Conductor set to star in final of BBC’s ‘Mastermind’ for musicians
WICKLOW CHORAL SOCIETY CONDUCTOR JAMES BINGHAM SPOKE TO REPORTER DAVID MEDCALF ABOUT HIS LIFE IN MUSIC AND UPCOMING TV FINAL
PLENTY of people say they know their music, but Wicklow Choral Society conductor Ja m e s B i n g h a m really, really, really does know his music – and he can prove it. The 31-year-old Englishman has reached the final of the BBC’s ‘Counterpoint’ quiz.
The show, now in its 37th year on the Beeb’s Radio Four schedule, is the equivalent of ‘Mastermind’ for music nerds – not that James comes across as a nerd who is in any way obsessive or neurotic. Instead, he has lit up the current series of the show, hosted by Paul Gambaccini, with his enthusiasm and sense of fun.
The climax of the current season has already been recorded at the Radio Theatre in London, so he is safely back home in Templecarrig near Greystones, and he already knows the result. The rest of us will have to wait until the broadcast on Monday, March 4 to find out how he fared.
But his progress through the preliminary rounds suggests that he has a very good chance of taking the title ahead of his two rivals.
In the semi-final, he surged ahead in the middle of the contest by scoring a rare perfect 14 out of 14 on the topic of ‘Classical Creepy-Crawlies’. In the closing first-on-the buzzer session, he picked up further points as he answered questions across the spectrum from The Cure to Beethoven on his way to finishing three ahead of the runner-up.
He sounded cool as a cucumber but reveals he learned afterwards that his wife Aoife was anything but relaxed as she watched from the front row of the audience. Her Fit-Bit watch disclosed that her heart rate hit a hectic 140 beats per minute at one stage during the recording.
“The 14 out of 14 was really satisfying,” says James brightly with no trace of false modesty. He was particularly delighted to have worked out that author Dan Brown of ‘ The Da Vinci Code’ fame wrote music to accompany his children’s writings – bet you didn’t know that!
On their first appearance, ‘Counterpoint’ contestants are asked to reveal their first-ever record purchase. James recalled that he bought ‘Clint Eastwood’, the 2001 single released by Gorillaz.
He was living at the time with his family in Stockport, not far from Manchester, where he showed an interest in music from an early age though there was no great family tradition in the subject. He was at least sent to piano lessons with local teacher Missus Barnard as an eight- or nine-year-old, returning to pick out tunes on the keyboard at home, displaying an instinctive gift for improvisation and a precious ear for harmony.
He progressed to become the moving force behind a succession of teenaged bands, including the grandly named James Bingham’s Rhythm and Blues Experience, whose output included cover versions of Otis Redding and Dusty Springfield hits, as well as some of the band’s own material.
“I wasn’t interested in sport. It was music which gave me a real identity, a sense of purpose,’ he reflects.
“I played a bit of piano, and I sang. My parents were not particularly musical, but they encouraged me to pursue it. I became a musician.”
The Gorillaz fan shifted to a genre with an altogether different pedigree after he secured a place in the Halle Youth Choir. The group is a spin-off of the Halle Orchestra which is the lynchpin of the classical scene in Manchester:
“The youth choir was a revelation,” he says, simply, before adding, mischievously: “I met other people my age who liked classical music and who were not weirdos.”
They sang in some high-profile concerts, including a performance with the orchestra of Mendelsohn’s Second Symphony. Heady stuff.
After that, it was a natural choice to enrol on a choral studies course in Sheffield, where James became a chorister in the city’s cathedral as his previous obsession with pop music withered. He began conducting choirs, taking special pleasure in going to primary schools and encouraging the children to sing.
His mission in life was now clear. From Sheffield, he moved on to take a master’s degree at the Royal Welsh College of Music and Dance. It was there in Cardiff that he first met a budding Greystones opera singer called Aoife O’Connell at a student party. Romance blossomed and they moved together after graduation to Brighton where James resided while working at Glyndebourne, the well-known Sussex country house turned opera house.
James found that he was drawn to the theatricality of opera, with its unlikely plots and its big set-piece numbers. He also conceived an urge to share the joy of the operatic experience as widely as possible.
He popped up on the staff of the UK’s Opera North in Leeds where his mission with the outreach programme was to visit local schools. In a good week, he was likely to meet a thousand children, inviting them to sing and to stage their own mini productions.
The menu was not all Puccini. He mixed old jazz standards and Pharrell Williams’ ‘Happy Now’ into the repertoire, though always seeing the material through a classical lens as he urged pupils to become what he calls “culturally curious”.
Then, in 2018, came an opportunity which might have been designed for his set of skills and experience, not to mention the urge to live in Aoife’s home country.
Irish National Opera (INO) was being set up, not only to mount productions in Dublin and beyond, but also to foster a love and understanding of opera in the general public.
James was hired to run the INO’s outreach programme, with a particular emphasis on schools such as his neighbours at Temple Carrig School, introducing students to the works of Richard Strauss or Giuseppe Verdi or Wolfgang Mozart. The general public in Bray has also enjoyed the Bingham outreach, with events in the Mermaid Theatre and the Town Hall.
“Opera is a hyper reality,” he says, as he attempts to explain the appeal. “It has this energy that is larger than life. It is people singing and telling stories”’
Those stories have universal themes; the lyrics may be English or Italian or Spanish, but they can transcend language in the performance, offering something anyone can identify with.
“I am very happy in Ireland. Coming over here was the best decision I ever made. I have the Irish passport now and the citizenship” he enthuses.
“Irish National Opera is promoting a real renaissance and I feel very privileged to be at the heart of it.”
Living in a lovely place with views of the Sugarloaf feeds into the conviction that he has found his niche. The only drawback of his work as an administrator is that his skills as a conductor have not been needed. However, since 2022 he has remedied this by taking on the role of musical director with the Wicklow Choral Society, succeeding Frank Kelly in the position.
The choir he inherited needed to be revived after going into Covid hibernation and the energetic Mancunian has attracted fresh recruits, all ready to tackle classical works.
Up to 60 members now show up on Monday evenings for rehearsals at the Educate Together school in Wicklow Town. They will be in action on Sunday, March 3 at the Fatima Hall in the Dominican Convent (4 p.m.), presenting a choral journey across Europe through the compositions of Mozart, Schubert, Elgar and others. Preparations are also in hand for a grand performance of Haydn’s ‘Creation’ in Saint Patrick’s Church, accompanied by Alan Smale’s Degani Symphonia in May.
James declares that he will not be appearing in any more quizzes for a while.
“When I entered ‘Counterpoint’ I was taking a needless professional gamble,” he says. Putting up a poor score and exiting early in the competition would have done nothing for his reputation. Instead, he has displayed a comprehensive but light-hearted breadth of musical knowledge.
Not everyone knows the composers Brahms, Schubert and Beethoven all lie buried in the same city. Can you guess? The answer is Vienna.
MUSIC GAVE ME A REAL IDENTITY, A SENSE OF PURPOSE. I MET OTHERS MY AGE WHO LIKED CLASSICAL MUSIC AND WERE NOT WEIRDOS