ISSUE 5 BEHIND THE MUSIC Featuring Nicola Benedetti larkinsurance.co.uk What’s Inside Cover Story 12-15 4-5 Nicola Benedetti at 30 I had to be tough She has no wish for lavish gifts on her 30th birthday but Lyric baritone Sir Thomas Allen has natural Nicola Benedetti expresses her desire to fathom a way to talent and shares his craft by encouraging formalise her education work young opera hopefuls 26-29 22-25 Land of legends It was serendipity The Gower Festival goes from strength to strength, thanks Annette Isserlis put her heart and soul into to a music-loving team led by Artistic Director Gordon arranging the posthumous birthday concert in Back who has been attracting top musicians to the idyllic honour of Francis Baines – and she planned it peninsula in south-west Wales in her personal woodland Welcome t is fascinating to discover what goes on behind the scenes in the world of top-class music and inside this issue of LARKmusic I hope you will enjoy reading the exclusive features which capture our Iinterviewees’ passion and incredible drive for perfection. The Lark team has been enjoying some wonderful music, attending events from the Francis Baines’ centenary concert to recitals at the Royal College of Music, the Suffolk schools’ Celebration at Snape Maltings and this summer’s Gower Festival – meeting clients and making new friends along the way. Read on for the full stories! Back in the office, it’s been busy with a focus on improving our insurance products and online service so I am pleased to introduce our new Public Liability Cover, as well as highlighting our new quote and buy portal which will make buying insurance cover online even more convenient. Please turn to pages 8-9 for details. Looking ahead, I’m also delighted to confirm that Lark will be joining London Sinfonietta’s 50th birthday celebrations in 2018 and we will continue to support the Endellion String Quartet as they mark their 40th anniversary. Both fantastic milestones! Gemma Deavall Divisional Director [email protected] ARTICLES 20-21 Musical Notes Private Client Director Julie Webb shares her news and travels; meeting clients, musicians and singers while attending events and concerts across the UK 6-7, 30 16-19 Out & About Isabella Valentini has been Radio One at 50. supporting the young violin makers’ competition in Broadcaster ‘Diddy’ David Hamilton presented the Radio One Prague and the Suffolk afternoon show during its heyday in the 1970s and helped schools’ music makers many bands get their foot on the ladder to fame during the Celebration at 30 larkinsurance.co.uk Nicola Benedetti inspires students during a Music in Secondary Schools Trust programme Picture: Benjamin Ealovega I want to formalise my education work Classical violinist Nicola Benedetti has been teaching since she was a teenager and now, as she turns 30, she tells journalist Lesley Bellew about her plans to ‘bring everything together’ f there’s one thing that Nicola “It has always been quite natural for growing willingness to work together, Benedetti would like to do to me to teach and give masterclasses; it to develop the level of music tuition, Imark her 30th birthday it is to is something I have always been quite collectively, and re-address how we formalise her education work. drawn to, perhaps without identifying define our belief in the need for the it. Am I evangelical? I suppose so! creative arts, and send this message Nicola, who was 30 in July, has been out more confidently. going into schools to teach pupils “When you love the music so much, since she was 15 but has decided you want to make sure other people “I’m more energised, inspired and she wants ‘to get everything more have the chance to experience the uplifted than ever. I always want organised’. music, too – so it is out there for to be extremely enthusiastic so the everyone.” enthusiasm is powerful enough to be She said: “I do so many things so it infectious and alert others to the idea would be good to bring everything Nicola, who attended the Yehudi of loving this music. together, formalise the education Menuhin School, was awarded an OBE work and link everything to in 2003 and the Queen’s Medal for “Doing something musical and give it more structure – to offer Music in May 2017, collaborates with creative in schools has such far- a diverse range of teachers, musicians, greater quality music and creative reaching benefits, besides the fact charities and music organisations. experiences for as many children as that it should be incredibly enjoyable possible. She said: “Many of us feel moved by a for young people. 