The day included the chance to watch Sir Mark, Music Director rehearse with the Hallé Orchestra and Choir, as well as get involved in musical discussions. Find out more about the day in the music departments' blog.
Students who attended, shared their experiences of the day:
"I thoroughly enjoyed the study day. We attended the rehearsal of John Adams` “Harmonium” and Beathoven`s Symphony No.3, “Eroica”, two contrasting, large orchestral compositions. Harmonium is a `minimalist` piece, using a choir of 150 voices of all ranges, five percussionists, and (it seemed) no two instruments played the same as another for a good deal of the time. The constantly changing tempo was challenging for the conductor, orchestra and choir, with alternating consonnant and disconsonnant sounds.
The magnificant Eroica sounded almost ordinary in comparison, but perhaps Beethoven`s innovative development of connected movements for his Symphony paved the way for such contemporary music as “Harmonium” to be enjoyed today.
A preliminary brief analysis of both pieces of music was extremely helpful, before witnessing how a conductor puts a real orchestra through its paces. Coming at the point where timbre, individual instrument sound, and combination of them is being studied, the experience is particularly valid. A cheap ticket to the evening concert added to a most enjoyable and fruitful day."
"Very interesting day, thoroughly enjoyable. I understand the original intention was to seat us in front of the conductor which would have been great. However, with such a large choir we were seated behind him which made it difficult to hear his comments/instructions. Even so, it was a very rewarding day and introduced me to John Adams which I now can’t stop playing!"
"Enjoyed the day. I'm an experienced orchestral player so the rehearsal aspect was familiar but enjoyed the contrasting pieces. Most useful bit was hearing analysis of the two pieces as given me lots of hints on how to do this, something I think we are all struggling with in the early stages."
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