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Marketing and Communications Officer Sheena Macrae joined the Wind and Brass players in Boat of Garten, Strontian and Tobermory on 22-24 July. The programme of music was Weber’s Overtures to Euryanthe and Der Freischütz, Haydn’s London Trio, Beethoven’s Rondino, Mendelssohn’s Notturno and Françaix’s Seven Dances from Les Malheurs de Sophie.

Touring with the Orchestra, whether with all 37 musicians or a smaller ensemble like the 13-strong wind and brass group, is always a different experience to our main season of concerts during the winter months.  It’s a real case of multi-tasking – from stage and box office management, to front of house duties and programme and CD selling.

Accompanied by Orchestra Librarian Michael Ferguson, our first stop was in the picturesque village of Boat of Garten, complete with its very own steam train.

The community hall, opened in 2007, was our venue for the evening, so we quickly got to work setting up before the players arrived and the rehearsal started.

Boat of Garten Community Hall

Chairs, lights, music stands and even stands to rest instruments on, like bassoons, all had to be carefully put in place. This job would normally be relatively straightforward, with our trusted Stage Manager Ronnie Herd in charge, but on this tour it was down to Michael and myself. It was all the more challenging because these concerts included six different pieces of music, which each call for a different combination of instruments, and therefore require six very different seating configurations.

Michael’s seating plan shows the instrumentation and
set up needed for Beethoven’s Rondino. These plans proved
vital during the performances

The volunteers from the Osprey Music Society, who co-promoted the concert, ran the sell out performance with military precision – right down to the marshalls in high visability vests in the car park!

It was a great start to the tour – and the sun stayed out the entire time. The only thing missing was a glimpse of the red squirrels which we had been told to look out for in the area.

An early start the next day for a long drive to Strontian on the Ardnamurchan peninsula, took us through some stunning scenery.

The Laggan Dam

And reservoir

The journey included a ten minute sail on the Corran ferry across Loch Linnhe to Ardgour, and Michael and I managed a bit of celebrity spotting on the way, as author Alexander McCall Smith was also onboard.

All aboard the Corran Ferry

The Sunart Centre in Strontian, our venue for the second performance, is a multi-purpose site, which is also home to Ardnamurchan High School and Library. Thankfully it was well sign-posted, as it is right on the edge of Strontian. One of the claims to fame of the village is that it gave its name to the chemical element Strontium, as visitors were told as they passed the village sign!

Ardnamurchan High School, Library and the Sunart Centre

Unlike the full orchestra or the SCO Strings, the Wind and Brass ensemble perform without a leader or conductor. The players agreed that trust is paramount in this situation, but they also know instinctively who to follow. Therefore the leader in each piece is usually the one who has most to play, so rehearsals are very important.

Flautists Alison Mitchell and Lis Dooner and bassoonist Peter
Whelan rehearse Haydn's London Trio...

...before the other players joined them to rehearse in
Strontian's Sunart Centre.

The warm welcome from the audience was appreciated and the players were delighted that a familiar face was in the crowd.  Former clarinet player Ruth Ellis supported her old colleagues and was kind enough to entertain us all after the concert – while we watched the sun set over Loch Sunart.

Loch Sunart

Sadly the good weather didn’t last, and the skies opened for our journey to the Mull ferry. We had been warned that the road from Strontian to Kilchoan was a little twisty, but even we weren’t prepared for just how narrow a stretch of road it was.

But we made it, and took the ferry across to Tobermory for our final performance.

The view across to Mull

The Aros Hall

The Aros Hall, right in the middle of the Main Street, initially provided a few technical problems, ie. an electrical fault, but thanks to the quick thinking of the volunteers from the hall all was not lost!

And the staff from the An Tobar arts venue pulled out all the stops to help make the concert a real success. The audience who packed into the hall didn’t even seem to mind about the over sensitive fire alarm which went off during the interval. Thankfully it was a false alarm.

A happy tour indeed, with great music, lovely audiences and venue staff and unrivalled scenery!

Tobermory

Photos © Sheena Macrae

Zoë Westwood, Marketing Manager, blogs about her first tour with the SCO.

The SCO went on its first Highlands Tour of the summer on 17 June, performing in Stirling, Findhorn and Fraserburgh. Robin Ticciati, Principal Conductor, was joined by German violin virtuoso, Veronika Eberle. The programme opened with the Overture to Don Giovanni, a sneak peak of next Season’s opening concert, and continued with Mozart’s Violin Concerto No 5 ‘Turkish’ and Brahms Serenade No 1. The audience loved Veronika and her ‘pure’ playing, and thoroughly enjoyed the Serenade, with many purchasing our recording of the piece following the concert.

