London’s Wigmore Hall built in 1901 has become the United Kingdom’s leading centre for chamber music and song. Throughout its life, it has launched careers of many musicians and singers.
Past Wigmore Hall performers that spring to mind include soprano, Elizabeth Schwarzkopf, cellist Jacqueline du Pré, the Takacs Quartet, and the Australian Chamber Orchestra.
Classical chamber music globally has an exclusive, highbrow and over forties reputation. When people think of its repertory, they often think of traditional works such as Beethoven string quartets, Brahms piano trios and Schubert Lieder. In doing so, they forget that chamber music can be vibrant, sexy and sensuous. Just listen to Janacek’s string quartets or Astor Piazzolla’s romantic tangos that ooze romantic and sexual energies.
How one continues to ensure the relevancy and vibrancy of chamber music is a challenge that Wigmore Hall’s new artistic director, Paul Kildea is tackling head on.
In June, Wigmore Hall will close for about five months, so renovations can be made to the century old building to meet 21st-century needs.
To meet the cost of the £3 million renovation, Wigmore Hall has undertaken a long-term capital appeal. Before its October 2003 launch, over £2.4 million in donations had already been pledged.
Wigmore Hall’s Executive Director, John Gilhooly says, ‘these generous donors appreciate the Hall’s musical values which are at the heart of everything we do. They also know that their money will be wisely spent. Wigmore Hall is run as a charitable trust with a financial policy of break-even or better. Currently, less than a little more than 10% of our funding comes from public sources.’
Gilhooly explains why the renovations are needed, ‘we just want to make sure that we have proper lighting and air-conditioning and all the things which one would expect in a modern auditorium for our 400 events a year. We have a perfect recital hall. However, sometimes it is a little bit too cold and warm and the seats have been there for 40 years. If Paul Kildea wants to expand his artistic programme into the summer months, it is difficult as the heat in the hall is unbearable in July and August. We also need to meet artist expectations. There are good backstage facilities and lighting. Sometimes the pianist tells us that there are distracting shadows on the keyboard. So, it’s all about rectifying the things that go with an Edwardian building and making sure we are confident and ready to face the future.’
In Perth, Western Australia in the 2004 UWA Perth International Arts Festival’s ‘Wigmore Series’, a new four-year artistic relationship will be launched between Wigmore Hall and the Festival.
While that is so, Kildea explains, ‘it’s a relationship built around a professional and collegial relationship between Perth Festival’s Artistic Director, Lindy Hume and myself which dates back a number of years. When Lindy was first interested in Perth and was putting her mind about what she would do if she got the job. We had discussions early on and funnily at the same time, I was doing the same about Wigmore.
‘Then, she and I got our respective positions in a week between each other and the conversations we had were put in force. Lindy was adamant that music was an integral part of the Perth Festival and that she wanted to continue it. From Wigmore’s point of view, I was very keen to make the brand slightly more portable. To date it’s been very linked to the building in Wigmore Street, London. It was my desire to move some of our programming outside of London and indeed, we’re going to be doing that over the next few years. The opportunity to try this out and to do it with someone like Lindy at Perth was something too good to refuse!’
Kildea’s Wigmore Series as well as creating diverse programmes of chamber music is attempting to break down chamber music’s barriers.
Perth Festival’s Artistic Director, Lindy Hume says, ‘Paul and I are interested in seeing chamber music in a whole variety of venues with all sorts of music. I don’t see chamber music and jazz, for example as being mutually exclusive. They’re the same thing; it’s about the intimacy, the nuance and personalities making the phrases. I think what I was keen to do with using different venues was to avoid a kind of train-spotting audience. With a chamber music festival based around one or two venues, it became a kind of a club and that it’s not. Chamber music is quite literally sexy and versatile. We wanted to make the concerts appropriate to the venues and that’s what’s happened.’
2004’s Perth Festival’s theme is all about journey and is one that Kildea has incorporated into his programming, whilst avoiding the predictable works of journey, such as Schubert’s deeply moving song-cycle Winterreise.
