Conducting Weekend Report
Another group of happy but weary conductors made their way from Abacus Arts in South London on Sunday 17th February. It was an intense weekend. We arrive about 10am on the Saturday morning and (with an hour for lunch) worked through until about 8.30pm. Then on the Sunday from 10am until 5pm. A lot of concentration! A lot of notes! Many thanks to Richard Black for his excellent piano playing for the first day, and to all the orchestra for playing on the second day (Shostakovich Chamber Symphony movement 2 is not one of those things that is fun to sight read!!).
What a multi-national group we were! Two Brits, a Spaniard, a Frenchman, an Argentinian, and an American. It was, as always, fascinating to see the different conducting styles adopted, and the different musical ideas people have. All in all it was a very positive time, and I hope some of things we covered will prove helpful to the participants.