Dramatic skake-up
for town orchestra
THE Guildford Philharmonic Orchestra which
has provided professional
concerts for the town for
more than 50 years, is to
undergo
a_
dramatic
shake-up.
For the first time: since
it was established as the
municipal provider of
classical
music
under
Crossley
Clitheroe
in
1944, the philharmonic is
to free itself from the constraints of a formal standardised concert series
and stretch its wings.
The problems facing
the orchestra and the
solutions being planned
are similar to those facing
professional music all
over the UK.
Traditional
concert
venues like the Civic Hall,
which
was
designed
specifically as the orchestra’s home in the 1960s,
are out of date, too big,
expensive and inflexible.
Traditional audiences
are getting older, smaller
and less and less musically adventurous. Guildford
Borough Council, which
funds and promotes the
orchestra, has been getting increasingly concerned at the exclusive
and elitist market.
The
change
from
Conservative to Liberal
Democrat control, with
councillors arguing for a
much wider range of
musical events, has challenged the orchestra’s
cherished position under
the council’s wing.
With the appointment
of Nicola Goold as the
enthusiastic new orches-
tra manager the clamour
for change has been translated into an action plan
ET ——
to take it into the new
century.
Miss Goold has challenged the whole meaning
of
philharmonic.
She
argues that it should
mean anything from a
large symphony orchestra
of 75 musicians to a single percussionist: no combination or ensemble is
ruled out.
She
wants children
involved in live performances, workshops, competitions, and music taken
into hospitals and day
centres.
Concerts will no longer
be limited to Saturday
evening and Sunday afternoon slots and a wide
flexible range of ticket
offers will be available,
with better prices and
incentives.
Miss Goold plans to
use all sorts of different
venues from Holy Trinity
Church to the Castle
Grounds, Hatchlands and
Spectrum. The Electric
Theatre will also provide
an important new concert
hall. And programmes
will be expanded to suit a
wide range of musical
taste. Pop classics, family
concerts, *Viennese nights,
themed concerts, mini
proms, jazz, cabaret, late
night soloists, music and
theatre, whatever — all can
be accommodated by the
versatile musicians who
make up the orchestra.
audience excited again
about classical music in
the broadest sense,’ she
said. The shake-up will
become noticeable from
next summer, at the end of
the current season of concerts.
Art of the
book cover
THE surreal imagination
of leading British book
illustrator Justin Todd is
celebrated in an exhibition |
of some of his best-known
work from the 1970s and
80s, which continues until
December 21 at the James
Hockey Gallery, Surrey
Institute of Art & Design,
Farnham.
A graduate of London’s
Royal College of Art illustration
course,
Todd
designed the book covers
for most paperback publishers in the 1970s, then
moved into children’s book
illustration, where his distinctive blend of softly
magical with super realism
was used to best effect in
Lewis
Carroll’s
Alice
books.
Keenly observed, meticulously
detailed
and
smoothly finished, Todd’s
illustrations have a_ polished aloofness that lends
the most bizarre images
immediate authority.
Miss Goold is strengthening
ties
with
the
Guildford business community and other borough arts organisations
and wants the orchestra
to play a key part of the
borough’s PR profile.
He tackled a dizzy variety of titles from science
and philosophy to the paranormal and fairy tales but,
as the original paintings
prove, he never failed to
come up with an unexpected, arresting twist to grab
the attention.
“Wehave got to
t eet -
Beatrice Phillpotts