Kildea says, ‘I did want to avoid that, so I then started thinking about what journey is in 19th and 20th century music and interpreted accordingly. For me, it was just more interesting to view different aspects of that. If you look at something like Messiaen’s Harawi for instance, I had brought soprano, Gweneth Ann Jeffers to perform that at the Aldeburgh Festival before and she was just amazing. However, she has never performed it with the French pianist, Cédric Tiberghien before and Cédric had never performed Harawi before. He’s especially learning it for Gwen and it’s monumental. With some people I knew what repertory they had and other people I knew I could twist their arm to add new works to their repertory, and that is what I think the whole festival is about.’
Kildea explains, ‘it’s going to be much easier in future years, because Wigmore Hall’s programming is done so much further ahead. However, we do have key elements of the 2004 Perth Festival coming back to Wigmore Hall during the year. For example, Messiaen’s Harawi that Cédric is performing with Gwen and things like that, and the Cremonas are eventually coming to Wigmore. But, it’s not easy for us to market the Wigmore – Perth partnership.’
‘In future years, we are going to take far more of a mirror from the Perth programming and importing it more wholesale into Wigmore as the ‘Wigmore – Perth Series’, so, it’s reciprocal. It gives us the opportunity for the Australian musicians that we work with in Perth to come and perform in Wigmore and for us to celebrate this link. So, it’s not just one-sided. For instance when I was having conversations with the composer and violist, Brett Dean about various programming ideas, it was very much with an eye on when it could happen at Wigmore, as much as when it can happen in Perth.’
In October 2004 when Wigmore Hall reopens, Paul Kildea’s artistic programming will kick in.
Kildea says, ‘in October when we reopen we will have an eight day festival which is most unusual. Wigmore Hall usually tends to spread its programming and festivals over a longer period. But, I have decided that I really want people to be able to get into the hall very soon after renovations and enjoy being part of it.’
‘The festival will have a very strong French background with French artists which is coincidental, rather than by design. The key thing is that Wigmore Hall has commissioned a new song cycle from the French-Argentinean composer, Oscar Strasnoy written for mezzo-soprano, Ann Murray who will perform it. We also have Mahler’s Das Lied von der Erde in the Schoenberg reduction with Australian tenor, Steve Davislim. The key thing with programming at Wigmore is that we have to engage more fully with music of our own time. We will also have these wonderful one-hour Sunday afternoon slots. The first one will feature Messiaen’s Harawi with Gwen and Cédric and then the second one, to sort of close this festival will be with the wonderful soprano, Lisa Milnes who’s going to sing an hour of Jacques Brel in arrangement.’
As Kildea has remarked, there’s a need at Wigmore Hall for engagement with music of our own times.
He explains why that’s so, ‘it’s partly that Wigmore has focussed on the great music from the 18th and 19th centuries and to a lesser extent the 17th and 20th century. It’s my conviction that we have to expand and engage with our own music, or otherwise it’s false. It’s a museum attitude that we just venerate music from previous generations and take no responsibility for future centuries. Former director, William Lyne did commission, but I want to put commissioning at the forefront of what we do and that in some ways turns the clock back 60 years when Britten and Tippett were having premieres at Wigmore annually.’
Concert life is only just one part of Wigmore Hall’s operations. Since 1994, Wigmore Hall has had education and community outreach programmes. As part of those programmes they present activities with schools, workshops, family concerts, outreach projects and study events.
Gilhooly says, ‘it started off quickly and successfully because of one of our first programmes, Chamber Tots for the under fives, which sells out at a drop of a hat. We have expanded our work so that it includes all age groups. We are also looking at issues of social barriers and cultural diversity, especially with people who have barriers to reaching their full potential. We are doing this as it’s very important that we don’t just service our concert-going public. Our community and education programmes have to bring chamber music to people other than those who naturally gravitate to Wigmore Hall.’
Paul Kildea’s passions and energies aren’t exclusive to music programming. One new project he’s started at Wigmore Hall is the Wigmore Young Artists Scheme.
Kildea explains his reasoning, ‘there are so many young artists and young artist programmes. Wigmore has specialised in it as a debut house. My idea was that I wanted to streamline what we do with young artists, so that people really know if it’s a young artist coming up at Wigmore that it’s really is something that is fantastic, rather than one of the many talented young artists looking for opportunities in London at the moment.’
