Conducting Masterclass (Part 2)

So, on a cold and damp Sunday morning (December 3, 2023), the Salomon Orchestra arrived at the Royal College of Music for Martyn Brabbins’ Conducting Masterclass. Speaking for the orchestra, we had a great time spending the day playing Mahler’s First Symphony with some of the RCM’s postgraduate conducting students.

Each was assigned one movement to conduct in the masterclass: Michal Oren opened the day with the first, followed by Sam Scheer and Leif Tse on the second and third movements, leaving Alexander Mackinder to take on the longest and loudest fourth movement.

After rehearsing each movement in the morning, the conductors had a chance to work with the orchestra in the afternoon session on any “corners” they thought could be improved. This is perhaps the most important skill for a conductor: they must be able to identify what needs to be improved and, even more importantly, how to convey to the players what they are looking for and how to get there. And, in this case, all under the ever-watchful eye of Martyn Brabbins!

Once the rehearsals ended there was a short break for the orchestra to gather themselves up for the final performance and to let the audience in. Seeing over seventy people come out to support these young conductors was terrific. Who knows, maybe they will have seen a future global Maestro and say, “We saw X conduct Mahler's First Symphony when they were just a student!”

Salomon’s next concert is on Sunday, February 11, 2024, at St John’s, Smith Square. The concert is at 16:30, so you will have plenty of time to have a meal afterwards and still get home at a reasonable hour. It promises to be an exciting programme including Korngold’s Violin concerto played by the wonderful Fenella Humphreys, winner of the 2023 BBC Music Magazine’s Premiere Recording Award.

More information to come soon. Watch this space…

You should also put June 1, 2024, in your diaries as this has now been confirmed as the date of our rescheduled 60th Birthday concert conducted by Martyn Brabbins and Michal Oren.