I thought it might be useful to map out what happened for me, starting from university, and running (with some gaps and lots of editing!) for the ten years afterwards. I'd like to tell you that getting started is the hard bit, and then it's plain sailing. It's not - it's all really hard... or if there's a point when it starts getting easier, I haven't got there yet.
Also, chronologies are deceptive. Although I've laid things out below as a succession of events, things are never exactly that straightforward, and I've probably filled in connections between events that were never there in the real world. We tell ourselves these stories, so please don't feel like the only way of making progress is in a straight line. This shaggy dog story below certainly wasn't a straight line; it just looks like it here.
Here are Some Things That Happened, presented to you in the order that they happened. I think there's some causality some of the time, but I might be wrong. Click each to find out why it's significant.
Also, chronologies are deceptive. Although I've laid things out below as a succession of events, things are never exactly that straightforward, and I've probably filled in connections between events that were never there in the real world. We tell ourselves these stories, so please don't feel like the only way of making progress is in a straight line. This shaggy dog story below certainly wasn't a straight line; it just looks like it here.
Here are Some Things That Happened, presented to you in the order that they happened. I think there's some causality some of the time, but I might be wrong. Click each to find out why it's significant.
UniS degree
My course was the BMus, 3-year straight music degree. My first study was the cello, and I also played the piano, but the latter not in a way I hoped anyone would ever book me for. My final year was split 50/50 between conducting and cello performance. I was the Orchestra Manager for the Symphony Orchestra for my second and third years.
I was the first year of students taught by Russell Keable. As well as the in-depth analysis and discussion about what music means and what the role of the conductor should be, this time really helped with something we'll cover more in Act 2: the Fundamental Technique. In retrospect, I didn't listen enough to Russell, and if you take nothing else away from this presentation, I would want it to be listen to Russell, in all things.
Being upfront about it, any academic university degree is not the traditional way to get into conducting, unless that university happens to be Cambridge or, to a lesser extent, Oxford. The large majority of British-trained conductors do a performance degree at a music college as an instrumentalist, and then post-graduate study in conducting. This is not because the quality of the tuition at these places is better, but because an eco-system has grown up around these places of people and connections and unspoken assumptions about what going to those places means. As we will discover on a number of occasions, getting the initial breaks is less to do with what you know than who you know (unbearably clichéd as that phrase is)... only after getting that initial break does what you know begin to play a part.
My plan was to go to the Royal Academy or Royal College of Music to study conducting at post-grad. I auditioned at both, got through to the final rounds at both, but didn't get a place at either.
I was the first year of students taught by Russell Keable. As well as the in-depth analysis and discussion about what music means and what the role of the conductor should be, this time really helped with something we'll cover more in Act 2: the Fundamental Technique. In retrospect, I didn't listen enough to Russell, and if you take nothing else away from this presentation, I would want it to be listen to Russell, in all things.
Being upfront about it, any academic university degree is not the traditional way to get into conducting, unless that university happens to be Cambridge or, to a lesser extent, Oxford. The large majority of British-trained conductors do a performance degree at a music college as an instrumentalist, and then post-graduate study in conducting. This is not because the quality of the tuition at these places is better, but because an eco-system has grown up around these places of people and connections and unspoken assumptions about what going to those places means. As we will discover on a number of occasions, getting the initial breaks is less to do with what you know than who you know (unbearably clichéd as that phrase is)... only after getting that initial break does what you know begin to play a part.
My plan was to go to the Royal Academy or Royal College of Music to study conducting at post-grad. I auditioned at both, got through to the final rounds at both, but didn't get a place at either.
local amateur dramatics
Before, throughout and after my degree, I was Music Director for productions put on by the amateur music theatre company in the town where I grew up, Lewes. This meant travelling quite a lot from Surrey to Sussex, and it was a big commitment of time.
What I recognise as having taken from doing this is:
What I recognise as having taken from doing this is:
- the chance to practice coaching the best results from people who don't have the tools of experienced performers,
- taking charge of organising all the operational stuff of a show: orchestral parts (with cuts & transpositions), pit layouts, conventions of booking players, and so on
- first exposure to dealing with grumpy, troublemaking players (this is really not a large part of the job at all, but getting caught out with this early stands you in good stead for later)
working in the lso music library
Having not managed to get a post-graduate place as planned, I spent the summer after graduating applying for lots of music administration positions. I did not get replies from any of the companies I applied for. It was a dispiriting time.
(aside: I go through all the tedious details of the story below, not out of indulgence, but to show the level of luck and the number of Bandersnatch-style alternative narratives that could've taken me in a different direction at any point).
