Philippa Davidson describes how inner city children and the London Symphony Orchestra put on a world premire. A group of children from four Hackney schools joined 10 members of the London Symphony Orchestra on stage at the Barbican Hall for the world premi re of The Red Hot Nail by composer Judith Bingham. The work was the starting point for the orchestra’s latest education project which involved more than 300 children from the borough.
Throughout the autumn term children worked with their teachers and members of the orchestra to produce their own pieces which were woven into a framework performed by the professional musicians. The Red Hot Nail concerns gypsies and other minority groups constantly under pressure from society to be on the move. Two folktales are cleverly intertwined, with the orchestra’s music depicting the Romany legend about Serbian gypsies who are said to have forged the nails which held Christ to the cross. (Three were used, the fourth - the red hot nail - still pursues them).
In a travelling sequence which recurs six times, the orchestral players move around the stage. The children composed their interlude music around “The Broken Beads”, a gruesome tale reminiscent of Dracula in which a young wife is saved from her dead husband’s ghost by her mother’s magic necklace. They also joined in the Travelling Music and sang the final song.
The Red Hot Nail was commissioned and conducted by the LSO’s music animateur Richard McNicol. He wanted the work to have a message that would reflect the concerns of inner city children, but although the themes of intolerance and displacement were important, the commission had turned out to be “simple, direct and unpretentious”. It has some “gift” ingredients for an education project - repeated phrases, rhythms, riffs and modes. The idea is that the children use the same skills as the players so that they have part-ownership of the music.
Judith Bingham’s first experience of working in education was when her piece Chartres became the starting point for a BBC Philharmonic project in Manchester. “When I was asked to write a piece about displacement I was puzzled as to how to tackle this. Then I remembered my travels in Eastern Europe and the bloodcurdling Romany folktales I had heard”. It seemed to her that these would work both as stories that could be dramatised and as a means of conveying a political message, ideally suited to her “gothic fantasy” style of composing. “The most fascinating aspect for me has been seeing how the preliminary work has developed and how you can involve children of different abilities”.
Alison Kriel is deputy headteacher at Gayhurst Junior School. “Having the musicians in school was the best music education possible. They (Belinda McFarlane - violin and Patrick Lawrence - double bass) helped the children shape their ideas and talked about the role of an orchestral player and what to expect from the Barbican. Belinda took the children round the school hall with their instruments to give them some idea of what the Travelling Music was like. The experience boosted the confidence of the musically less able children. “One Kurdish child who previously had no music now plays the glockenspiel fluently, and I have learned a lot about composing in the national curriculum”.
Gayhurst’s contribution to The Red Hot Nail, “Wedding Celebration”, was unusually rhythmic and melodic, but each of the four schools’ interludes had a different character.
I was impressed by the effect created by the use of simple musical ideas, plus the musical control and obvious involvement of everyone on stage. Gayhurst pupils followed up by listening to wedding music, and music from composers such as Rimsky Korsakov. Other schools studied the theme of intolerance in Romeo and Juliet and West Side Story.
Education officer Emma Chesters is delighted with the success of the LSO’s first education commission to culminate in a public performance. It is also a step forward in the orchestra’s growing relationship with Hackney schools. The work was also performed at the Hackney Empire, involving children from six “shadow schools” who covered only selected aspects of the main project.
The Red Hot Nail was successful, she says, because it was written with particular players in mind. Around 99 per cent of LSO players now work in schools, and an interesting scheme is underway whereby two players are interrupting busy rehearsal schedules to train to teach general subjects in the classroom.
For more about LSO Education telephone 071 588 1116.