4 LARKmusic Nicola, who was born in West very beginning – that’s what I do. Kilbride, Scotland, and started to “With some violin concertos the play the violin at the age of four, said: pieces can be so large, and so “Classical music has a beauty and complex, that at first they seem like complexity, as well as a creativity CONCERT DATES an impossible task but if you keep on and most wonderful sound. It is 2017-18 going you can get there. always interesting to me, especially with young kids, that if you put on a “There’s no way to speed up that Aug 25 Gstaad Menuhin piece of Stravinsky or Beethoven in process so I always say be focused, Festival, Mozart VC3 with Santa front of them, generally speaking learn well and keep going until it Cecilia and Antonio Pappano they react in an extreme way. solidifies – don’t worry about the Sept 5 RSNO, Elgar VC, Peter “Children are not in that mental initial stages being messy! Oundjan: Dundee (Sept 6 Edinburgh and Sept 7 Glasgow) space where they have any prejudice “Because I do a lot of masterclasses I Bremen Phil, so they hear the music for what it do try to think about my own journey Sept 23-24 Brahms Double with Leonard is, which is a fantastic sound. It’s and playing style because you go Elschenbroich something they can listen to and feel through so much information if you something. are seriously studying an instrument Oct 27 & 29 San Diego like the violin. Symphony with Cristian “The music is dramatic and diverse, Macelaru: Wynton Marsalis VC much more so than pop music “There’s a lot of opposing information Philadelphia Orchestra which is far more, well, let’s say Nov 2-4 with people telling you to do this and with Cristian Macelaru: Wynton homogenised. that – use your body, follow your Marsalis VC “I just wish there was a whole bunch instinct, don’t move too much or Dec 2-3 New World Symphony of music pieces that children get to you’ll disturb the band … there are with James Gaffigan: hear when they are four or five years so many ridiculous notions and it is a Szymanowski VC old – in my experience when they tricky thing to balance! Jan 8, 19-21, 2018 are exposed to music at that age they “I often just try to present Dallas Symphony with Donald react very strongly. the students or audience with Runnicles: Beethoven VC “That’s my goal at 30 – I really do information but also aim to get Feb 3-21 OAE UK and North not have a personal goal. I’ve never them into a mental space of trusting America tour with Marin Alsop: had the ambition to live here or own themselves and their own creative Beethoven VC and Mozart VC5. something particular – in fact, I’ve way to work something out to sound Concerts in Oxford, London, never had that sort of feeling, it’s better and develop their own style. Birmingham, Basingstoke, strange. Saffron Walden, Santa Barbara, “We are ourselves and we can’t Oakland, Rochester, San “I would also like to become more get away from it – so embrace the Francisco, Ottawa comfortable with myself, more element that’s in-built. Embrace and humble in the process and develop as be far more experimental to find Visit nicolabenedetti.co.uk a person and a violinist.” deeper individuality.” Nicola played the Proms on July 18, and celebrated her birthday with a big party for friends and family the next day. She said: “I had a proper party in London because I have so little time to catch up with friends. “There is something about playing a concert at night. I preserve everything for the performance so it is not until after a week off and the weight lifts that I get in touch with everyone I haven’t spoken to in a while. That’s how I spend any free time – catching up with people.” When teaching, Nicola, who plays a 1717 Gariel Stradivarius, also warns students that there are no short cuts to learning a piece of music. She said: “I suggest to students that when they start to learn a piece of music, they should put in an Nicola with young string players from A R Rahman’s Sunshine Orchestra of KM enormous number of hours at the College of Music and Technology, Chennai, India Picture: Helen Taylor 5 larkinsurance.co.uk Celebration! Suffolk is a music county (think Benjamin Britten and Ed Sheeran) and the Lark team arrived in force to support the unique schools’ music festival, says Music Account Handler Isabella Valentini rented a place for the team to stay. schools came together for the final ‘IF WIND AND WATER COULD WRITE MUSIC, IT WOULD SOUND We called it Lark Lodge! piece, I Wish, composed by Gwyneth LIKE BEN’S’ – YEHUDI MENUHIN.