School's in for summer at 'Little Tanglewood'

By WILLIAM DART

Thursday, 5.45pm. From the street, St Cuthbert's school in Epsom seems to be in a state of summer slumber, but mid-campus, the hall is bustling with musicians gearing up for the first meeting of the Auckland Philharmonia's Summer Music School.

Players are picking up name tags, renewing old friendships and looking through scores. All the while, hundreds of African drums are being carried through the foyer for a workshop with a difference.

This is the fourth year of what the orchestra's general manager Anne Rodda describes as the "Philharmonia's Little Tanglewood", five days of intensive training in which players from all over the country sit alongside AP musicians, working towards two public concerts. For Rae Crossley-Croft, who leads the AP's second violins and says she's had "more music schools than family holidays", it brings back memories of the Cambridge Music School of a few decades back. It's the community aspect of the Summer School that Crossley-Croft enjoys, "especially with the range of ages; older people have stories to tell, younger ones are challenged to get notes in the right place".

As "Camp Mum", the only orchestral member to be boarding at the school, she'll be the one switching the lights out at 12. Her colleagues are equally enthusiastic. Jonathan Baker is thrilled to have three tuba players this year - "the first year where we haven't had to troll around and find participants ... it's so good that brass band players are coming along and having an orchestral experience. It's really important to forge those connections as both fields have so much to offer and we spend far too much time being stand-offish".

Some of this infectiousness has already rubbed off on Australian conductor Timothy Sexton, who believes "this is far more intensive than anything we do in Adelaide with its opportunity for the musicians to work side by side with professional players. And it's a big programme with the Shostakovich Ninth, Berlioz's Symphonie Fantastique, the Brahms and Dvorak overtures and a contemporary piece".

Sexton is particularly delighted to be doing a New Zealand work, John Elmsly's From Dancing Light. "This is the music being written now and played by more and more orchestras. The musicians have got to be able to sit down and know what the idiom is and play it."

He's hooked on the piece's "impulsive rhythms" and, a few days before, the composer himself had described the piece to me as "dancey without being dance music ... inspired by watching reflecting light from drops of water falling in a bucket and then being projected onto a wall and creating fabulous scatter patterns".

In the hall, there are new arrivals. Geoffrey Wright, an oboe-playing farmer from Maketu, is looking forward to "being with like-minded people, one of the many instead of one of one" while Donna Heathcote, a horn player from Raumati, admits the main buzz is "the chance to see another French horn and play in a section where you're lifted by the players around you". Shostakovich's Ninth Symphony is, in a nutshell, "horn players' heaven".

Then there's 85-year-old Tom Hubbard, who's been coming to the Summer Music School since its inception. He admits he's "a very late cellist" and that his main thrill is "the pleasure of working with young people". Once again he has sponsored a young player, in this case 12-year-old Millie Nakatsuka who found out about her fortune on the eve of a holiday back in Japan. Not bad for a rather shy girl who "didn't even think I would get in originally".

Tomorrow is the Grand Finale - two concerts at 11am and 2.30pm with a barbecue in between. At $30 for adults and $15 for youngsters, this has to be one holiday bargain.

For Lee Martelli, the orchestra's new education co-ordinator, who has been the organising force behind the five days, this is the final test.

"It's good to have a goal, a motivation, and it has always been a special day, for players and for the friends of the orchestra. So if you've been missing our wonderful orchestra, this is a good chance to catch up."

* Auckland Philharmonia Summer Music School Grand Finale, St Cuthbert's College, Market Rd, Epsom, Tuesday 11am and 2.30pm.