The promotion race is on

Over the past 20 years and more I have received hundreds of communications from musicians looking for advice in finding work. Implicit in all of these communications, and very often explicit, is a question: �Which promoter should I contact?�

Over the past 20 years and more I have received hundreds of communications from musicians looking for advice in finding work. Endless CVs, demo discs, videos, DVDs, home-made recordings, testimonies from artists with whom work-hungry musicians have studied and so on have flowed over the desk. In the past two months alone, I have received e-mails and CDs from a young concert pianist in France and a home-based group in Scotland. Implicit in all of these communications, and very often explicit, is a question: "Which promoter should I contact?"

That has been a tough question to answer. Of course there are promoters in Scotland. Every one of the national music companies, and music institutions such as the RSAMD, is a promoter, but for its own organisation. Every music club and society in the country is also a promoter, whether it is a contemporary music organisation such as Ecat, or an outfit such as New Town Concerts, bringing in international names four times a year. There are the serious heavyweights, such as Glasgow Concert Halls, with hefty international seasons, to more modest organisations, such as the Bows-Art company that helps look after Scottish musicians, promoting work for them through projects and concerts.

There are also smaller local enterprises, and a host of one-off projects, sometimes promoted by an individual with a passion or a vested interest.

But the fact of the matter is that, in 99 cases out of 100, I've had to advise inquirers that there has been no individual independent promoter in the country to whom they could apply, and that they would have to write to one of the orchestras, or the academy, or the plethora of music societies.

In broader terms, the absence of a promoter also meant that for a long time there was nobody in place to catch the big names off the touring circuit and bring them into cities such as Glasgow, Perth and even Edinburgh, outside of its short festival season.

Glasgow, without the St Andrews Halls, simply fell off the touring circuit of international artists and remained off it until 1990, when the Royal Concert Hall opened.

The change in Glasgow, now with two concert halls and its promotional act seriously together, has been radical. Edinburgh is still in the wings, and, when it finally gets its completed Usher Hall back, will have a lot to prove.

Meanwhile, however, in the past four years, there has been another sea-change in the promoting of music in Scotland and, though it embraces several geographical areas and different enterprises, much of it boils down essentially to one man: Svend Brown.

Brown is probably now the biggest independent classical music promoter in Scotland, through two strands of work. He is the creative director of classical music for Perth Concert Hall, responsible for programming in Scotland's newest and hugely successful concert hall, finding the artists, booking them and promoting the events. He is also artistic director of the East Neuk Festival, expanding year on year and, like Perth, hauling in the big names off the international circuit.

There is a third, and recent, strand to Brown's entrepreneurial activity which, though more debatable in its purpose, consolidates his position as an independent promoter. He put together the bid that resulted in Glasgow receiving the title of Unesco City of Music, a title to be held in perpetuity, though subject to periodic review.

No new money comes with the award, and no specific indication that it will result in any new work or advancement for any Scottish musical organisation.

So is it just a labelling or marketing exercise that will actually bring nothing additional to the work of the city's musical bodies?

"It is absolutely not just a branding thing," asserts Brown. "It's leverage. You get to plug into an international network. On a local level you can use Unesco's name in negotiations with government, council and fundraising bodies. There's a brilliant job there for a director, and we're trying to find one."

Following the success of his bid, Brown will now return to the business of his own promotions. And though initially he looks bemused at the suggestion that he's now the major independent classical promoter in Scotland, he chews it over, then sees the point. "Promoting in Scotland has been done through the organisations and ensembles funded by the Scottish Arts Council. If you've got no promoters, then the ensembles have to work extra hard, and can find themselves falling back on the same patterns, visiting the same venues, and that in itself has an element of fatigue for everybody, including the audience.

"Maybe the SAC should have had a fund to encourage young promoters to be enterprising and discover new ways of putting on music events. But then nobody's training new promoters; there is no training ground. And it's not enough just knowing your onions musically; you've got to know what the context is."

Brown's own training ground had numerous strands. Those of us who've known him for years met him through his time as a Radio 3 producer with the BBC in Scotland. He worked with Music Live before joining one of the big London agencies - van Walsum - from 2001 to 2004. He was head of special projects and loved it.

"But the travel killed me. A lot of my life I've commuted. Glasgow to Edinburgh is one thing; you get used to the same faces in the carriage. But when you realise you're getting to know all the faces on EasyJet, it's time to get out.

"But the whole reason I came back to Scotland is that I got two opportunities that would enable me to do what I love most, which is programming."

The two opportunities were the building of the new Perth Concert Hall and the development of East Neuk. The latter had established itself as a modest but enterprising short series of summer evening concerts, essentially an offshoot of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra, whose chairman Donald MacDonald had personally initiated it. Perth Concert Hall was a blank sheet.

"Perth is such a great venue, and East Neuk is a protean beast that can be whatever we want it to be."

In its early years, East Neuk featured a maximum of four recitals and a concluding SCO concert.

Brown put together a three-year plan to 2007 and presented it to Donald MacDonald. It took time, and was not a flashy presentation or a rush job. "My strengths are in planning and thinking, rather than being a flamboyant artistic director. That's just not me."

Artistic director he now is of the East Neuk Festival, which under his charge has expanded is events from four to 30, and its audience from 700 to 4000. Brown's programming strategy was simple: "Get great names and great music." It paid off, with artists including the Alban Berg Quartet, violinist Pekka Kuusisto, the Pavel Haas, Szymanowski, Skampa and Royal Quartets heading for Fife, along with violinist Isabelle van Keulen, pianists Llyr Williams and Christian Zacharias, the last being virtually a regular with a residency.

"The notion of an artist in residence, not just popping in to give one concert, is core to me. I love the idea of building relationships with an artist, an audience, and a venue. Christian is brilliant; he's coming back for the third time."

The early and hugely successful history of Perth Concert Hall has been well-documented here. The Scottish orchestras now routinely bring top-drawer programmes to Perth. Svend Brown's own programming, from a residency by the stellar Belcea Quartet to pianists Mitsuko Uchida, Paul Lewis and Steven Osborne, has been high calibre stuff.

One strong initiative was programming violinist Alexander Janiczek and pianist Llyr Williams to explore the music written by Beethoven before he was 30. Last season that expanded to include Stephan Loges in a lieder recital. This season it will expand again, as Brown has invited Janiczek and Williams to finish what they started, and complete the survey of violin sonatas.

He also mentions en passant that the amazing Llyr Williams is building up to doing a cycle of Beethoven's piano sonatas, and he might get that one for Perth, too.

More immediately, next month Brown undertakes his second Schubertiad, a concentrated weekend of wall-to-wall Schubert masterpieces, expanded in its brief and drawing in a ripe collection of great artistes, including singer Jonathan Lemalu - who will sing Winter-reise, Schubert's dark journey of the soul - pianists Paul Lewis and Artur Pizarro, and the Vienna Piano Trio.

"The audiences weren't huge in the first year, but you've got to build things, and it gave us enough encouragement for the hall to commit to developing the idea. "And we've also got extra money from EventScotland to advertise in London and Edinburgh to get the word out. That's one of the most difficult things: getting recognition." You can't help feeling that they're getting there.