St George’s Bristol
St George’s Bristol is a gem of a concert hall, blessed with arguably the UK’S finest chamber acoustic. Paul Riley reports on the venue’s multi-million-pound facelift
Paul Riley reports as the venue invites in the builders
On a murky January morning you need more than a hard hat and wellies to penetrate the building site that is the latest instalment in the ambitious translation of St George’s Bristol from church to state-ofthe-art concert hall. A wheelbarrow full of imagination doesn’t go amiss if you want to envisage the vista-capturing glazing that will afford stunning views down to the twin towers of Bristol Cathedral and up to the neo-gothic splendours of the Wills Memorial Building; the audacious glass sculpture set to dominate a vast floating space flooded with light; and a crowning oculus that references the cupola atop Sir Robert Smirke’s adjacent ‘Greek Revival’ style church completed in 1823 – the same year he designed the British Museum.
In a sense, though, few buildings are ever ‘completed’. They evolve. And in the case of St George’s, after 150 years of ecclesiastical service, the writing was on the wall. Its dwindling congregation might have appreciated the building’s superb acoustics, but they hadn’t gone unremarked either by a fledgling music trust keen on promoting concerts there, and by Radio 3. In 1985 St George’s Music Trust signed a lease, the BBC installed a control studio and a new chapter as a concert hall was underway.
The Sicilian marble Chancel succumbed to a stage spanning the full width of the east end; the crypt was opened up to refreshments and an exhibition space, and the pews, mercifully, replaced.
‘The trouble is that after all that we’d become pot-bound,’ says chief executive Suzanne Rolt. ‘We’d done just about everything we could within the footprint of the building itself, but we were victims of our own success. With artists coming from all over the world, the sell-out concerts were becoming increasingly challenging just in terms of how people were able to relate to the space – even down to accessing the bar in the interval. But we also had a strong sense that we wanted to support what we were already doing, but make it better. With nowhere left to develop inside St George’s itself, there was only one solution: extend but keep faith with Smirke’s inspirational legacy.’
Architects Patel Taylor have come up with a glass-encased pavilion set into the hillside, nuzzling the church, yet respectfully separate from it, the two buildings linked by an airy connecting corridor. As well as bar, café, and boxoffice facilities, there are two flexible 100-seater rooms that will offer a more intimate space for spoken-word events, film, masterclasses and outreach. ‘People can see in and see out,’ says Rolt. ‘We no longer look like a church with doors closed to the world, but we’re somewhere inviting, open all hours, a place to drop into for a drink or a chat. Artists rehearsing for the evening’s concert can meet up, or take a break from recording. Over the years St George’s has broadened its offering from predominantly classical to jazz, world music and folk. But there are always
‘We no longer look like a church with doors closed – we’re somewhere inviting’
new audiences we need to connect with. Having forged residencies over the years with the likes of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment (OAE), the Aurora Orchestra and most recently Chineke!, we can now think outside the box a bit more. We’re even hoping to appoint a philosopher-in-residence.’
It’s all a long way from the first tentative steps back in 1985. A chamber music hall par excellence, the roster of pianists appearing at St George’s is a who’s who of the piano world. Alfred Brendel launched his farewell tour here; it was one of the few UK venues for András Schiff’s Beethoven sonata cycle; Mitsuko Uchida is a regular; and the elusive Krystian Zimerman has given a rare out-of-london recital. From the Brodsky Quartet with Björk to an unforgettable account of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony by the OAE under Simon Rattle, The Tallis Scholars to Sinéad O’connor, or Jordi Savall’s Hespèrion XXI to Philip Glass, St George’s is nothing if not a broad church…
Glass leaves his mark in more ways than one. During his debut visit in 2013 he played the Etude No. 2 from his first book of Etudes, and the piece is the starting point for Luke Jerram’s new pavilion sculpture made from over 100 glass roundels inspired by the sound waves derived from the piece’s opening. Named Apollo after the Greek god of music and light, it receives the blessing of Glass himself who fondly remembers the occasion that inspired it. ‘I have great affection for St George’s,’ he insists. ‘Its intimacy, acoustics and the special relationship it allows performers to have with the audience, leave abiding memories for me.’
A specially-commissioned community opera, tenor Mark Padmore’s Mahler and the OAE’S cinema date with Strauss’s Der Rosenkavalier are among this re-opening month’s headliners. Come autumn a Piano Fest bookended by Norwegian jazzer Tord Gustavsen and Paul Lewis colonises the hall and its new space. ‘Reaching this point,’ says Rolt, ‘has been a dream. You hold out for the best and go the extra mile. It means everything.’
For information on St George’s Bristol launch events plus a guide to the upcoming season, visit www.stgeorgesbristol.co.uk