Bach in business
Music with masks and social distancing as Ulster Orchestra records for BBC
THE Ulster Orchestra is very much in tune despite Covid-19 and yesterday gathered for a recording with a difference.
As they get to grips with social distancing they are currently recording an important series of concerts in the Waterfront Hall for later transmission on BBC Radio 3.
The Belfast Telegraph was invited along to see them in action as this week they are completing the first concert under their Honorary Conductor Jac van Steen from the Netherlands, with Ulster’s own Barry Douglas the soloist in the Piano Concerto No1 by Shostakovich.
The other work is the famous Verdi Quartet arranged for string orchestra.
To comply with social distancing rules, the players are three metres apart, and where possible they use ipads rather than traditional music scores. They are required to wear masks when moving around the Waterfront Hall and some also wear masks when playing — though this is not mandatory.
The Waterfront Hall stage has been removed and the players are seated in the otherwise empty auditorium, in a scene which has not been witnessed before in this building.
The Orchestra is scheduled to record several concerts under Jac van Steen and its new chief conductor Daniele Rustioni, with a live concert being broadcast on the BBC3 network early next month.
In a break from recording yesterday Jac van Steen said: “This is really challenging musically for a conductor, but very worthwhile. The piano is three metres away from me and the players are three metres in front of me, so there is a sense of isolation from each other.
“However this means that we all have to open our ears even more.
“The main priority is to make live music and to hear the Ulster Orchestra playing together once more. There is very high commitment throughout the orchestra. Everyone is eager to be able to play ‘live’ again and to meet their colleagues socially. Music is our life.”
Jac van Steen helped to guide the orchestra through a serious financial challenge which nearly destroyed it several years ago. He said: “The financial crisis is over, and in the past four years the management has ensured that the orchestra has maintained a very high artistic standard. The role now is to survive and to overcome this pandemic and to show that we make an important contribution to our society.”
Jac van Steen has a high musical reputation throughout Europe, but he has not conducted since March 12 when he had to leave the stage in Czechslovakia while directing an orchestra, because of the abrupt lockdown there. He said: “This week is the first time that I have started waving my arms again as a conductor! Many of the big orchestras in the UK and Europe are still not playing again and it is wonderful to be able to conduct the Ulster Orchestra with the luxury of so much space in the Waterfront Hall.”
He found some advantages in the lockdown. “I travel so much every week but I had an opportunity to spend much more time with my wife at our farm, where we breed Icelandic horses as a hobby.”
Patrick Mccarthy the Orchestra’s head of Artistic Planning and Operations said: “There has been a great deal of work in planning this series of concerts and we have been working on it from the end of April. We were delighted to be offered the Waterfront Hall and the great space allowed us to perform larger scale works with proper social distancing. Depending on the rules about social distancing we hope to bring small groups to hear the orchestra playing, and from the New Year we might perform to larger groups with perhaps two performances to different audiences in the one day.”