4 Behind the Scenes Curious Festival 6 Your Latest School News and Stories 12 Face to Face Students Say Farewell to Barry Ife 1
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
The Guildhall School Magazine Autumn/ Winter 2016 4 Behind the Scenes 20 Mind the Gap Curious festival Making the arts accessible 6 Your latest School news and stories PLAY12 Face to Face Students say farewell to Barry Ife 26 The Interview Emma Rice 30 Then & Now Guy Chambers 32 Class Notes 34 Recent Releases 36 In Memoriam 18 Guildhall to the World 38 A Day in the Life Playtime in France Peter Batai Editorial Group Welcome to the latest edition of PLAY Deputy Head of Development (Alumni & Supporter Relations) Before the next edition of this magazine comes out the Guildhall Rachel Dyson School will have a new principal, Lynne Williams. Lynne joins Head of External Affairs Jo Hutchinson us from Australia’s highly prestigious National Institute of Dramatic Art and we look forward to working with her. Our Head of Development Duncan Barker current principal, Professor Barry Ife, has been both a fierce Marketing & champion and a dedicated supporter of the School for the past Communications Officer twelve years. Barry reflects on some of the achievements and Rosanna Chianta challenges of that period in a touching interview with students Copywriter in Face to Face. Nicola Balkind Art Direction & Design In August, I took a group of alumni from the Class of 1982 on Pentagram Jessie Earle a tour of the School. While the Silk Street building has been refurbished many times over the years, it is essentially the same, Forthcoming events Contact but Milton Court showed them a whole new side to Guildhall. Email As we walked around they told stories of their time here and I [email protected] was struck by the fact that while our building and our staff can Wednesday 9 November, 7.30pm Friday 25 – Wednesday 30 November Monday 27 February – Monday 6 Twitter and do change, Guildhall School has a core that does not change. Barbican Hall Silk Street Theatre March 2017, 7pm @guildhallschool Silk Street Theatre Guildhall Symphony Great Expectations Facebook The School was established in 1880 to provide opportunities The Tale of Januarie GuildhallSchoolAlumni Orchestra By Charles Dickens for city workers to study music. It soon broadened its remit to Post Adapted by (world premiere) provide training for professional musicians and actors, and, Diego Matheuz conductor Nick Ormerod and Declan Donnellan Development & Alumni Julian Philips composer Relations Office Rimsky-KorsakovScheherazade Christian Burgess director later, stage managers and theatre technicians, and drew students Stephen Plaice librettist Guildhall School Beethoven Symphony No. 5 from all over the world and all walks of life. The importance Pre-performance talk: Tuesday 29 November Dominic Wheeler conductor of Music & Drama of creating opportunities for a broad range of people to engage Captioned performance in association with Martin Lloyd-Evans director Silk Street, Barbican London EC2Y 8DT Friday 11 November, 7pm Stagetext: Wednesday 30 November, 2pm with the performing arts is still crucial to the School as you will Milton Court Concert Hall see in the Behind the Scenes coverage of the Curious festival Wednesday 15 March 2017, 7.30pm Photo Credits and in our Mind the Gap feature. Guildhall Jazz Thursday 26 January 2017, 7pm Barbican Hall Milton Court Concert Hall Clive Barda, Nic Barlow, Band & Choir Guildhall Symphony Peter Batai, Guy Chambers, Finally, this is my last edition as Editor of PLAY and I would Jasmin Chung, Paul Cochrane, Malcolm Edmonstone musical director Guildhall String Orchestra Sara Lee/Shakespeare’s like to take this opportunity to wish you all a fond farewell. I With special guests Ensemble Pietari Inkinen conductor Globe, Tom Medwell, Mark now look forward to many years as a reader of Guildhall news! Pinder/Streetwise Opera, Mike Walker guitar Directed by Levon Chilingirian Iain Dixon saxophone Wagner arr. Maazel The Ring Steve Tanner, Clive Totman, Janácekˇ Suite for String Orchestra Without Words Matthew Wasser Part of the EFG London Jazz Festival Tigran Mansurian Violin Concerto No. 2 Beethoven String Quartet No. 14, Op. 131 Rachel Dyson, Editor For full information and booking, visit gsmd.ac.uk/events To find out about priority booking for Guildhall Circle members, visit gsmd.ac.uk/circle The Guildhall School is provided by the City of London Corporation. 