
you don’t make them part of it, you won’t get them on the edge of their seats “I’ve been to concerts where you can see the orchestra are not fully engaged in what they’re doing and it puts the audience off. If the players give the audience the impression they are enjoying it, it gets the audience into a receptive mood.”

The members and sound of the orchestra is constantly evolving and David admits they are playing to a far higher standard now compared to three or four years ago. “The more the orchestra plays or rehearse together the better it gets. And we are constantly producing fresh challenges because you are only ever as good as your last concert.”

As well as the formal concert activities, a large part of the orchestra’s work is what David terms as their ‘social responsibility agenda’. It has taken part in the National Listen Up! Festival of orchestras, organised by the Association of British Orchestras and BBC Radio 3, which included two players visiting a young girl who has Spina Bifida, at her home and playing a piece they had written for her called Lost Sock. They’ve also performed at private care homes and at one where they played a 40s dance tune, staff noticed it was the first time some of the residents had looked animated in weeks.“It’s about touching people’s lives.Which is more valuable, those sort of experiences or playing at the Symphony Hall?”David questions.

The education outreach work has seen the orchestra work with numerous primary and secondary schools and has been an ongoing and important part of their work. Just some of the projects include working with the pop BTEC students at Stratford college; a college orchestra cross-over project performing pieces the students have written; in Spring they’ll be working in Dartington Sixth form college helping the students to write improvised work for the orchestra, find the venue, promote the event and the other related activities.

The orchestra is also taking part in a pilot project in Birmingham, sponsored by KPMG with an organisation called Sound Future. This involves working with primary and early secondary school pupils from Shard End and the composer Errollyn Wallen who is from Belize and takes her influences from blues and gospel, to create a community project.

There is also the unique residency at Birmingham airport. David explained that this came about three years ago after he’d had a conversation with the Director of Communications. The airport had some spare sponsorship money and said that they could sponsor the orchestra for a year and their money was matched pound for pound by Arts in Business in Birmingham.

“Some of the money was for on-site activities and has involved us playing in arrival halls and in the airport fire station to about twelve crew who were all dressed up in their gear, ready to respond to an incident.”

David was pleased with the response they got.“It was generally greeted with surprise and delight of the general public. After struggling off the plane and through with their luggage they were then met with some live music. Even those for who orchestral music would not be their first choice, to see a chamber orchestra performing to a good standard is a lovely experience.”

Last summer the composer and animator Brendan Beales worked with the orchestra in four schools to help children compose and rehearse music with some loose connection to the airport. Each school then spent a morning performing in the Millennium Link.

“This is the type of work we want to build on,” explains David. “Make kids realise that people do take them seriously and help raise their aspirations. This is the Orchestra of the Swan. This is what we do. No one part is more important.”

The Orchestra regularly commissions new works as part of its New Notes series and, David explains, are keen to make 20th century repertoire accessible to their core audience. They do so by bringing composers along to talk to the audience at a performance, discussing the creating process and drawing parallels between new works and old works.

“Many people don’t understand contemporary works,” David notes. “Just as if you go in to a gallery and see a cubist Picasso.Whereas if someone could take you through the composer’s life, and explain their influences and what their contemporaries were doing and explain the themes of a piece, then people start to think ‘yes, I’m beginning to understand this.’ You take them by the hand and lead them into the new music.

“It’s a curatorial approach. In a gallery one painting should lead to another and develop a thread, if a curator has done their job properly. Even on a subliminal level it works.”

So for David it’s not a case of taking the already converted, but telling the orchestra’s regular, core audience, who like listening to music by 17th century composers, that they can enjoy it too.

“I think it’s worked too,” he adds. “Some have not enjoyed it, but they’ve all found it stimulating and they come to learn.”

David now wants to build on the orchestra’s reputation for performing with real commitment and passion and develop its national recognition.