Tag Archives: qboc2010

QBOC2010Live–Conducting Masterclass 2

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Timothy ReynishThe second QBOC2010 con­duct­ing mas­ter­class was again over­seen by Timothy Reyn­ish and this time sup­por­ted by the Queens­land Wind Orches­tra. Five more del­eg­ates braved stand­ing in front of their peers and con­duc­ted one work each for Tim’s comments.

Andrew Eun­son con­duc­ted Music for a Jubil­ant Occa­sion by Greg Butcher.
Michael Jones con­duc­ted Little Suite for Band by Clare Grundman.
Louise McGill con­duc­ted Pro­ces­sion of the Nobles by Rimsky-Korsakov arr. Jay Bocock.
Peter Pagett con­duc­ted Song and Dance by Richard Saucedo.
Lisa Holownia con­duc­ted River of Hope by Michael Sweeney.

Once again Tim provided insight­ful com­ment­ary and not a few laughs and the con­duct­ors and audi­ence gained much from watch­ing him work. Well done to the five mas­ter­class par­ti­cipants and a huge thank you to the Queens­land Wind Orches­tra and Timothy Reynish.

Queens­land Wind Orches­tra
The Queens­land Wind Orches­tra (QWO) is an ensemble of approx­im­ately 45 musi­cians. Mem­bers are uni­ver­sity stu­dents and gradu­ates, music teach­ers and pro­fes­sion­als from non-musical fields who share a desire to develop their ensemble musi­cian­ship in a chal­len­ging and dynamic envir­on­ment. The QWO was con­ceived in 2004 as an ini­ti­at­ive of young musi­cians who sought to con­trib­ute to QLD’s cul­tural com­munity by cre­at­ing an ensemble in which excep­tional instru­ment­al­ists might find an out­let for their abil­it­ies. Now in its sev­enth year (includ­ing two years as National Cham­pi­ons), the com­mit­tee has planned an ongo­ing con­cert series for the ensemble with an excit­ing range of rep­er­toire and some of Queensland’s finest conductors.

QBOC2010Live–About woodwinds

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David TembyTemby Aus­tralia, cour­tesy of Instru­mental Music Australia

David Temby is a clas­sic­ally trained musi­cian who has worked in most genres of music—classical, com­mer­cial, jazz—performing on wood­winds, brass, piano and also vocals. As a teacher David found that many of his stu­dents were strug­gling on sub­stand­ard instru­ments and so in the 1990s David set about design­ing and man­u­fac­tur­ing a range of instru­ments that were both tech­nic­ally secure and adequately priced. Temby Brass & Wood­wind Instru­ments are now per­formed on by top Aus­tralian and inter­na­tional artists and David con­tin­ues to keep close con­tact with the play­ers of his instru­ments to fur­ther enhance and improve the play­ing exper­i­ence: ‘It is only by ques­tion­ing and try­ing exhaust­ively to improve and develop, that new ideas can grow into production’.

David’s present­a­tion for QBOC2010 was titled ‘All you ever wanted to know about wood­winds (and then some!)’, and the audi­ence were not dis­ap­poin­ted. David provided fas­cin­at­ing insight into the design and man­u­fac­ture of wood­wind instru­ments and explained the idio­syn­crasies of wood­wind instru­ments that had con­foun­ded me for years. I was sur­prised and impressed by the depths to which David will go in design­ing an instru­ment that will pro­duce the tone and ease of play­ing he expects from an instru­ment. I think most del­eg­ates left with the desire to try the latest Temby instru­ments as soon as possible.

David Temby was brought to QBOC2010 by Instru­mental Music Australia.

QBOC2010Live—Getting into improvisation

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Dan QuigleySponsored by Jazz Worx! Music Institute

One of Brisbane’s most sought-after jazz trum­pet play­ers, Dan Quigley has been play­ing pro­fes­sion­ally for more than ten years after study­ing with John Hoff­man and gradu­at­ing from the Queens­land Con­ser­vat­orium. In this time he has led his own groups and played with some of Australia’s top musi­cians includ­ing James Mor­rison, Dale Bar­low, Grace Knight, Anthony War­low, Tina Arena and more. Dan is a Course Co-ordinater for Jazzworx! Music Insti­tute.

In his present­a­tion, ‘Get­ting into jazz impro­visa­tion’, Dan sim­pli­fied the massive sub­ject that is impro­visa­tion and provided del­eg­ates with exer­cises and advice on where to start and how to begin teach­ing impro­visa­tion to stu­dents. Dan’s know­ledge and exper­i­ence were evid­ent, and he suc­cess­fully broke down the sub­ject mat­ter and in only an hour gave the audi­ence the basic skills to tackle impro­vising, some for the very first time.