I applied for the job of Orchestra Assistant at the LSO, and my application was received by a friend from the University of Surrey who was working there at the time. Because he could vouch for me from university, my application was not filed in the bin as my other applications elsewhere had been. I got an interview, but didn't get the job.
However, that same day a very junior position in the Touring department opened up, and rather than open up the whole application and interview process again to fill that position, they thought I'd probably be okay in that job instead. So that's what they offered, and I accepted.
HOWEVER, the LSO's Music Librarian then left, on a very short notice period. The whole department was therefore a bit stretched, and they thought that me staffing the Music Library would be a good way for me to get to know the orchestra before returning to the Touring department. One thing led to another, and I ended up never going back to Tours.
The role in the library meant that I got a crazily detailed insight into the way an orchestra runs. The library is the sharp end of the organisation: you are not only the person who prepares the orchestra's parts (and let's all talk about that sometime), but when the Orchestra Managers need to know which players to fix, they come to you. When the Tours department need to know how many flight tickets to book, they come to you. When the stage managers need to know how much stage space the percussion will take up, they come to you. It teaches to you to be incredibly detailed and to not make mistakes, because those mistakes have exponential knock-on effects. Of course, I made lots of mistakes.
(aside: I go through all the tedious details of the story below, not out of indulgence, but to show the level of luck and the number of Bandersnatch-style alternative narratives that could've taken me in a different direction at any point).
I applied for the job of Orchestra Assistant at the LSO, and my application was received by a friend from the University of Surrey who was working there at the time. Because he could vouch for me from university, my application was not filed in the bin as my other applications elsewhere had been. I got an interview, but didn't get the job.
However, that same day a very junior position in the Touring department opened up, and rather than open up the whole application and interview process again to fill that position, they thought I'd probably be okay in that job instead. So that's what they offered, and I accepted.
HOWEVER, the LSO's Music Librarian then left, on a very short notice period. The whole department was therefore a bit stretched, and they thought that me staffing the Music Library would be a good way for me to get to know the orchestra before returning to the Touring department. One thing led to another, and I ended up never going back to Tours.
The role in the library meant that I got a crazily detailed insight into the way an orchestra runs. The library is the sharp end of the organisation: you are not only the person who prepares the orchestra's parts (and let's all talk about that sometime), but when the Orchestra Managers need to know which players to fix, they come to you. When the Tours department need to know how many flight tickets to book, they come to you. When the stage managers need to know how much stage space the percussion will take up, they come to you. It teaches to you to be incredibly detailed and to not make mistakes, because those mistakes have exponential knock-on effects. Of course, I made lots of mistakes.
AMATEUR CHOIRS
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I was upfront with the LSO about conducting being The Thing. They were very gracious to take me on despite knowing that orchestral administration was not my ultimate goal, and they gave me quite a bit of flexibility to take on conducting work in the evenings and weekends, around a full time job.
I took on a good amateur chamber choir of serious non-professionals - New Sussex Singers. As I was now used to, this meant lots of travelling on the train down to Sussex in the evenings, running a rehearsal in the evening, getting the train back to London, getting home at about midnight. The fee I received from leading the rehearsal was almost entirely spent on the train fare. Musically, this allowed me my first oratorio experiences, the value being the chance to try things out and make your ill-judged musical decisions somewhere at a level which is good enough to be rewarding to you, but not at a level where mistakes are going to stay with you. |
SETTING UP KANTANTI ENSEMBLE
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For nine years, from 2009-2018, I ran my own chamber orchestra, made up of young players just finishing college and heading out into the profession. We performed in London and in my childhood hometown of Lewes. Running this orchestra could be a presentation in itself, and I'll go into some more detail on this in Act 2, but the practical ways in which it helped me most were:
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LSO YOUTH CHOIRS
Music Director of the LSO Youth Choirs is the only job as a conductor I have ever auditioned for and actually got. As we'll discuss in Act 2, most conducting jobs are not secured this way.
While this was more-of-the-same in terms of building a toolkit of ways to help non-professional musicians achieve results beyond what they would've thought themselves capable, this turned out to be a good way of me showing the LSO, as a larger organisation, that I could actually conduct. More on this idea in Act 2.
While this was more-of-the-same in terms of building a toolkit of ways to help non-professional musicians achieve results beyond what they would've thought themselves capable, this turned out to be a good way of me showing the LSO, as a larger organisation, that I could actually conduct. More on this idea in Act 2.
