Recent Courses
Course Details
For an entire week, participants were involved in all aspects of rehearsing the outstanding Chetham’s Symphony Orchestra – from taking sectionals to assisting guest conductor Lee Reynolds. There was plenty of podium time and in addition to conducting the Symphony Orchestra, participants worked with younger students in the Chetham’s Philharmonic and with small ensembles of professional musicians drawn from the outstanding teaching staff at the school.
When not conducting, we held seminars on all aspects of working with young musicians and on designing concerts for young people. Participants learned about how to manage rehearsals and how to achieve the right balance when programming for young musicians. We also talked about safeguarding and how to work with your team, along the difference between working with different age groups.
Course Details
And Other Duties, in collaboration with FAME’S, offered a rare chance for eight conductors to spend five full days in one of the world’s busiest orchestral recording studios.
At their state-of-the-art building in Skopje, North Macedonia, FAME’S have recorded thousands of scores for films, TV, videos games, music library, pop and classical music projects since they were founded in 2008. The FAME’S orchestra draws the very best players from all over the Balkans and their recordings have won countless international awards.
Students were fully immersed in studio life, observing live recording sessions from within the control booth and sitting amongst the orchestra in the studio. They learnt how to run a session, acted as an assistant producer, and watched the engineers at work. They left the course with an edited recording with multi-camera 4K video footage which they could use for applications.
The Rite
Orchestras of the Future with Marin Alsop
Course Details
THE RITE offered participants the chance to study, conduct and assist on Stravinsky’s seminal ballet, The Rite of Spring, to meet leading international orchestral managers, to work closely with Marin Alsop and conduct in a public masterclass with the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.
We hosted three chamber sessions (with 2 pianos and string ensemble working with principal musicians of the NSO) over two days, followed by a whole day conducting the National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland.
Participants had 90 minutes of podium time, seminars with industry leaders from Irish Chamber Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, Contemporary Music Centre, Irish National Opera, National Symphony Orchestra and The National Concert Hall. All of this while having the opportunity to assist Marin Alsop for her own rehearsals with the NSO performance of The Rite of Spring.
Course Details
In this inaugural And Other Duties course, participants worked with some of the best youth orchestras in the world as they prepared for a concert in Manchester’s Bridgewater Hall.
Working with three different youth ensembles in sectionals, writing their own show, presenting, conducting and collaborating with some of Manchester’s finest musicians, our team presented their own education show.
They were also joined by industry leaders from BBC Philharmonic, London Symphony Orchestra, Gävle Symfoniorkester, pianist Alexandra Dariescu and Robert Guilder Management in a series of talks.