Edinburgh (and back) in 60 seconds

A few weeks ago we  took a vast (by OAE standards) orchestra  up to Edinburgh for a programme of Weber, Mendelssohn and Liszt with conductor Vladimir Jurowski and violinist Alina Ibragimova. We appeared as part of the International Festival and were in a city for a total of 19 hours, including sleeping time – very much a whistle-stop trip! However for our latest video we have condensed the trip a little for you – the whole tour, there and back, in just 60 seconds…

Megan’s Alphabet Challenge (AKA the A-Z of touring)

While on tour in Holland earlier this year we set OAE Projects Manager Megan Russell a challenge. She’d taken our little camera with her to take footage – but could she somehow find a complete A-Z of things in the tour?

Here’s the result, and we have to admit that its one of our favourite videos. Particular highlights include E for Enclosing Dyke and B for ‘is it Broken?’…

Enjoy!

Audience reaction: Sir Simon Rattle and the Labèque Sisters

As you may just have noticed from this blog, one of the highlights of our year so far has been our tour with Sir Simon Rattle and Katia and Marielle Labèque. After concerts in Luxembourg, Paris and Dublin, the tour culminated in a sold-out show at the Royal Festival Hall. Our intrepid camera-man Zen caught up with you after the show to find out what you thought. Sadly our celebrity guest Madonna (did we mention she came?) slipped out a little early so we didn’t get her thoughts on camera…

Behind the scenes at The Night Shift

Here’s a new little video with behind-the scenes footage from our last Night Shift at Village Underground in Shoreditch, including rehearsal footage and interviews with players. You also get to see how just much fun we had trying to get a taxi at half past midnight on very rainy Friday evening…

Night Shift fans might like to know that we have two events coming up in September – a ‘mini’ event on 8 September (more details soon) and a full-scale event on 29 September.

OAE players on Rinaldo

We’re currently mid-way through the run of Rinaldo at Glyndebourne, and in this video OAE players talk about the Orchestra, their instruments and the opera – plus there’s special footage of rehearsals and the production.

Creating Rinaldo: The Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment at Glyndebourne from Glyndebourne on Vimeo.

Jurowski on Don Giovanni

The OAE is currently in the middle of a run of Don Giovanni at Glyndebourne, the first of two operas we are performing there this season (the other being Rinaldo). The production of Don Giovanni premiered last summer when it was conducted by our Principal Artist and Glyndebourne Music Director Vladimir Juorwski. This season Robin Ticciati has taken over conducting duties, but we thought you might still be interested in this video from Glyndebourne in which Vladimir talks about the opera and which also includes some exclusive rehearsal footage.

Handel: What’s the appeal?

In this latest video OAE violinist and musicologist Roy Mowatt explores what gives Handel’s music its mass, immediate appeal:

 

Join us tomorrow for A celebration of Handel, live at the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

The Night Shift: Roy Goodman on Schubert

Next week we have the latest in our series of late-night Night Shift events. We caught up with conductor Roy Goodman after yesterday’s rehearsal to ask him about the symphony featured in the concert, Schubert’s Symphony No.4, Tragic.  Find out more about the event here.

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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 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.