2 3 BEHIND THE SCENES Each year, musicians on Guildhall’s astronomy, as well as words about human our work was quite intimidating for me, Masters in Leadership programme responses to the universe – spirituality, even though ours was a recorded piece. collaborate with visual artists from interpretation, signs, symbols. With our Guildhall students are used to performing Central Saint Martins to create new partners, we were encouraged to discuss in front of an audience, but I’m not used work for Curious, a festival that what was interesting to us, and use a to having a live audience there. promises to push the boundaries of word as a stepping-off point. Taka and Curious was a new thing for me. The their artistic practice. I started with two: density and time. We way we had to present the work was We spoke to some of the artists discussed how we could translate these different to anything I’ve done before, and WE and organisers involved, to find concepts into visuals and music, and I really want to do more performance- out what goes in to making this ended up playing with liquids. At the based design. It’s motivated me to do more ambitious festival. beginning, I struggled, because when things like this, with a consciousness you’re playing with materials, you can about the audience, and this sense of A R ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ put something together immediately life and scale. It really expanded the way S E which looks interesting, but how is it I feel about music. R N Nell Catchpole musical? Should I interpret it using my O S Curious Artistic Director ways of thinking, or is there some way Saatvika Kantamneni T M Curious is a festival of new work largely this physical manifestation can translate Guildhall School, MA Collaborative O made by Guildhall students. It comprises literally into music? It makes you think, Theatre Production & Design everything from a sit-down gig through what kind of musician am I – should I Curious was very exciting to be a part to open-ended experiential processes. embrace what I know, or try something of. There was such a wide variety of The work is often quite experimental and outside of my comfort zone? There needs interdisciplinary art taking place over devised collaboratively, and it has become to be a balance between the two. It’s about four days and a sense of pride in making more ambitious each year. We also using the skills and knowledge from your it all happen. invite guest artists to perform alongside training, but being inspired in new ways. As with any live event, things were students, or to add a level of provocation. I’m a classical singer, so often I’m constantly changing and many elements This year we had more than 50 performers singing other people’s work. Curious were happening simultaneously with no over four days. showed me a fruitful way of starting to shortage of problems to fix. We managed The work we produce isn’t coming make my own material. I strongly believe to support each other and keep powering from a musical starting point, it’s about the best way to create new work is to do on, and that was definitely the high for engaging with society and issues that it with other people; you can inspire, push me. Receiving positive feedback from the are current for all of us. The intention and support each other in the process. audience kept us going. is to create a safe space to take risks and All of us have the capacity to learn new Since the event did not take place at experiment with new processes. things. You don’t have to be the best at Guildhall, a lot of preparation was Curious is an important part of the it when you’re just starting out, but it needed to determine all the equipment Leadership programme for several could open up new pathways for you, and and materials we would need to bring, reasons. One of these is best summed up that’s really exciting. source, or hire. by one of the students, who said that it It is always challenging to work in was a way of making our community Taka Hata an unconventional venue. Every manifest. Being in a building intensively Central Saint Martins, BA (Hons) element of the festival had major power together producing an event and sharing Graphic Communication Design requirements, including projectors, it with the public allows you to see where I study at Central Saint Martins art school, computers, speakers and lighting systems, your work fits in the world. At Guildhall so before Curious I had collaborated and it was a challenge to work with we have a state-of the-art, perfect venue; with fashion and fine art students, and the limited resources available. We the Rose Lipman building in Hackney, with dancers. But I’d never properly Astronomers involved eight different where we staged this year’s festival, is at worked with musicians. Curious was very projection surfaces, most of which we the other end of the spectrum. You have professional, and they were expecting built on-site, and two quad rig sound to think on your feet, be responsive, and a large audience. It was quite pressured, systems across two rooms. Rigging all design work that’s going to work well but it was good pressure. the projectors safely to ensure they hit in that space.