GLYNDEBOURNE YOUTH OPERA
Given the presence of the Kantanti Ensemble in Lewes, and my work with the LSO's Education department, Glyndebourne Education got in touch to ask me to lead the music element of some of their young people's workshops. This is a very rare instance of an offer of work actually coming to you, because even at this stage, I wasn't aware I had to be going out and hustling for it. So the fact this landed in my lap as an introduction to Glyndebourne was, in retrospect, extremely lucky, but at the time I thought it was just how things worked. (Spoiler: it is not how things work).
This opera education work, in a completely unexpected way, changed my life. By working with stage directors who taught the kids physical awareness, spatial skills, ensemble technique, how to story-tell and convey meaning by subtly manipulating gesture and posture... and by my taking part in the activities and actually doing the things they were doing... neural pathways were built and a physical 'connectedness' (is this a thing?) developed, which was a completely unforeseen added bonus of this work. So my advice as a result of this would be: dance? - do Tai Chi? - or maybe do theatre workshops? Anything which gets you thinking about the specific quality of movement.
This also introduced me to the operatic process. It is a mysterious process that is a combination of convention, assumptions that are never explained, operational good sense but which isn't immediately intuitive, and a thousand other things.
This opera education work, in a completely unexpected way, changed my life. By working with stage directors who taught the kids physical awareness, spatial skills, ensemble technique, how to story-tell and convey meaning by subtly manipulating gesture and posture... and by my taking part in the activities and actually doing the things they were doing... neural pathways were built and a physical 'connectedness' (is this a thing?) developed, which was a completely unforeseen added bonus of this work. So my advice as a result of this would be: dance? - do Tai Chi? - or maybe do theatre workshops? Anything which gets you thinking about the specific quality of movement.
This also introduced me to the operatic process. It is a mysterious process that is a combination of convention, assumptions that are never explained, operational good sense but which isn't immediately intuitive, and a thousand other things.
JUMP-IN FOR VALERY GERGIEV
At a couple of hours' notice, Valery Gergiev (at the time Principal Conductor of the LSO) called the orchestra to say that his plane couldn't take off and that he would miss the first rehearsal for the forthcoming concert.
The orchestra management, knowing that I was Music Director of the LSO Youth Choirs (and in fact, a bass player from the orchestra had deputised at short notice as a player in the Kantanti Ensemble recently, and also vouched for me!), they asked me to conduct the first rehearsal. It was repertoire I knew: Mahler Symphony No 1. It was also, of course, repertoire the orchestra knew rather well too, so there wasn't much actual rehearsing to be done. I do not claim this was the most triumphant Mahler ever, but I managed to not mess it up, and it was good enough for the orchestra to realise I was serious about conducting, and that I wasn't a chancer.
This is the most significant turning point I can identify, as an event which caused the most things to 'start moving' as a result. Orchestras are very risk-averse organisations, but once they have some evidence you can actually do the job, they'll invite you for projects. The real challenge is getting the chance to show them you can do the job - and this stroke of luck was mine.
The orchestra management, knowing that I was Music Director of the LSO Youth Choirs (and in fact, a bass player from the orchestra had deputised at short notice as a player in the Kantanti Ensemble recently, and also vouched for me!), they asked me to conduct the first rehearsal. It was repertoire I knew: Mahler Symphony No 1. It was also, of course, repertoire the orchestra knew rather well too, so there wasn't much actual rehearsing to be done. I do not claim this was the most triumphant Mahler ever, but I managed to not mess it up, and it was good enough for the orchestra to realise I was serious about conducting, and that I wasn't a chancer.
This is the most significant turning point I can identify, as an event which caused the most things to 'start moving' as a result. Orchestras are very risk-averse organisations, but once they have some evidence you can actually do the job, they'll invite you for projects. The real challenge is getting the chance to show them you can do the job - and this stroke of luck was mine.
SMALL LSO PROJECTS AND RECORDINGS
As a result of not messing up the rehearsal jump-in, the orchestra began asking me to lead my own small projects with the orchestra. Initially it was conducting a performance of Copland Appalachian Spring for an Education department day of activities for an audience of children with educational disabilities. Then they asked me to pitch to a client who had approached the orchestra, asking for an arranger and conductor to create orchestrations of some existing music, to be recorded. (Again, this is also not how most jobs are gained!). I was chosen to do that, so I had my first recording sessions.
This chance to work with the LSO was a mixed blessing: on the one hand, yes, it looked superb to have one of the best orchestras in the world on my CV, but on the other, everything sounded amazing without me having to do much. I didn't have to learn as I went along with them how to coax and coach an amazing sound from an orchestra, or how to help things stay better together or better in tune. As I perceived it, 99% of things were immaculate first time, so I didn't have a lot to say.
