Across the country, classical music concerts stopped with lockdown. But conductor Jonathan Bloxham has some good news for fans, as he explained to David Whetstone.
Northern Chords will be ringing out at St James’ and St Basil’s Church, Newcastle
Being a conductor, says Jonathan Bloxham, makes you “the most silent of all musicians – and quite rightly so”. But that doesn’t mean he wants to keep quiet about a rare day of live music.
Northern Chords, the annual Tyneside festival Jonathan established in 2009, should have taken place in May (2020), bringing a host of classical music stars to the North East.
But the festival was cancelled, falling victim to the coronavirus lockdown along with all of Jonathan’s spring and summer engagements and most classical music concerts around the country.
The urge to perform, though, didn’t go away and with the festival backers willing to support an alternative, October 25 will see a series of live Northern Chords performances at St James’ and St Basil’s Church in Fenham, a favourite festival venue.
All Covid-related precautions will be in place. The need for distancing means reduced audience capacity of 60 seats per concert, compulsory masks and people who book in family groups (of six at the most) being seated together.
Despite all this, the day is likely to be seized on by fans starved of the live music experience. It will also be relished by the musicians.
“It has been a very difficult time for all musicians around the world,” says Jonathan, the Gateshead-born cellist turned conductor whose career has started to hit the high notes in the classical music world.
“All my work… well, all the original work this year from April onwards, the entire calendar, was cancelled.
“It was going to be probably the busiest year of my conducting career. I had concerts in China, the States, Germany. The first two opera productions I was involved with were cancelled and my first CBSO subscription concert after leaving them.
“I was particularly looking forward to that.”
Jonathan Bloxham, conductor and founder of the Northern Chords festival. Photo credit: Kaupo Kikkas
Jonathan, who took up conducting in his mid-twenties, was assistant conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra (CBSO) from 2016-18. For the last couple of years his diary has filled up with freelance engagements.
Always, though, there was the chance afforded by Northern Chords, which he launched when still a music student in London, to play in his native North East with some of his talented musician friends.
After the disappointment of May and heartened by reports from Austria where a shortened Salzburg Festival went ahead in August with strict measures in place and no reported coronavirus cases, Jonathan has seized an opportunity to organise his own ambitious consolation programme.
“The idea is that it’ll be a day of celebration… of life, hope and music,” he says. “There will be different events across the day, starting with the church service at 10am when the festival orchestra will be joined by Voices of Hope to sing a Haydn mass (No. 6 in G major).
“I’d say I was spiritual rather than religious but I think this will be a unique and wonderful way to start the day.”
Voices of Hope is the Newcastle choir that was judged National Choir of the Year in 2016.
The service will be followed at 12 noon by a concert featuring Elgar’s Serenade for Strings and Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 9 with soloist Martin James Bartlett who won BBC Young Musician of the Year in 2014 and is still only 24.
A concert of night-themed music will start at 2.30pm including the “amazing” Dies Natalis cantata by British composer Gerald Finzi, with tenor Ben Johnson, a Northern Chords regular, and Jonathan conducting.
Tenor Ben Johnson
Music in Times of Pandemic is the 4pm concert, so called because it features music by composers who lived and worked through them, including Frenchman Guillaume de Marchaut, who survived the 14th Century Black Death, and Bartok and Elgar who composed during the early 20th Century Spanish flu pandemic.
Song settings of Shakespeare texts will feature because the playwright lived at the time of bubonic plague and there will be a world premiere performance of a new piece – to be revealed on the day – composed under the shadow of Covid-19.
The concert will see baritone Jonathan McGovern, Swiss pianist Louis Schwizgebel and violinist Benjamin Baker join the others in the spotlight.
At 6pm the concluding Gala Concert will feature “fun opera arias”, instrumental party pieces and the Mendelssohn Piano Trio in D minor – a chance to see Jonathan playing the cello, which he rarely does in public these days.
After six months in lockdown, the Gateshead maestro is hoping October 25 will be a chance to revel once again in live performance.
“It’ll be wonderful to be back together. I think a lot of musicians would say we’ve lost a little bit of ourselves because we’ve not been able to do what’s really in our blood.
“It has been a tragic time for a lot of people but music, arts and culture must be kept alive otherwise we’ll all forget who we are. These things can be a salvation for a lot of people.”
Jonathan believes the Government was slow to support the arts compared with other countries such as France and Germany and allowed freelance musicians to “fall through the cracks” in the support system.
“There has also been a lack of clarity about amateur music-making. It’s such an important activity, physically and mentally. This lockdown has had a terrible effect on people’s mental health.
“I do feel very lucky to have so many wonderful friends and I think the music world has stuck together. There has been so much support from all over the world. Now it’s time to find a way forward.”
Under lockdown, Jonathan and some musician friends held cookery competitions on Zoom, preparing dishes for professional chefs, including 2015 Masterchef finalist Tony Rodd, to judge on presentation rather than taste.
All good fun, he says, but a distraction more than anything else. What he and his frustrated and talented friends really want to do is perform and that’s what the Northern Chords day will allow them to do.
If you want to join them, tickets are £10 per concert or £35 for a day pass (the church service is free but you must book). To buy and book, go to www.northernchords.com