Stirling Castle served as a suitably majestic setting for the first concert of the tour. Everyone took time out to enjoy the brilliant weather and stunning panoramic views from the castle ramparts. Performing in the Great Hall, its thick stone walls deflecting the heat, the Orchestra’s rousing programme delighted an appreciative audience.

The weather was gorgeous and the Castle was a stunning setting for the
first performance.

Wind players Higinio Arrue, Alison Green (Bassoonists), Maxi Martín and Richard
Russell (Clarinettists) enjoy a break between performances.

Rosalind, PA to the Managing Director, enjoys the view before the concert.

SCO truck packed up and ready for Findhorn after a great evening at Stirling
Castle.

We headed to Findhorn for the next leg of the tour, which was when the excitement really started. A couple of the cellists had a flat tyre on the way up, the SCO truck got stuck in gravel, a certain Marketing Manager (me) missed the turning to Findhorn and went to Inverness – it was an adventure from start to finish.

Universal Hall welcomed Robin Ticciati back for a second year with another sell-out concert. The unique venue provided a very intimate setting with the audience surrounding the Orchestra on three sides.

Tractor freeing the SCO truck from the cloying gravel in Findhorn.

Findhorn Bay was the perfect place to stretch our legs after a long drive.

One of the lovelier aspects of touring, is the variety of venues we perform in.
This is the beautiful Universal Hall in Findhorn.

SCO plays to a sold out Universal Hall, Findhorn.

Fraserburgh was the setting of our final concert of the tour. The United Reformed Church was a lovely, intimate (and loud) venue and we were assisted by the equally lovely Chris Reid and her husband Ernie. They organised sandwiches, tables, seating, and Chris made a super opening speech which had the audience in stitches.

The amazing Chris Reid and her husband, Ernie.

Finally it was over. It was a great tour – everyone involved enjoyed it immensely, audience and players alike. Veronika helped write the final tweet of the tour, saying “it was a huge joy to bring music to life with such a most wonderful conductor & orchestra”.

Veronika Eberle, Michael Ferguson (SCO Librarian), Robin Ticciati, and Zoë enjoy
a celebratory hot chocolate at the end of the tour.

Photo credits © Eric Clark, Peter Vallance, Zoë Westwood

There is a story about a UK symphony orchestra that was rebranding.   At the eleventh hour, the orchestral members discovered that their Management were planning to have a new slogan - ‘We’re All Over the Place’ - plastered across their orchestral truck.   A risky choice of motto for any organisation, you might think, but in a musical context, dire.

Musicians love the story because of its moral - always consult your players.  But to my mind, that tale of botched rebranding raises questions about the wisdom of muddling the Arts with modern business practice.  So much in our lives is dictated by the rules of a market economy.  Shouldn’t Art be immune from that? Should orchestras actually be Brands?

 When asked recently to participate in the rebranding of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, I admit I felt sceptical.  Marketing consultancies don’t do this sort of thing for free.  Against the backdrop of a colossal recession, could I justify such a project? With the January ice thick outside, I sat through meetings on board the Leith Agency’s barge (yes, our consultation meetings took place on a barge) wearing my winter coat and hugging a teacup for warmth.  I consoled myself that at least we were not wasting money on trivial things like heating.  But then, I wondered, were we overspending on pastries?

Had I known about the branding fiasco that was being brewed up in Glasgow by the Commonwealth Games and their design consultancy, I might have felt even more doubtful. At our meetings we discussed cautionary tales of the unpopular ‘London 2012’ with shivers of horror.  But the story that unfolded last month of the recycled logo for the 2014 Games, costing 95K, really takes the biscuit.  No wonder senior marketing executives say the episode has ‘tarnished the industry’.

 But I have to hand it to the guys on that agency barge - they converted me.  There is such a thing as good design.  If something is worth doing, it is worth doing properly.  A new brand is not just an expensive doodle on a designer’s pad.  It is everything that goes with the logo, into the public arena, to represent who we are and what we do.  We cannot deny that as an orchestra we exist in a competitive marketplace.  We need to distinguish what is special about ourselves, and communicate that to people. 

Mind you, some orchestras do take their focus on ‘brand’ to what I consider the limit.  The Managing Director of the London Symphony Orchestra is on record as stating that their 2006 project to produce DVDs for babies was ‘all about brand recognition’ within a ‘cradle-to-grave development idea’.  Their website sells synthesised ‘LSO’ ringtones for your phone as well.  For that, I cannot shout Bravo.