Down­load Dan’s handout from this session.

QBOC2010Live—Staging epic concerts

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Dr Peter Mor­ris is the Dir­ector of Music at Vil­lan­ova Col­lege and runs the annual Queens­land Cath­olic Schools and Col­leges Music Fest­ival. He is a lec­turer in con­duct­ing at the Queens­land Con­ser­vat­orium and has been the res­id­ent con­ductor of the Qld Youth Orches­tra Wind Sym­phony and the Young Con­ser­vat­orium Wind Orches­tra.

Peter’s second present­a­tion for QBOC2010 was ‘Sta­ging epic concerts’–a vari­ety of ideas to take what would ordin­ar­ily be a mundane exper­i­ence for the audi­ence and turn it into some­thing spe­cial they will remem­ber long after. Peter’s exper­i­ence at run­ning huge fest­ivals (such as the Queens­land Cath­olic Schools and Col­leges Music Fest­ival) was evid­ent from his present­a­tion and del­eg­ates were left with the feel­ing that they too can turn their school con­certs into an exper­i­ence that both stu­dents and par­ents will appre­ci­ate more.

Down­load Peter’s epic handout from this session.

QBOC2010Live–Dealing with a conductor’s workload

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Ralph HultgrenRalph Hult­gren is Head of Pre-Tertiary Stud­ies, Queens­land Con­ser­vat­orium Grif­fith Uni­ver­sity, and the Aca­demic and Artistic leader of the Pre-Tertiary pro­gram Young Con­ser­vat­orium. He also lec­tures in Com­pos­i­tion, Con­duct­ing, Music Edu­ca­tion and Instru­mental Music Ped­agogy. In his present pos­i­tion he con­ducts the Queens­land Con­ser­vat­orium South Bank Wind Ensemble, Queens­land Conservatorium’s premiere wind group, and lec­tures in con­duct­ing and instru­mental music edu­ca­tion at under­gradu­ate and post­gradu­ate levels. Ralph’s com­pos­i­tions are pub­lished by Brolga Music.

STRESSEDDDD!!!!!!—Now that’s bet­ter!
This present­a­tion looked at how to deal with the stresses and strains of the work­load of a con­ductor in an edu­ca­tional envir­on­ment. Ralph spoke about issues which are not often dealt with by con­duct­ing courses and he dis­cussed ways to enrich one’s self out­side of just listen­ing to more music!

Ralph’s years of expert­ise and ded­ic­a­tion to his craft, his skill at teach­ing young people from his own exper­i­ence, and his pas­sion for con­duct­ing and teach­ing were evid­ent from this afternoon’s present­a­tion. Most del­eg­ates left the present­a­tion with a feel­ing that maybe next term they will be in a little more con­trol of their work­load and bet­ter able to achieve a work/life balance.

Down­load Ralph’s stressed out handout.

QBOC2010Live—Concert 3: Brisbane Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

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Brisbane Contemporary Jazz Orchestra

Bris­bane Con­tem­por­ary Jazz Orches­tra fea­tures sev­eral of Brisbane’s most well-respected musi­cians and per­forms a wide range of mod­ern big band music includ­ing latin, funk, swing and gos­pel. The band is a show­case for estab­lished and emer­ging local musi­cians and there is a wealth of exper­i­ence and tal­ent in the play­ing ranks. The rep­er­toire focuses on jazz music from the last twenty years, with charts from com­posers such as Jaco Pas­torius, Michel Cam­ilo and Gor­don Goodwin.

Today’s con­cert by the BCJO featured:

Black­bird (Len­non & McCart­ney arr. Arturo San­doval)
Caribe (Michel Cam­ilo)
Love for Sale (as played by the Buddy Rich Orches­tra)
Round Mid­night (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
(I’m Get­ting) Sen­ti­mental Over You (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
Super­bone Meets the Bad­man (as played by Maynard Fer­guson)
Hunt­ing Wab­bits (Gor­don Good­win)
Samba Del Gringo (Gor­don Good­win)
Alma Llanera (Paquito D’Rivera)

Trum­pets: Dale Richard­son, Shane Pur­nell, Nathan Schilling, Richard Settle, Grant­ley Sutch
Trom­bones: Rob Anders, Fran­cis Car­roll, Noel Steph­en­son, Sam Nolan
Sax­o­phones: David Humphreys, Scott Grif­fiths, Dar­ren McPh­er­son, Leon Wens­ley, John Ste­fulj
Rhythm Sec­tion: Louise Den­son (piano), Paul Hende­r­son (gui­tar), Lyle Den­man (drums), Andre Bonetti (percussion)

A great con­cert. If only our high school jazz ensembles were this good!

