Lunchtime with the OAE

St George's, Bristol - venue for our lunchtime concerts

One of the recurring fixtures in the OAE’s diary is our annual series of lunchtime concerts at St George’s, Bristol, one of our most regular venues out of London.

There are usually four lunchtime concerts in the series, given by the soloists of the Orchestra, which then go on to be broadcast by BBC Radio 3, and are also often performed elsewhere too – for example as part of our recent Baroque. Contrasted. festival at Kings Place. Indeed, if you scroll down to our April postings you’ll find some info on the composers featured – one example here.

The most recent set of these concerts is being broadcast this week by BBC Radio 3, and the music includes pieces by well known Baroque names such as Bach and Handel, alongside some real rarities. Of course, though they’re broadcast at lunchtime, through the BBC’s Listen Again feature you can listen anytime within a week after the broadcast date.

The BBC also produced a short film to accompany the concerts which features rehearsal footage plus interviews with musicians Margaret Faultless (violin) and Steven Devine (keyboard)

The programmes are being broadcast at 1pm Tuesday to Friday this week, and you can listen to them on the links below:

Tuesday – Refelctions on the Grand Tour – music for Cornetts and Sackbuts
Wednesday – Bach, Handel and Purcell – Wind soloists of the OAE
Thursday – Vivaldi and Corelli – String soloists of the OAE
Friday – Handel, Vivaldi and Coreli – Wind and String soloists of the OAE

There’s nothing interesting happening today

At lunchtime today my colleague Megan produced 10 metres of hand-made bunting from her bag (as you do). We were all pretty impressed with it and immediately started to put it up in the office. While we were doing this my colleague Zen starting filming and taking pictures – I remarked that it would be great to get some pictures for the blog as ‘there’s nothing else interesting going on today to put on there’. At this point Megan remarked to me that in fact there was a 50 piece orchestra rehearsing two floors below us and that was maybe quite interesting.

Of course she’s right.  Its amazing how quickly something like that becomes routine and ordinary, and you have to be reminded how special it is. After lunch I took the escalator down to level -2 here at Kings Place to listen to the Orchestra, conductor Roy Goodman and pianist Artur Pizzaro rehearse Beethoven’s 4th Piano Concerto. Lovely as Megan’s bunting is, listening to the OAE play Beethoven is always going to trump most things. Here are pics of both bunting and rehearsal.

William Norris, Communications Director

Baroque. Contrasted: Vox Pops

Well I think we’re just about recovered from our Baroque. Contrasted. festival which we held at Kings Place the other week. It was certainly a pretty intense week, particularly for those who were here every day and night for five days! We had some great concerts, workshops and events, and trying to force myself to be a tenor in our Sing Baroque! event (I’m really a bass) was a particular highlight interesting moment for me…

It was great though to see so many people turn out for this event and for our Baroque from Scratch session(for amateur instrumentalists) too – we’re pretty sure to plan more events like this, together with our inreasingly popular TOTS concerts.

Anyway, after some of the concerts we caught up with you to find out what you thought – here’s what you said. Thanks to all for coming!

William Norris, Communications Director

OAE Brass on ‘In Tune’

On Wednesday evening brass soloists of the OAE appeared on Radio 3′s In Tune programme, ahead of their concert this evening at Kings Place. While on the programme they played some of the music featured in the concert and also talked to host Petroc Trelawny about it and their instruments. You can view a picture of them in the studio here. As you’ll see, a rogue percussionist sneaked in…You can listen to us on the programme here - it’s about 14.30 into the show. Join them tonight at Kings Place to hear the concert (8.45pm) – and there’s even a free performance afterwards, in the brass section’s natural habitat – the bar.

Caption Competition: Tell us why Zen isn’t looking very, er, Zen and win tickets to Baroque. Contrasted.

When we did our ‘Green’ picture a while back we saw afterwards that on one of the shots we took our Digital Content Officer, Zen, had a particularly angry/shocked expression on his face…unusual for him given that, as his name suggests, he’s a particularly calm person.

