Helen Paskins and Ivana Gavric
Ivana and I have been on the Live Music Now recital scheme for three years. In this time we have been trained in various strands of outreach work and have been on tours of Cornwall, Leeds, North Yorkshire, Wales, Dorset, Norfolk, Hampshire and Lincolnshire as well as giving many outreach concerts in London. We have also given recitals in the Leeds International Concert Series, Cambridge Summer Arts Festival and we have performed at the Riverfront Arts Centre in Newport and Falmouth Arts Centre. We have even played to Maxim Vengerov - it has been an incredible experience for us both!
We have worked with a huge spectrum of people ranging from the elderly to adults with learning difficulties to severely mentally and/or physically disabled children. It feels like a cliché to say that the work has been rewarding. There are no words to express some of the remarkable responses we have witnessed. Music is indeed a phenomenal power. It has to be seen to be believed the way in which autistic children can be roused to near riot dancing to Jungle book and then calmed in an instant by a Brahms lullaby. The best gorilla I have ever seen though had to be an eighty-year old lady at a Mencap centre in Scarborough!
However, Live Music Now does not just benefit its audiences. This is very much a janus-faced charity - it works in both directions! It is a hugely valuable learning experience for its performers. It offers paid work to young musicians at the very start of their careers, just when they need it most. More than that though it teaches you skills to enhance your performance that you didn't even know you needed. You learn to become much more audience-focused. It is surprisingly easy to get through music college without ever really considering your audience when programming! Live Music Now makes you think not just about what you want to play but most importantly what your audience wants to hear!
Communicating with the audience is at the very heart of the whole Live Music Now ethos. All performers are expected to take a turn in introducing the pieces and instruments. What might seem terrifying at the start actually becomes part of the key to a successful concert no matter where you might be playing. Not only does experience teach you how to talk to an audience regardless of what distractions might be going on in the background but you also learn how to introduce pieces in such a way that an audience becomes more receptive to music that it might otherwise have dismissed. It has been eye-opening for me to observe how crucial a stage introducing your music is at the beginning of the relationship between performer and audience which develops in any concert. The warmth and appreciation that you receive makes the idea of performing without speaking first now seem like the equivalent of playing behind a glass screen - you are somehow detached from the very people you are trying to reach!
Live Music Now is also an organization unlike any other because of its friendly and supportive team of staff. At every stage of our time on the scheme there has always been someone to talk to, mentors to watch our concerts and give feedback and a real sense that the people organizing the concerts are attempting to anticipate our needs and make sure that we have the best time possible. I have written this article as a small way of saying thank you for everything that we have gained by being on the scheme but also in the hopes that those who do not know much about Live Music Now might have some insight into how much it has to offer!
31st January 2007