Orchestra welcomes Rebecca
W ith a nod from the piano from her musical director Paul Laidlaw, violinist Rebecca Smith leads the Spa Orchestra in China Tea.
The chamber music specialist – more used to performing Haydn and Mozart then this number made famous by 1950s chart-topping honky-tonk pianist Russ Conway – beams and bows the Oriental-sounding tune.
“I am having the most fun I can have on the violin,” said Rebecca. “It is the most enjoyable time, the most varied programme and really wonderful colleagues,” she said.
Rebecca, from London, is the newest member of the Spa Orchestra, the last remaining professional seaside orchestra in the country. Husband and wife Kathy Seabrook and Graham Quilter have been with the orchestra 31 years – the age Rebecca is now.
Her first concert in the leader’s chair with the 10-strong ensemble was its New Year’s Day Viennese concert.
Since June and until the end of the season in September she will be playing more than 50 pieces of music each week – morning and evening concerts including Wednesdays which are gala nights.
The programmes vary from Rodgers and Hammerstein and Cole Porter musical tunes to light classic including Strauss and opera solos such as O Sole Mio.
From Glenn Miller and Gilbert and Sullivan to Tchaikovsky and Stravinsky, the Spa Orchestra is renowned for its versatility and never repeating a programme through the 15-week season.
It keeps everyone on their toes. Rebecca answered an advertisement on Musical Chairs and auditioned last year for the Spa Orchestra.
The varied programme was one of the reasons she was inspired to apply.
“I am loving the dance music. At what other times would I get to be this close to this kind of music? There is not much for a violinist to do but I do play on occasions.”
She has, though, also learned to shake a percussion ‘egg’.
“The variety keeps it fresh and exciting,” said Rebecca.
She keeps the programmes of music she plays and writes a blog about the most delightful moments.
Five weeks into the season, she has already made friends with the audience members and chats to them as she makes her way from the Sun Court platform to backstage.
“Some of them come up and show me pictures of what the Sun Court used to look like and talk about the days when the orchestra was led by Max Jaffa. I love that,” she said.
Rebecca started playing the violin at school in London.
“My school offered lessons and my parents, who have never learned an instrument, said ‘You should try everything’ so I did and it stuck,” she said.
She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in music and then graduated with an MMus Distinction from the Royal Northern College of Music in Manchester.
At the Royal Northern, Rebecca was awarded the Weil prize in chamber music; other highlights included performing Steve
Reich’s Different Trains in collaboration with the composer, and Brahms’s Sextet in G with Peter Cropper.
She has completed teaching commitments in Edinburgh and also belongs to chamber ensembles based there which have concerts in the pipeline.
Her father was born in Scarborough and she is living yards away from where he was christened in St Martin’s in Ramshill.
Her parents are both barristers.
‘I am loving the dance music. At what other times would I get to be this close to this kind of music?’
because I love doing music and cannot imagine doing anything else.
“It was not like ‘her parents are classical musicians so, of course, she is going to be a musician’. It is nice to know I have chosen it,” said Rebecca.
Her plans, as well as practising and playing, are to explore Scarborough, take a boat trip to Whitby and go on the rides at Luna Park.
“Right now I am doing what any musician wants – play concerts to an audience – that is it,” she said.