Conducting Course Report

Last weekend an international group of students parted company after two hard days working on great music for string orchestra.  We spent the first day working working with the pianist Robert Keeley, who did an extraordinary job of score reading the works in question (especially the Bartok!).  That was a long day - probably in the region of 8 hours worth - preparing the music for the following day.  So on the Sunday we were joined by the South London Sinfonietta, this time a 15 piece string orchestra, who calmly and professionally played through pieces by Mendelssohn and Bartok ... and they had to go through some sections quite a lot of times to accommodate us conductors!

All in all it was a very successful weekend.  I certainly learned a lot from the students!