Principal Conductor André de Ridder's musical musings

9 November 2009

I travelled from Berlin to Dusseldorf last night to talk about and workshop a project with the German Electronic/Intelligent-Dance-Music Duo Mouse On Mars (I love and at the same time hate those types of attributes and attempts on classifications, but that's the official one - what can you do - they're great!). I met one half of the band, Andi Thoma, earlier this year through collaborating on an orchestral tribute to the legendary American composer and street-musician Luois Hardin aka Moondog at the Barbican Centre in London (see my May entries). The other person, Jan St Werner, lives in Berlin, like myself. So soon after meeting Andi I had coffee with Jan and we agreed to pursue, possibly various, alleys to compose/arrange music together which involves accoustic instruments/ensembles/orchestras as well as electronics. Now here we are, working on and discussing ways to bring the two worlds together. Thoughts that will be extended to the ViVA audience soon...

9 September 2009

I find myself sitting amongst some hundred Welsh schoolchildren, in Cardiff's Millennium Stadium, watching Wales playing Russia in the penultimate round of the World Cup qualifying campaign. Wales have no chance of qualification wheras Germany, if the home team can take a point off Russia, are going to South Africa next year for sure. After six hours of rehearsing Australian contmporary music with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales I had tried to break the ice by starting a conversation with some musicians about football and if there was any chance of getting a ticket to tonight's game. The reactions range from empty looks to ironic laughter: "They'll probably pay YOU to go and watch." Ok, it was worth a try but I'm going anyway as I am keen to see Russia's and Arsenals's genial striker Arshavin and their Dutch master coach Guus Hiddink at work. Moreover, it's the perfect distraction after an intense day's work. Attendance is about... 4000 noisy Russians plus those hundred bored Welsh schoolkids who keep themselves entertained by building paper planes out of the programmes which sail downwards and hit the people in front on the back of their heads. Stewards rushing about telling the kids to calm down creates more excitement it seems than what goes on further down on the pitch. I was admitted entrance to the family section section of the ground which is closest to the pitch (and the tickets are cheaper). Adults are only allowed in this tier accompanied by their children. No kidding! My claim to fatherhood of three is totally irrelevant in their absence but does enough to earn me the family ticket... They are very obviously desperate to get me in there whatever!

To their credit the Welsh team create some problems for the Russian team; it's 1-1 after an hour and Russia don't look like scoring again - until Guus Hiddink turns up at the edge of the pitch, looking only mildly worried and occasionally giving hand signals not dissimilar to conductor's movements (in the organizing, matter-of-fact style of say, a Pierre Boulez). His team don't seem to take notice whatsoever but suddenly score two more goals - miraculous! This is what Frank Lampard meant when he referred to his coach's "Midas touch".

29 June 2009

Last night was the 5th performance of Grange Park Opera's new production of Janacek's sublime The Cunning Little Vixen, directed by David Alden, which I had the pleasure to conduct. A 7am return train from Winchester led to a marathon day of meetings in London - under the burning, gorgeous sun I make my way to the Performing Rights Society near Oxford Street, then South Bank Centre, then the new splendid building of Kings Place for a kind of inaugural meeting of an "artistic sub-committee" which is chaired by ViVA Board Director John Rivers, including Marianne Baraclough, Peter Helps and James Redwood - and it will include musicians of the orchestra in future, too. Kings Place features one of the best new medium-scale concert halls in the country, an excellent, multifaceted programme and talks have taken place of holding a mini-residency for ViVA to show off in the capital what we are and have been doing. I manage to catch Andy Murray win his second set in the last 16 at Wimbledon and Germany's Under-21 score a second goal against England in the youngsters Euro final (that should do, sorry...) before going out to dinner in the best Turkish restaurant in Dalston where we are seated right next to Gilbert and George (apparently, they eat there, sitting in the same spot, every night). A good end to a good day!

31 May 2009

I maintain that cycling in London isn't all that dangerous but today, on Essex Road, near the Angel I caught another cyclist who came rushing out sideways between two busses queing at a traffic light and I went over the front wheel landing flat on the road. Seems not too bad at first, but then I notice that sneezing or laughing induces a sharp pain round the left side of my rib-cage. Cracked or badly bruised ribs apparently, but nothing anyone could do about that everyone assures me. Fair enough, so I tell anyone at my opera rehearsals that week to stop making jokes and make me laugh (there's a particular funny tenor who I send home straight away). Thankfully I can still move my arms up and down without too much pain. That'll do.

30 May 2009

Breakfast at a nice, Spanish-infused, café on Hoxton Square, that serves excellent coffee (an obsession of mine) under a friendly, warm spring-sun is a welcome respite after two absolutely mad days in which I rehearsed the English Chamber Orchestra and soloists for an upcoming opera production at Grange Park Opera during the day - and in the afternoons and evenings rehearsed and performed with the Britten Sinfonia at the Moondog tribute concert that the Barbican Centre in London have put on. The music of the legendary, blind maverick New York street musician and composer Luis Hardin aka Moondog was both a discovery and a revelation for me. The concert brought together very different musicians from all ends of the spectrum and lasted, justifiedly so, forever.

