EVERY space at the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the neighbouring RSNO Centre was alive with the sound of music this weekend as it hosted the first of 2020’s Benedetti Sessions, the education initiative founded by Scotland’s international superstar violinist Nicola Benedetti.
From 9am on Saturday morning, young people with instrument cases were arriving at the Killermont Street entrance to the building, ready to show the fruits of the work that she has inspired them to do through her online video lessons.
“It’s a revolution,” said one parent as she delivered her child to the
over-subscribed event, while another explained how her young son’s attitude to practising his violin had been transformed by following Benedetti’s advice on technique. “It keeps him away from the Xbox,” said another father later.
READ MORE: Nicola Benedetti performs intimate gig in the Ayrshire house she grew up in
In a model of organisational activity, the staff of the newly-established Benedetti Foundation identified their guests as members of a beginners, intermediate and advanced orchestra, alongside students of general musicianship and a large contingent of music teachers, before they all joined in exercises that quickly had everyone in the main hall singing in four parts.
On the dot of 10 o’clock, Benedetti arrived to a rapturous reception, and to introduce the huge cast of professional tutors and student ambassadors from the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland and elsewhere that would be working with the youngsters.
There was attentive silence before she led a small string orchestra in a movement from Vivaldi’s Four Seasons, the first of a varied selection of music that accompanied her advice before the gathering divided into its workshop groups.
“Today we are here to learn to love and enjoy music as much as we possibly can,” she told the young players.
“Don’t be nervous and scared of anything. You are here to learn from each other as a collective group. We are all here to make music together, and mistakes are welcome here as long as you are trying your hardest.”
The weekend, in partnership with Glasgow Unesco City of Music, Glasgow Royal Concert Hall and the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, is followed by one at the Southbank Centre, London, with another scheduled in Dundee for the start of March, for which the few remaining places will be open to new applications soon.
The live event happened as the Nicola Benedetti Foundation Orchestra released its first single on Decca Classics. The recording of Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, one of the pieces being learned at the workshops, was released digitally worldwide on Friday.
READ MORE: Violinist Nicola Benedetti tells of restraining order on obsessive fan
Michael Garvey, the former director of the BBC National Orchestra of Wales, is the chief executive of the Foundation and has been in post for six months. He joined Benedetti and her education director Laura Gardiner, a friend since the violinist’s primary school days in West Kilbride, Ayrshire.
“We are not inventing a new way of doing music education,” he said, “but Nicky is bringing her personal passion and her specific approach to it.
“There are ways of teaching children that she has experienced through her previous relationships with Sistema or the National Children’s Orchestra and she is taking what she has enjoyed most and valued most, and poured it into this model.
“That means explaining things that are relatively complicated in a very accessible and easy-to-understand way. She is very keen to ensure we include the teachers alongside the children. We can’t solve all the problems in music education in a weekend and we need to have a good infrastructure for those children to go back to wherever that might be to continue to be enthused. So if we can give those teachers tips and techniques and some ideas for good quality music tuition in the classroom, as well as in individual music teaching, then there is a greater hope that those children are going to carry on and enjoy what they are doing.
“We are not replacing school tuition. We are here to support and work with the infrastructure that already exists. It’s true that in some parts of the country that infrastructure is challenging, but I have to say Scotland is doing better than other bits of England, Wales and Northern Ireland.”
The shape of the Foundation’s work was still in the process of being refined,
Mr Garvey said, and fundraising was essential to expand the work across the country.
“The Benedetti Foundation is not something Nicky is personally funding. We have a very generous backer at this stage, philanthropist George Burnett and his wife Daphne, and they have underwritten this first phase of work. We are making applications to trusts and talking to other philanthropists, and we want to attract sponsorship.
“At this stage we are still looking to the short term, to deliver this year’s worth of activity, taking these weekends to Scotland and London and then we’ve got them planned for Belfast and Cambridge and potentially one in Manchester too.
“What Nicky is giving is her time. She’s not doing any fewer public concerts around the world but she is bolting this on to her life, which involves a vast amount of physical and mental time.”
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