Sights and sounds of BBC Proms in the North East
Mixing up the music
The music goes on at all three participating venues – of course it does - and the BBC Proms doesn’t actually end until the famous Last Night on September 12. But in the North East, that’s it for another year.
The presenters, the technicians and the BBC vans have moved on, the banners and logos been put away.
What has the BBC ever done for me? (Or us?)
That’s the question being asked (rather relentlessly, it has to be said) as it campaigns for continued public funding ahead of charter renewal at the end of next year.
Well, one thing it does is the BBC Proms and by embracing the regions this musical national institution effects a sense of togetherness.
An excellent concert in Sage Two at The Glasshouse is, more often than not, an experience shared by the people who were there.
With a BBC Proms concert in Sage Two, you hear the presenter speak to a much wider (invisible) audience.
To hear the same concert later on the radio or BBC Sounds brings home the sense that the whole nation (and beyond, potentially) was focused on that moment in Gateshead.
And you (we) were there!
As with all broadcasting, authenticity has a veneer of artificiality, the mood somewhat manufactured even if the excitement is genuine.
You’re asked for applause (but not too much, as the presenter gently admonished his exuberant Gateshead audience in a practice ahead of the performance of Morton Feldman’s laid back, minimalist composition, Crippled Symmetry).
You’re asked to ensure you’re sitting comfortably (Crippled Symmetry is 90 minutes, no interval) and to double, triple check phones are off. You are allowed to breathe – which is a relief.
The presenter’s amiable alertness, addressing us while attuned to a producer’s voice we can’t hear, transmits urgency and a sense of occasion.
Even the BBC’s recently appointed director general, Matt Brittin, was in the building on Friday, as was his predecessor at The Fire Station last year, Tim Davie sounding a little embattled.
All the photos you see here were taken by Thomas Jackson of TyneSight Media who saw most things and can be forgiven for failing to be in two places at once on opening night.
That was Thursday (July 23) when Thomas and his gear were at Middlesbrough Town Hall – a welcome newcomer to the BBC Proms strand in the North East – where The Unthanks and friends were on stage with the busy musicians of Royal Northern Sinfonia (RNS).
We heard fabulous reports of this gig although Conor O’Brien, the Villagers front man and one of the billed ‘special guests’, had to withdraw because of family illness.
It was a blend of old and new, compositions by Johnny Handle and Michael Tippett in the mix with indie band English Teacher, fronted by Lily Fontaine, and North East singer-songwriter Jodie Nicholson performing her wonderfully hypnotic Move.
Rachel and Becky Unthank pounded rhythms with their clogs on while Phil Selway, of Radiohead fame, took up sticks to do likewise at his signature drum kit.
And integral to all of it was the RNS with conductor Ellie Slorach brilliantly bridging any perceived gap between classical and contemporary.
Thomas was there so couldn’t be at The Glasshouse where BBC Introducing was Live at the Proms with presenter Shakk and a line-up comprising AFTK, Maddie Ashman and corto.alto.
Their time will come.
And so, perhaps, will other beneficiaries of BBC Proms in the North East, the young musicians (aged 12 to 18) who had signed up to attend a composers’ workshop held in Middlesbrough earlier in the day.
Friday saw two very different concerts at The Glasshouse and Thomas was there with his camera to catch the drama and every visual nuance.
RNS music director Dinis Sousa (on piano and celeste) and orchestra members Helena Gourd (flute and bass flute) and Jude Carlton (glockenspiel and vibraphone) gave a centenary performance of the Morton Feldman piece.
You could call it self-indulgent but it was a proper musical event, something rarely performed and requiring supreme concentration from the performers and a zen-like state from an audience in for the long haul.
You needed to buy in to it, to be prepared to savour each stitched note and repetition of a piece supposedly inspired by the patterns in the Turkish rugs the composer collected.
It’s to be broadcast on BBC Radio 3 at 8.15pm on August 11 and I’d recommend you relax in the dark to listen, emptying your mind as far as possible. A glass of wine might help.
The applause in Sage Two was thunderous and unprompted by BBC staff with headphones.
After a short pause there was a very different musical experience to be had on the concourse, standing in for Sage One which is closed for updating and refurbishment.
The band Knats performed an exuberant opening set, testing the acoustic with drums, guitar, keyboards and brass – and with red-bearded wordsmith Cooper Robson up front.
After a pause came North East indie-rock heroine Nadine Shah to entertain a sizeable crowd of her devoted fans.
An angular figure in black, she worked through numbers such as Aching Bones, Topless Mother and Stealing Cars arranged for orchestral accompaniment.
I’ll be honest, from up above the view was great but most of the words were lost in this rather unorthodox setting.
The most astute fans had gathered in front of the stage (backs to the glass and its view over the Tyne). But they will have missed the sight of the RNS players letting their hair down a tad and conductor Ellie Slorach seeming to have the best time of anyone.
The concourse was pressed into service again on Saturday afternoon where the massed choirs gathered – the BBC Singers, the Chorus of RNS and, also based in this building, Voices of the River’s Edge (VOTRE).
Sofi Jeannin, Swedish-born singer and conductor of the BBC Singers, led the choir in a wide-ranging programme embracing the 11th Century Hildegard of Bingen and the popular baritone Roderick Williams whose BBC commission Never weather-beaten sail received its world premiere performance.
The finale was a performance of Alfred Schnittke’s 1984 Concerto for Choir.
Also performing was Jess Gillam whose solo sax accompaniment added to the concert’s distinctive air.
Mozart and Mendelssohn, those giants of the classical music repertoire, paraded their genius in the concluding North East Proms concert at The Fire Station in Sunderland with the help of Norwegian pianist Christian Ihle Hadland and the RNS directed by Maria Włoszczowska.
It was described as a programme of musical innovations and provocations with Polish composer Grazyna Bacewicz’s Divertimento for String Orchestra (a short but complex piece from 1965) paving the way for Mendelssohn’s Concerto for Violin, Piano and Strings in D minor.
The second half was devoted to Mozart’s much loved Symphony No. 39 in E flat major, one of the three symphonies he composed in quick succession towards the end of his life.
And that was it… except if you switched on the TV on Sunday night you will have seen Gateshead-born John Wilson and his acclaimed Sinfonia of London performing a fantastic concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
It was a recording of concert which took place on Friday evening while Nadine and friends were ripping it up in The Glasshouse.
You can still see that on iPlayer and catch the North East concerts either on BBC Radio 3 or BBC Sounds. Check the BBC Proms website for details.