QBOC2010Live—Thirty years of wind band commissions

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Timothy Reynish

Tim Reynish’s most recent appoint­ments are Tutor in the Fac­ulty of Inter­na­tional Cham­ber Music at the Royal North­ern Col­lege of Music, and vis­it­ing Pro­fessor in Orches­tral Stud­ies at the Con­ser­vatoire of Kharkov, Ukraine. He suc­ceeded Philip Jones as Head of School of Wind and Per­cus­sion, a post he retired from after more than a quarter of a cen­tury and developed the wind orches­tra of the RNCM to become recog­nised as one of the best in the world.

Tim’s lec­ture this morn­ing was titled ‘Eng­lish Renais­sance: thirty years of wind band com­mis­sions 1980–2010′. In his inim­it­able way, Tim presen­ted some of the most stun­ning wind band com­pos­i­tion from the last thirty years, many of which are still largely, and undeservedly, unknown. Tim played examples of the music of Ben­nett, Bing­ham, Maw, Mus­grave, Bour­geois, Ellerby, Gorb, Greg­son, Hes­keth, McNeff, Sparke and Woolfenden — a real eye-opener for many whose know­ledge of rep­er­toire is dom­in­ated by Amer­ican com­posers thanks to the over­whelm­ing mar­ket­ing of publishers.

Another won­drous hour in the pres­ence of Timothy Reynish.

QBOC2010Live—They make no noise

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Nigel BatesNigel Bates star­ted his musical career in the Band of the Scots Guards, leav­ing to join the Orches­tra of Sadlers Wells Royal Bal­let, and to hold an appoint­ment as a Pro­fessor at London’s Guild­hall School of Music & Drama. Nigel was appoin­ted Sec­tion Prin­cipal Per­cus­sion of the Royal Opera House Orches­tra, Cov­ent Garden in 1993. Nigel has been involved in pro­jects for the ROH Edu­ca­tion Depart­ment and the Lin­bury Theatre. He has also been act­ive in organ­ising ROH staff and artist char­ity events. He has given present­a­tions at the Royal Opera House, the Royal Academy of Music, the Sydney Con­ser­vat­orium, the Vic­toria Col­lege of the Arts, the inter­na­tional per­cus­sion con­ven­tion in Texas and many oth­ers. He has also taken part in BBC radio and tele­vi­sion broad­casts and has writ­ten sev­eral art­icles for pro­fes­sional journals.

The title of Nigel’s present­a­tion was ‘They make no noise’ and ana­lysed the pros and cons of the mod­ern maes­tros of con­duct­ing podium. Nigel’s talk was very enter­tain­ing and fea­tured many pho­tos and videos of the most fam­ous con­duct­ors with com­ment­ary on what made them so spe­cial or infamous.

Nigel’s homepage: http://www.nigelbates.net/

Con­nect with Nigel on LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/in/nrfbates

QBOC2010Live—Get the best out of your ensemble

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Warwick Potter

War­wick Pot­ter is Musical Dir­ector of the Bris­bane Phil­har­monic Orches­tra, Con­ductor of the Queens­land Youth Orches­tra Wind Sym­phony, Con­ductor of the Queens­land Junior Con­ser­vat­orium Sym­phony Orches­tra and Con­ductor of the Uni­ver­sity of Queens­land Sym­phony Orches­tra. War­wick trained at the Royal Col­lege of Music, Lon­don, as a bas­soon­ist. He enjoyed a suc­cess­ful freel­ance career in Lon­don before mov­ing to Aus­tralia in 2002. He has toured with the Aus­tralian Cham­ber Orches­tra and played bas­soon with the Queens­land and West Aus­tralian Sym­phony Orches­tras. In 2011 he will be an adju­dic­ator for the Hast­ings Inter­na­tional Piano Con­certo Com­pet­i­tion and is cur­rently rewrit­ing the bas­soon syl­labus for the AMEB.

Warwick’s ses­sion was titled ‘How to get the best out of your school, col­lege or com­munity ensemble’ and it drew an impress­ive crowd–obviously a topic that inter­ested many dir­ect­ors. War­wick spoke to many top­ics, from basic troubleshoot­ing to man­aging, pre­par­a­tion, psy­cho­lo­gical factors, deal­ing with the polit­ics of ensemble com­mit­tees, and cop­ing with irreg­u­lar instrumentation.

War­wick is one of the country’s lead­ing music edu­cat­ors and con­duct­ors as he gave the del­eg­ates plenty to think about from his presentation.