22 May 2009

I get to go home after two weeks of opera rehearsals in London to see my family, but it's not all holiday, as we stage the third edition of our musical early evening house-party. We always invite some guests to play a short gig, but it's a slightly alternative version of the good old bourgeois Hausmusik tradition. This time we have the great american blues singer Sandy Dillon, her husband Ray Mayors on slide guitar, David Coulter and composer Larry Goves. All of whom came over from the UK especially and I hook them up with the fantastic Ensemble Kaleidoskop from Berlin (strings mainly) to workshop and produce arrangements of some new songs of Sandy's. It's always fascinating to see what happens when you bring together musicians with wildly different backgrounds when they are prepared to open their minds to each other's approach. This is an especially challenging but enjoyable occasion and the jam after the "official" programme could go on forever.

2 February 2009

London is covered in snow, nothing moves, and my meetings in the morning and plane in the afternoon are cancelled. How am I gonna make it to Helsinki where I have a rehearsal the next morning? I manage to get to St Pancras International Station and buy one of the last Eurostar tickets to Brussels, departing in the afternoon. Meanwhile my management book me a place on an early flight to Helsinki from Brussels Airport, where I am staying the night in an Express Holiday Inn. Here we are AGAIN - welcome to the glorious life of a conductor. But this way I am only going to miss half a rehearsal (the other half I am going to spend trying to find my bearings)...

1 February 2009

This is a memorable journey: after my first concert with sinfonia ViVA at Leicester's new performing arts centre, Curve, I am in a comfortable people carrier which is driving us back to London late at night - in the driving snow! At times you can't see anything but white stuff all around us on the motorway and it is amazing that the traffic actually never comes to a standstill. I am with my wife, Damon Albarn (whose two new orchestral interludes we had premiered in the concert earlier) and two of Damon's management. He had insisted to take advantage of Leicester's curry houses and get a take-away to be enjoyed in the car (a man just after my taste) before we hit, or slid more likely, the road; which contributed to good spirits taking the situation in their strides. And we did get to London eventually, at about 1 in the morning; not bad, considering.

28 January 2009

The morning after my first Derby concert of 2009, the first of the Mendelssohn year which we are celebrating appropriately. It was a special night as we managed to have two fantastic and prominent young artists with us at the same concert: The German violinist Antje Weithaas who really made people forget the often unforgiving accoustic of the Assembly Rooms, and the young American composer Nico Muhly whose Orchestral Short 'Eager Music' we premiered. From what I've heard so far it went down very well, and people appreciated the unusual concert order, finishing with the popular violin concerto, especially played by such a starry artist!

'Work' hadn't quite finished at the end of the concert as we had a nice reception for some guests and musicians and then I took soloist, composer and visitors from London (a record label manager and a producer from the Barbican Centre in London) to the ever welcoming Shalimar Restaurant who do excellent Indian food and stay open late enough for us musicians to enjoy a nice meal after the show. It's a good time therefore to sit down with Peter Helps (in the lovely new Cathedral Quarter hotel in very handy neighbourhood to the Assembly Rooms) and plan ahead: there are some further good news and exciting projects and programmes ahead. In fact they are so 'hot', I am not even allowed to talk about them yet! So watch this space...

19 September 2008

Writing from a coffee place at Cologne airport, I am waiting to catch a plane to Hamburg for a concert with the incredibly dynamic young German Ensemble Resonanz. We played in a fantastic baroque residence, Schloss Auguststein, last night, in an almost surreal setting of an original huge baroque staircase, placed on several levels, performing music from Bach to John Adams. Tonight's programme is different though - so we have an important dress rehearsal to go to straight from the airport: the madness has started all over again. I've been to Derby earlier this month already for workshops with the Orchestra testing promising material for the sinfonia ViVA 'Orchestral Shorts' series and I'm looking forward to go to Norway, Holland and Sweden in the next three weeks. Thankfully there will be week at home before I come back to Derby to start our exciting autumn season with the much anticipated Uri Caine Tour in October.

1 August 2008

I am on holiday with my family, in Germany. As ever, there's so much to discover in your own country and we prefer, with small children, not to go too far away for convenience and being able to use all the time we have for relaxation and quality time rather than travelling long and settling into more exotic places. Also, this year is the first summer for a long time that I didn't have to take a number of scores with me to study in the evenings - vital to give my musical brain a moment to breathe once in a while.

26 July 2008

Monkey Journey to the West has opened successfully in London a couple of days ago after an incredibly short rehearsal period, thanks to a wonderful and huge team of administrators, technicians, musicians and performers (more than 50 Chinese actors, singers and acrobats) who have already three runs of this work in different countries and continents even under their belt. This morning I have two meetings before a two o'clock matinee show: One is at the British Library with Peter Helps and Jon Ashford-Smith of sinfonia ViVA and my manager Anna Wetherell, and with Simon Millward of Albion Media, who has started working for us as publicist, joining a little later. All current and future undertakings with ViVA are being discussed: programming, commissioning, strategic planning in general and publicity. With Simon we talk a lot about the superior importance of being well represented on the web nowadays, and that's not just about a good homepage but other appearances like in 'Myspace' for example. We hope that as soon as the first few of our Orchestral Shorts commissions are ready we will record some and stream them live on the net! After this very constructive session I hurry back to Covent Garden for the next meeting: Graham McKenzie, Artistic Director of the Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival, listens with great interest to our current and future plans before attending the matinee performance of Monkey for which I have just enough time left to get changed and make my way to the pit - a manic but very productive day so far!