 So far SCO hasn’t offered ringtones, but by rebranding right now we are seizing the moment.  We have a huge advantage from our recent appointment of Robin Ticciati as principal conductor.  Our Mozart recordings with Sir Charles Mackerras continue to receive fantastic reviews.  We should capitalize on this momentum - and so we’re back to business practice.  As Managing Director Roy McEwen puts it, now is the moment to celebrate ‘recent successes and our future promise.’

 The new SCO brand is now launched, and I am left to walk off the pastries I consumed during those meetings, and to reflect. For an organisation like us, rebranding is about raising our profile.  It signals to the world that we mean business - literally. 

But for me, the best part of the whole process was asking ourselves the Big Questions; Who am I? And what do I stand for?  It is good, both as an organisation and as an individual, to know the answers to these questions.  For one thing, it focuses the mind and encourages action.  Once you’ve said it, you’ve really got to do it.  And besides that, I found the process of affirmation uplifting. I listened to my colleagues articulate why we are all proud to play with such a group.  I heard each and every one of us articulate why we love the SCO.  How often, in the business world, is rebranding actually a joy?

 (Article printed in the Herald - Saturday 17th April 2010)

SCO Principal Flute Alison Mitchell talks about the enjoyment of the SCO's Subscriber concerts and how they will lead to performances in the Bahamas.

This is it, my first ever blog, so here goes!

Have you ever been offered an unexpected trip to the Caribbean? Probably not, and neither had I until an email, in February 2009, popped up in my mailbox asking me if I was interested in organising a wind group to perform a couple of concerts in Nassau, Bahamas. As you can imagine, an opportunity like this is very motivating and I immediately set about forming the Scottish Chamber Soloists, a group of wind players from SCO namely myself on flute, Maxi on Clarinet, Pete on Bassoon and the wonderful pianist Scott Mitchell (no relation) also a familiar face to SCO audiences.

We wanted our launch concerts as an ensemble to be in Scotland and the perfect platform for these would be the SCO Subscribers' concerts where we knew how much the audience would appreciate hearing some more unusual and rarely performed works, even a world premiere!

As we set about putting together a programme we discovered, rather surprisingly, that there was nothing much of note written for flute, clarinet, bassoon and piano. Oh dear, this was a considerable stumbling block! However this opened up the perfect opportunity to develop new repertoire and support a Scottish composer by commissioning a new work especially for the ensemble. With the generous support of both the SCO and the Scottish Arts Council we were able to commission our first work specifically for our unusual ensemble.

Our composer of choice was Rory Boyle, and he composed Dance MacAber! Here are his programme notes from the front of the score which will give you an idea about the music.

This piece was commissioned by flautist Alison Mitchell on behalf of the Scottish Chamber Soloists who gave the first performance in the Strathclyde Suite of the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall in December 2009.

The players wanted something that felt Scottish but without any obvious pastiche and, for some reason, I started to think about the title "Danse macabre" and how I might use it to draw together a suite of movements inspired by Scottish dances which seemed to me to be the best way of meeting the players request. The word "macabre" can also be spelt "macaber" so it seemed reasonable to invent the Scots sounding surname "MacAber", change the noun to a verb and add an exclamation mark to stisfy what I had in mind.

The work falls into 3 sections played without a break, which are: Gigue, Interlude with Sarabande and Strathspey, and Reel.

I have tried to capture the spirit of the Scottish dances in the music as well as hinting at the macabre element although, hopefully, a sense of manic fun pervades the whole work." © Rory Boyle

Our last Subscriber concert, in Edinburgh later this month, will be our farewell concert before we head off to the Bahamas for concerts on the 26th and 27th March. ( A wee bit of warm weather will be very much appreciated after the long winter) This will be our fourth performance of Rory's Dance MacAber! and we are finally getting to grips with its intricacies and very complicated rhythms!!

As well as Dance MacAber! we're playing two very contrasting works. To start the performance we'll play an early Beethoven opus, WoO37, Trio for Flute, Bassoon and Piano and Maxi, Pete and Scott will end the programme with the gorgeous Trio Pathetique by Glinka for Clarinet, Bassoon and Piano.

It's been a fantastic project to develop and commissioning a new work was a first for me. We've had a brilliant time playing together and are looking forward to further projects and maybe another new commission!

We look forward to the performance for our Edinburgh Subscribers.