This chance to work with the LSO was a mixed blessing: on the one hand, yes, it looked superb to have one of the best orchestras in the world on my CV, but on the other, everything sounded amazing without me having to do much. I didn't have to learn as I went along with them how to coax and coach an amazing sound from an orchestra, or how to help things stay better together or better in tune. As I perceived it, 99% of things were immaculate first time, so I didn't have a lot to say.
OTHER ORGANISATIONS' INTEREST
Only at this point did I begin to get the idea that I had to go and introduce myself to other people and other companies in order to get noticed. I was exceptionally bad at it, and exceptionally reluctant to do so. I just assumed that everyone was paying attention to what I was doing and deciding that I wasn't really good enough. That may have been true, I don't know for sure, but the more likely explanation was that they had no idea I existed. Because why would they.
The new developments in work that I was getting were from Education departments - my work at with Glyndebourne Youth Opera was spreading to other opera Education departments far more quickly than my orchestral work was spreading to other orchestras. But in the next few years, I worked with the education departments of English National Opera, Garsington Opera, and the Royal Opera House.
This growth of opera education work was not straightforward, because I was still the LSO's full time Librarian. This is definitely one period of my career progress that I definitely got wrong: I found myself saying no to a lot of this work, for around a year, because I was too wary of leaving the security of full-time paid employment.
The new developments in work that I was getting were from Education departments - my work at with Glyndebourne Youth Opera was spreading to other opera Education departments far more quickly than my orchestral work was spreading to other orchestras. But in the next few years, I worked with the education departments of English National Opera, Garsington Opera, and the Royal Opera House.
This growth of opera education work was not straightforward, because I was still the LSO's full time Librarian. This is definitely one period of my career progress that I definitely got wrong: I found myself saying no to a lot of this work, for around a year, because I was too wary of leaving the security of full-time paid employment.
LSO SCHOOLS' CONCERT
I was offered an LSO Schools' Concert - a concert with the full orchestra for an audience full of 5-7 year-old children. For a number of reasons, this didn't go well.
I didn't really have the time to prepare the repertoire properly. I knew 'how the music went' (whatever that means), but I hadn't really thought at all about how I would conduct it - literally what I would do with my gestures. I was, at this point, trying to meet the demands of the full-time Librarian job, plus give time to the LSO Youth Choirs and the amateur choir in Sussex. There was a lot of travel, not much sleep, and I was making myself ill. I also didn't really appreciate what was required of me to conduct a Rolls-Royce orchestra in a brief rehearsal and a performance.
It functioned. It didn't fall apart, it was fine. But really, no better than fine. I didn't really have headspace to listen to what needed changing, nor the preparation nor tools to try and fix or affect anything; I was a bit limp and hesitant in the rehearsal; it wasn't good music-making.
The LSO didn't offer me any conducting work for three years.
I didn't really have the time to prepare the repertoire properly. I knew 'how the music went' (whatever that means), but I hadn't really thought at all about how I would conduct it - literally what I would do with my gestures. I was, at this point, trying to meet the demands of the full-time Librarian job, plus give time to the LSO Youth Choirs and the amateur choir in Sussex. There was a lot of travel, not much sleep, and I was making myself ill. I also didn't really appreciate what was required of me to conduct a Rolls-Royce orchestra in a brief rehearsal and a performance.
It functioned. It didn't fall apart, it was fine. But really, no better than fine. I didn't really have headspace to listen to what needed changing, nor the preparation nor tools to try and fix or affect anything; I was a bit limp and hesitant in the rehearsal; it wasn't good music-making.
The LSO didn't offer me any conducting work for three years.
DON GIOVANNI AT GLYNDEBOURNE
I had conducted a number of Youth Opera productions at Glyndebourne before a colleague suggested to me the I should write to the head of the music staff there to introduce myself. As I mentioned above, I barely knew this is what you're meant to do, but I did it, he met me, he had just had an Assistant Conductor withdraw from a revival of Don Giovanni the following season, so he offered it to me.
I didn't really know what the job of an Assistant Conductor was. Therefore, I didn't do it especially well.
Getting a full-time opera contract for two and a half months was the thing that pushed me into leaving the job in the LSO Library. I found that having said no to offers of work from opera education departments for a year, they'd mostly stopped asking. I'd got my timing rather spectacularly wrong.
I didn't really know what the job of an Assistant Conductor was. Therefore, I didn't do it especially well.