Anyway – what do you think is on the piece of paper he seems to be reading? Or, what’s he thinking of saying? Post your suggestions here and our favourites will receive a pair of tickets to their choice of one of the following events this weekend at Kings Place:

Saturday 9 April at 12.30pm: Sing Baroque! Join OAE Co-Principal Keyboard Steven Devine to sing music by Purcell

Sunday 10 April at 11.30am: Coffee Concert with the OAE Experience Ensemble, directed by Alison Bury – music by Telemann, Boyce, Purcell and Handel.

Deadline for entries is 9pm tomorrow evening.

Baroque. Contrasted: final Daily Trivia

It’s the last day of our hugely exciting trivia section… *sob*

Here are the final titbits for your musical pleasure:

Johann Hermann Schein (1586-1630) was a German composer of the early Baroque era and was afflicted with poor health- his wife died in childbirth; four of his five children died in infancy; he died at age 44, having suffered from tuberculosis, gout, scurvy and a kidney disorder.

Hugh Aston (1485-1558) was an English composer of the early Tudor period. His initial salary at The Newarke (a musical institution in Leicester) was £10 a year, only £2 a year less than that of the Dean. Listen to his Hornpype (which we’re playing on Friday) here.

William Brade (1560-1630) was an English composer, violinist, and viol player of the late Renaissance and early Baroque eras and liked to change jobs frequently- during his career, he moved 13 times!

If you’d like to hear more music from these composers, why not try one of our hour-long concerts at Kings Place?

Concerts start tomorrow night from 6.45pm and more details can be found on our website.

Matthew Truscott on Purcell’s emotional depths and Handel’s borderline smugness

Now you get to hear from a player rather than just office bods! In this latest vid OAE leader Matthew Truscott talks about the concert he has devised and is directing at Kings Place on 9 April, – a programme which features Purcell, Bach and Handel, including how the concert fits into the Baroque. Contrasted. theme of the festival.

Next up, another round of Baroque trivia.

Baroque. Contrasted: Daily Trivia 3

As promised, here’s another dose of daily trivia for you, featuring some of the lesser known composers we’ll be showcasing this week at Kings Place:

Biagio Marini (1594-1663) was an Italian virtuoso violinist and composer of the first half of the seventeenth century who married three times and had five children.  He was the first composer to notate tremolo (trembling) effects into his music.

Francisco Correa de Araujo (1584-1654) was a notable Spanish organist, composer, and theorist of the late Renaissance as well as a priest.

Orlando di Lasso (1532-1594), a Franco-Flemish composer of the late Renaissance, was rumoured to have been kidnapped three times because of the singular beauty of his singing voice.

More random facts tomorrow!

OAE staff natter about Baroque. Contrasted.

We let three OAE office staff loose on camera to talk about our concerts at Kings Place this week – and here are the results. There is some logic to this as the staff have all been closely involved not just with co-ordinating running and marketing the events but also with devising some of the more unusual events, such as Barqoue from Scratch and Sing Baroque! Have a watch and do come along this week – and if you recognise us from the video do come and say hello! Next up is another video with OAE leader Matthew Truscott talking about the programme of Bach, Purcell and Handel he has devised for the festival.

Baroque. Contrasted: Daily Trivia 2

Some more baroque trivia in the run up to our concerts at Kings Place this week. You can hear music from all the composers featured during our hour-long concerts this Thursday and Friday.

Tarquinio Merula (1594/5-1665) got into trouble with some of his students at a musical institution in Bergamo, and was charged with indecency. Listen to his Chiacona which features in Thursday’s concert

Giovanni Zamboni – whose exact dates are unknown –  was an accomplished composer for the theorbo as well as a jewel-maker and fine swordsman!

Bendinelli (1542-1617) was the author of the first known course of published trumpet lessons, Tutta L’arte Della Trombetta which gathered together the earliest known pieces for the clarino (higher) register, dating from 1584-88.

More trivia tomorrow, and we’ll be testing you all on Saturday!