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Here’s a quick interview with Russell Foster, who is co-presenting our family concert on 27 June, which is taking place as part of See Further – the festival of science and arts, 10 days of events celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. The family concert is inspired by Haydn’s Creation and combines the world’s of music and science to produce an engrossing and fun event for families. More information on the event, which is at the Queen Elizabeth Hall at 4pm, is here.
What do you fear the most?
For the safety of my children – Charlotte, William, Victoria.
Which mobile number do you call the most?
My Wife’s mobile – Elizabeth. She rarely answers!
What – or where – is perfection?
Perfection is subjective and so cannot exist in any substantive way. There is the illusion of perfection and one might feel that some person, object or event is perfect at one moment in time – but alas nothing is truly perfect. Indeed the realisation that nothing can be perfect represents the end of adolescence and the beginning of the management of expectation.
Who is your favourite hero from fiction (book/comic/film/opera) – and why?
Book: Sherlock Holmes – Awesome powers of Reason
Comic: Superman –Awesome powers – and appropriately used
TV: Dr. Who – Awesome powers – and with a sense of humour
Film: James Bond – Awesome powers – and likes a dry martini
Opera: Don Giovanni Awesome powers – very inappropriately used
What’s your favourite ritual?
Christmas
Which living person do you most admire (and why)?
In Public Life: The Queen – Life of dedication and personal self-sacrifice when it would have been so easy to have sat back and abused a privileged position. Has used position for good.
In My Private Life: My wife Elizabeth for putting up with me and being the most honest and decent person I know. Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, Pod Idol is here. At the last Night Shift we asked people to audition to be ‘The Voice of The Night Shift’, i.e. the voice-over for our regular 
Night Shift podcasts. We asked entrants to read out four lines for us:
“Welcome to The Night Shift podcast”
“You’re listening to The Night Shift podcast”
“The Night Shift, the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment’s late night concert series”
“The Night Shift. Classical music, minus the rules”
Thank you to everyone who entered, we were pleasantly surprised at how many of you gave it a go! We’ve now picked our favourites and it’s now down to you, blog readers and Night Shift fans, to pick a winner. Listen to the clips below and then VOTE! We’ll announce the winner on Tuesday 22 June, so you have until then to cast your vote. UPDATE: Voting will close 12 noon, 22 June
Isabelle:
Raul:
Sarah:
Stephanie:
Terrence:
At the last Night Shift we asked the audience to tell us how the concert made them feel by the simple method of handing out sheets of A3 paper and fat pens. The idea was that everyone would then be photographed with their sheet – unfortunately the photography part of the idea didn’t quite go to plan, and we ended up with a large pile of sheets handed in to us at our desk – but we did get *some* people with their comments. Here’s a selection – you can view all of them on our Flickr page. All pics are by Joe Plommer.
Tonight made me feel…
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- We’re not sure this one was entirely serious…
Here’s a selection of pics from our last Night Shift event which was at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 25 May. Support for the evening came from Firefly, while the main concert featured the Orchestra playing Beethoven’s Symphony 6, with our Melgaard Young Conductor Eduardo Portal at the helm, making his public debut with us. We wrapped things up with a set from DJ Nick Luscombe. We’ll have more pics and our Night Shift ‘Pod Idol’ competition on here very soon, and if you’re a Night Shift fan keep an eye on the website as we will be announcing our special summer event in the next few weeks. All pics here are by Joe Plommer, and you can view the full gallery of pics here.
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- Firefly on stage
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- Firefly
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- Firefly
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- Alistair Appleton talks to Matthew Truscott
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- Alistair Appleton talks to Eduardo Portal
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- Horns
Yes, the words of a Girls Aloud song and also something I re-discovered on our trip to Poissy last week. We were in Poissy for a concert performance of Cosi fan Tutte, under the baton of James Gaffigan. I kind of knew already that my French wasn’t entirely up to scratch and had been palming off all my French e-mails and telephone conversations over the last few weeks leading up to the trip to Megan, (who is perfectly fluent), but like the go-getter I am I decided to give the French a go – and be prepared to face the very embarrassing consequences. This did get me thinking though. Perhaps someone should write an idiots Orchestra Tours Manager Guide in the most popular European languages? Perhaps the not-so helpful ‘Computer says no’ staff at the Holiday Inn Gare l’est would have been more helpful if I could have sweet talked them in the language of Lurve???
Here is a list of some phrases I made use of and also some that I could do with some help on… Read the rest of this entry »
As evidenced by this, spotted in the Edinburgh Branch of Harvey Nichols.
A few weeks ago office staff at the OAE indulged in one of the rather nice perks of working here, a chance to go to a final rehearsal at 
Glyndebourne, together with associated picnic. It’s very efficiently organised (the picnic) with spreadsheets being drawn up and each person being alloted a specific type of dish to bring. As usual it took place under overcast skies but it wouldn’t be the same if it were full sun…
We saw the final rehersal of Cosi fan Tutte. A final rehearsal is pretty much like a performance, apart from the audience (and Orchestra, come to think of it) being dress in mufti rather than dolled up in DJ’s. The performance was great, and below you can hear members of the office talking about the production and their Glyndebourne experience.
Our new brochure arrived in the office last week, which is always an exciting moment. Personally I have mixed feelings about it arriving – it’s 
exciting to see the finished product after several months working on it, but it’s always slightly scary looking at it, for fear of spotting a mistake which you hadn’t seen before it went to print. I’ve already spotted one small but annoying thing…
Anyway, it will be posted out to Friends of the OAE and regular bookers in the next few weeks, but if you can’t wait that long then here is a nifty flippable version for your perusal and viewing pleasure. No prizes for guessing the top selling concert of the season!
William Norris, Marketing Director
So here’s our very last gaffer tape pic, and it’s a little different from the rest, featuring as it does not players, but staff. We had intended to use it in our ‘Supporters brochure’, which is an expanded version which goes out to Friends and Supporters of the Orchestra, but in the event we had so many great pictures of players we couldn’t even fit all of them in, let alone office staff! Anyway, here we are in all our glory, from left to right: Isabelle Tawil, Development Officer, William Norris, Marketing Director, Ceri Jones, Projects Director and Natalie Chivers, Education and Administration Officer.
This morning we have Antony Pay, clarinet and Roger Montgomery, horn.
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