‘To be honest it was built up around the baritone who’s going to be the first of the Wigmore artists. I first heard him sing in Cambridge last February and he amazed me. I met him afterwards and said, “what are you doing next?” and he said, “I don’t know, I’ve got to earn a living and the rest.” So, it was partly a way of coming up with a scheme by which he was supported, where I could coach him and advise him on repertory and put him in touch with the great singers that come through Wigmore.’
Before Kildea’s appointment as Wigmore Hall’s artistic director, he was Head of Music at Aldeburgh where he created a huge number of educational projects.
Kildea explains, ‘if for example I am programming a series of concerts with our resident string quartet, the Belcea Quartet, such as the Szymanowski series in 2005. Straight away, I come up with thought about how we can turn this into an education project as well. Do we look at North African music and see how we can use that in our local school, the universities or do we look at Birkbeck College, University of London with whom we have a relationship. It’s a very natural way of thinking for me. So, it’s not the case of alright here is the programme and now go and sort out an education project that will satisfy school and funding projects. Education is an integral part of the artistic programming.’
Audiences and their demographic mix often shape how a classical music organisation can operate.
‘At Wigmore Hall we define ‘young people’ as under 40 here, because that’s the audience we want to attract, but we don’t want to take away from our existing audience either. At the moment, we have quite a good mix and there’s not one single audience. There are various audiences, there’s an audience for early music, which is slightly younger, there’s an audience for chamber music, there’s an audience who’s only interested in string quartets, you have some people who are interested in a little bit of everything and a very definite audience of people who are interested in song,’ says Gilhooly.
In the not too distant future Wigmore Hall hopes to tour its artists and programmes around other parts of the United Kingdom.
Gilhooly remarks, ‘it’s something we are looking into at the moment and it’s very much part of our refocussing as the national concert hall. We believe that we have such a brand that can be transported to all parts of the UK and that people will follow that. I think the same will go for our community and education work. ‘
Kildea further explains, ‘the Arts Council of Britain is very supportive of the idea that really good creative ensemble life should exist outside of London. The Wigmore brand is a strong and portable one. Chamber music is relatively inexpensive to tour compared to other forms of music and genres. It seems to me for those reasons and with the sort of abdication of artistic responsibility from many of the organisations outside of London, that the time is ripe for a touring branch of Wigmore to be explored and instigated. We have to all take steps to make sure that Wigmore Hall is seen as the centre of peoples’ imagination, but that it also is an inclusive place and not just an exclusive place for Londoners and the cognoscenti.’
An issue that burns strongly in Kildea’s mind is the importance for him and his audiences to take on risks and to create a culture that supports different and new musics.
‘To me in the arts, there’s such a lot of hanging around and waiting for someone to make a decision or someone else to make a proclamation. Everyone’s too scared to say, “Wow that’s great!” What I love about Brian McMasters, Edinburgh Festival’s Director is that he’ll say “We’re doing this” and then ring me to say, “Well, that was a f***ing mess” and to say, “there it is I got it wrong” and that is my way of thinking. I am so happy to put my hand up to say “that didn’t work” or “we got it wrong.” You will not catch me waiting around to see what someone else says about an artist or a composer,” remarks Kildea.
Risk taking admittedly sometimes is limited by the will of an organisation’s board or its box office dependency.
Kildea says, ‘at Wigmore Hall, I am artistic director and I do have budgetary controls that I have to worry about. One can’t separate the art from how we pay for it. It’s nice to know that there are mechanisms in place where you can take risks, if you know that you are going to recoup some of it after, on more safe programming. The worst thing in the world is to get into the spiral where you take no risks, because you just love the financial rewards of the safe programming. Because then, when ten years later you want to do something unusual or risky, you don’t have the audience. No one is there for it, because the audiences haven’t been broadened.’
‘I do feel sorry for countries or organisations that are really constrained by audience. Thank God we still have a wide audience in the United Kingdom.’
Wigmore Hall with its renovations and the arrival of some new and exciting musical ideas from Paul Kildea is going to become a different concert hall. While there appears to be a lot of change in the air, traditional programmes such as Beethoven sonatas, Schubert Lieder recitals and Brahms piano trios with Wigmore Hall’s popular artists will continue. Kildea hopes that over time those audiences will also join him on the journey to revel in his dreams and discoveries.
