There can be very few, if any orchestras in the UK today which no longer have the experience of performing in what may be classified as ‘non-conventional’ concert halls. This can encompass the widest range of venues and is perhaps limited only by the performers’ imagination and audience accessibility; schools & hospitals, supermarkets & prisons, even hill-tops and caves have all been used with some degree of success, sometimes failure, but often with surprising and revealing results for audience and performers alike. Performance spaces are now determined by the desire to perform rather than by architectural design, though this is hardy a new phenomenon. In fact so-called ‘non-conventional’ performance venues are now so common-place that the current debate over the role of the traditional concert hall and how well it serves today’s audience is indeed timely.

Does a conventional concert hall simply reinforce unhelpful stereotypes around ‘classical’ music? Perhaps the traditional concert hall presents more barriers than opportunities when we look to develop new audiences and more imaginative performance practices…

A travelling audience
One might think that a busy international airport would present a unique set of challenges as a performance space and this is indeed the case, but with these challenges comes a unique set of opportunities. How many of even the world’s most successful concert halls have over 8 million potential audience members passing through their doors, over 20,000 visitors per day?

Orchestra of the Swan has developed a ground-breaking partnership with its principal sponsor, Birmingham International Airport, which has allowed the orchestra to experiment with some highly unconventional venues within the airport. These have included the departure lounge, arrivals hall, duty-free shops, corporate headquarters and even the airport fire-station, an excellent but as yet little exploited performance space in the West Midlands. Perhaps public access is an issue here!

Not only has Orchestra of the Swan performed to the travelling public and staff in all these venues, but BIA has enthusiastically given airport space for education project performances. Pupils from four schools from the local Shard End community composing, rehearsing and performing music and dance with members of Orchestra of the Swan on site at the airport, much to the delight of pupils, parents and passengers. Key to the success of this partnership has been the vision and support of BIA and highly important, the willingness of the musicians in Orchestra of the Swan to be flexible, to experiment and to take risks.

There is no doubt that for the orchestra and airport this experience has been hugely successful, the orchestra has recruited new audience members, and the airport, sometimes a stressful environment, has been enhanced with airport staff and passengers greatly enjoying the surprise of hearing live music of the highest professional standard being performed in unlikely venues.

Clear objectives
There are obvious challenges when performing in unusual spaces; lack of changing facilities, poor acoustics, (though this is hardly a problem unknown in some major concert halls), difficulty of access, background noise…try performing the Elgar serenade with a jumbo-jet roaring down the runway a few hundred yards away!

For Orchestra of the Swan this very successful partnership has raised questions as well as answers and trying to find these answers informs our approach to all our performances, whether in our regular ‘concert hall’ residencies in Stratford, Cheltenham or Bedworth, or village halls, schools, prisons or care homes. The question I would like to pose is this, what are we trying to achieve when we choose these unusual spaces, and is what we are trying to achieve any different from what our objectives should be in the ‘normal’ symphony hall environment.

Orchestras have similar objectives of breaking down pre-conceptions, building new audiences, player development, higher visibility in the community, but to Orchestra of the Swan the most important aspect of any of our work is the active engagement of our audiences with the music and musicians, whether performing at Symphony Hall, a village hall, the airport fire-station or a private home. It may be stating the obvious but a visit to any number of concerts on a Friday or Saturday night can demonstrate that audiences are, at best tolerated as a necessary evil, and at worst there is occasionally open contempt for the audience from some of the performers on stage.

Audience-centred
There can be no performance without an audience, we all have the experience of the sterile recording studio, and we have all experienced that magic when a live performance really does fire the spirit. I would like to quote Miro; when asked to explain his frequently bizarre and inexplicable paintings and sculptures he exclaimed, ‘the spirit is everything!’

Orchestra of the Swan has built an enviable reputation for its audience rapport, after concerts we frequently hear audience comments such as ‘it’s so good to see an orchestra enjoying itself’… ‘so refreshing to see the players smiling’… and so on. Whilst these comments may be gratifying, what is disturbing is that they belie the all too obvious lack of rapport between orchestra and audience that we have all experienced. Every time an orchestra gives a performance that doesn’t engage the audience, for whatever reason, it does itself and the wider sector a great disservice, reinforcing the stereotypical view that ‘classical’ music is somehow ‘difficult’ and, even worse, that the music and musicians, (especially conductor and soloists) are ‘aloof and unapproachable’.

If performers make so little attempt to engage audiences in some type of dialogue, how can we expect that same audience to respond to us and our needs? For Orchestra of the Swan our audiences are part of our performance, an integral part of our mutual, live musical experience and valued as active participants, sharing the music with us. We aim to engage our audiences in a dialogue with the music, sharing the journey of discovery, rather than simply playing at them.

So we come full circle. In the end perhaps the choice of venue is a distraction from the main purpose of the performance, and the same can be said of many other approaches to concert presentation, sometimes more aimed at distracting rather than engaging the audience with the music. No amount of lighting schemes, designer clothes, modern technology, or any of the other often highly imaginative and sometimes very costly, initiatives that orchestras are being encouraged to deploy will, in the end, compensate for simple and direct communication with our audience.

Like many others I have a passion for music, let’s not be afraid to break down a few more barriers and share that passion with all our audiences, wherever we find them.