Getting a full-time opera contract for two and a half months was the thing that pushed me into leaving the job in the LSO Library. I found that having said no to offers of work from opera education departments for a year, they'd mostly stopped asking. I'd got my timing rather spectacularly wrong.
CHOPIN PIANO CONCERTO
My rehabilitation with the LSO was in the form of an outside booking. A recording producer had seen me working with LSO years before, and was looking for a conductor for a new recording of Chopin Piano Concerto No 2. (I'm sure you will stop believing me when I say that work coming to you in this way is really not how it works, and I mention it again here only to point out how ludicrously lucky I was that the wind blew in so many opportunities for me before I'd learned The Hustle'). He booked the LSO, and he booked me to conduct - the LSO didn't choose me, which was crucial.
It was a tricky project, with a very minimal, very pure recording technique, using only one stereo pair, which meant, in order to get any hope of orchestral balance, the pair of microphones had to be placed fairly high, above the piano, which was behind me, and the orchestra wrapped around 270-degrees.
This was tough, but it went okay. They started calling me again.
It was a tricky project, with a very minimal, very pure recording technique, using only one stereo pair, which meant, in order to get any hope of orchestral balance, the pair of microphones had to be placed fairly high, above the piano, which was behind me, and the orchestra wrapped around 270-degrees.
This was tough, but it went okay. They started calling me again.
PLATEAU?
Having said no to job offers for a year, and them having stopped asking me, it took me running out of money and having to move home with my parents before I, at long last, woke up to the idea of writing to people and introducing myself. Now that I had a piece of central repertoire recorded with the LSO, I had something to point them to. Over the next few years, I slowly began to grow the group of organisations I was working with - but this time is characterised by it feeling like something of a plateau: not being able to convince any organisation to give me a public platform. I had some recording projects and some opera education projects, both of which are rewarding, and not to be sniffed at... but I couldn't get any national organisation to take a punt on giving me any higher platform.
This is a short section of this story, but was quite a long and tedious section of my life - maybe three years of treading water?
This is a short section of this story, but was quite a long and tedious section of my life - maybe three years of treading water?
AGENT
A regional company, New Sussex Opera, invited me to conduct a production of Delius A Village Romeo and Juliet. I invited heads of opera houses and orchestras, and almost none came. I invited agents, and some came. One offered to take me on - and this was a hugely lucky thing too: agents usually have 'full books' and aren't in a position to expand their roster without taking on more staff. I happened to get a wonderful agent to come to a regional opera production, at a time when they were in a position to take on new artists, and I was lucky that he liked my work too.
The main reason for mentioning getting signed by an agent here is to debunk some myths: the main benefit of having an agent is not that they do all your hustling for you (you still have to do a lot of hustling yourself), or that suddenly they take on all of the administrative side of your job leaving you free to an indolent life of dropping strawberries into your mouth as you lie in the bath - they don't. The key benefit, at least at first, is professional validation. What having an agent tells prospective employers is: look, this agency, whose future existence is staked on the ongoing quality of my work, thinks I'm good enough for them to risk their livelihoods on. It doesn't mean these employers suddenly start throwing huge opportunities at you, but it means they might not think it such a risk to give you the smaller ones, and once you get your foot in the door, then you get a chance to show them what you can do.
The main reason for mentioning getting signed by an agent here is to debunk some myths: the main benefit of having an agent is not that they do all your hustling for you (you still have to do a lot of hustling yourself), or that suddenly they take on all of the administrative side of your job leaving you free to an indolent life of dropping strawberries into your mouth as you lie in the bath - they don't. The key benefit, at least at first, is professional validation. What having an agent tells prospective employers is: look, this agency, whose future existence is staked on the ongoing quality of my work, thinks I'm good enough for them to risk their livelihoods on. It doesn't mean these employers suddenly start throwing huge opportunities at you, but it means they might not think it such a risk to give you the smaller ones, and once you get your foot in the door, then you get a chance to show them what you can do.
As I mentioned - trying to build a conducting career from the starting point as an Orchestral Librarian is VERY MUCH NOT a conventional way of doing things, and I really had no right to expect it to turn out well. As I hope I've made clear, I had the wind blow a lot of luck my way, and I definitely could have made some better choices along the way.
So what Act 2 is about is trying to pass on some better ideas - some of the things I've picked up along the way that I now believe help to maximise your chances, rather than just hoping as much luck floats by as it did with me.
So what Act 2 is about is trying to pass on some better ideas - some of the things I've picked up along the way that I now believe help to maximise your chances, rather than just hoping as much luck floats by as it did with me.