By Hallam Sinfonia treasurer & principal cellist, Charlie Hardwick - a blog about our two Christmas concerts on Saturday 14 December at Sheffield Town Hall - 5.15pm and 7.45pm
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a symphony orchestra in possession of a good number of members, must be in want of a Christmas concert. And yet, here Hallam Sinfonia is, at the ripe old age of 50 this year, having never put on a Christmas concert before! Why, you might ask. A good question...
I asked our two VVVIP members, John and Vicky (who have been with the orchestra since its creation in 1974), if they had a memory of any Christmas concerts in the past and the closest we came was a regular Viennese-New-Year's-Day-sort of thing with the usual abundance of Strauss waltzes and Mozart polkas.
A compelling reason for not having a regular Christmas concert is that our members are often busy performing at their own Christmas events around Sheffield and beyond. The sheer breadth and variety of the amateur music scene here in Sheffield is well-documented - it only takes a quick scroll through the pages and pages of events on the Classical Sheffield Christmas listings to see just a small sample of what's available in the festive period. A glorious Christmas abundance of choirs, brass bands, orchestras, jazz ensembles, improv groups... to name just a few of the myriad options.
Amongst all this wonderful choice then, how do I make a concert that people would want to come to? I knew I wanted to programme some of the wonderful Christmas bangers that punters would know and love; Troika, Nutcracker, Sleigh Ride… but I also wanted to bring something extra. My fellow committee member and chair, Jeremy, is a founding trustee and singer/tutor with Steel City Choristers, a brilliant choir here in Sheffield. I knew I had to ask if they wanted to be involved, and thankfully they had some space in their hectic festive schedule to join us!
So we had the beginning of a plan and a rough programme idea. Think it was probably time we got on with at least trying to get the concert off the ground. I was overjoyed then, after chatting about it to Maxine, our wonderful concert-manager at High Storrs School where we put on a lot of our concerts, I found out she in fact worked at the Town Hall. And would you believe it, they've been itching for a Christmas event to take place there for years!
So a sprinkling of luck and a bit of 'it's who you know' got us a plan and a venue. At this point, I certainly could have delegated a lot of the usual concert planning tasks to the rest of my very dedicated committee, but alas, I am a bit of a control freak and a proud over-organiser, so I thought I'd just get on with it, seeing as it was my idea in the first place
In order to plan and execute an orchestral concert, at least by yourself, one must put on the jackets of many different roles. There are your usual ones such as Fixer, to make sure you have enough players on the day as well as the specialist ones such as a Harp and Percussion (This concert would be nothing without the horse-whip in Sleigh Ride or the Harp Cadenza in the Nutcracker!); Programmer and therefore Librarian, to make sure you've got a lovely mix of music for the concert (and that all said music arrives in plenty time for everyone to practice before the day); Administrator to keep everyone up to date with plans, rehearsal timings, locations and to answer any queries at any time; and Treasurer, which would be a big one, but that's my usual role on the committee so that came second nature - I do love an excel spreadsheet!
There have been many other bits such as learning how to use Canva, an app that makes designing posters and programmes very user-friendly compared to the much more in-depth Photoshop that professionals use. Considering I had never designed a flyer before, I don't think my first time has come out too badly! It's certainly all a learning curve, and I definitely won’t be putting any pro designers out of business(!) but I've thoroughly enjoyed learning some new skills, especially how to make the background stars sparkle so it looks pretty on Instagram.
Because I thought that all the above was simply not enough work for me to take on, I also wanted to flex my arranging skills too. I’m lucky enough to have a professional composer/arranger as my partner, and I do occasionally get to ask a big favour such as “Please can you write me an absolutely gorgeous arrangement of Balulalow by Peter Warlock for our Christmas concert please Chris? Thank you so much.” Which he has done, and it is gorgeous. I can’t wait for people to hear it.
My arranging offering for our first concert is an orchestral arrangement of the absolutely stunning little gem that is ‘Christmas Is Here (And You’re Not) by Before Breakfast. If you don’t know their music, I would highly recommend checking it out. Their skills as singers, song-writers and performers are second to none. We are even lucky enough to have Lucy Revis performing the song live with us on Saturday - a real treat indeed. Despite the music being quite jolly and Christmassy on the surface, the words are hard hitting and an important reminder that no-one’s Christmas really looks like the adverts. And that that’s ok..
Like anyone setting up something brand new, I have the usual concerns pinging around my brain at all times - will the programme be interesting enough? Is the ticket price right? Have I done enough to advertise it? Will my orchestra members enjoy playing it? What have I forgotten…??
But at the end of the day, I will get to sit alongside my very talented colleagues and enjoy playing some of my very favourite Christmas music. I will get to play Walking in the Air from the Snowman and hear it sang live, right in front of me! And I will get to see my Mum get to enjoy ‘In the Bleak Midwinter’ which is her very favourite. All this AND we get to raise money for an amazing charity too - Roundabout Sheffield who do incredible work all year round for young people in need here in the city.
Not a bad way to spend a chilly Saturday in December, I hope you’ll agree.
Tickets and further information are available here. At the time of posting there are only a handful of tickets left for the 5.15pm concert, with more available for the 7.45pm concert!
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