Tim Steiner, Workshop Leader
Tim Steiner is at the forefront of creative leadership within music Community &
Education contexts. He has led hundreds of workshops, events, international
projects and concerts for the Orchestra over the last twenty years.
When I first began working with the
RPO’s Community & Education
Department in 1993 I spent hours
discussing with then manager, Judith
Webster, exactly what we were there for.
Neither of us considered our work to be
concerned with teaching people about
classical music, nor developing
audiences. It was more about
developing the Orchestra and the kind
of artistic organisation it might be.
We were passionately interested in the
idea of an orchestra as a virtuosic
flexible ensemble that had the ability
and intent to inspire all sectors of
society. On one day, it might be a
traditional symphonic concert in the
Royal Albert Hall, on another, a
collaboration with an opera group, and
on another, the creation of new work
with homeless people.
devising and commissioning its own
material, and working in partnership
with a wide range of communities.
A key collaboration was with Magdala
Opera, a community opera company
based in Nottingham. We produced a
suite of Webernesque pieces based on
haiku, with a sound rather close
to Cage's Aria.
The work developed incredibly
organically as a trust gradually
developed between all the musicians.
Everyone took risks. Everyone
supported everyone else. This work was
presented at the Association of British
Orchestras conference in 1997. It was a
serious work, both artistically and
socially. It was new, challenging, and we
felt a revolutionary spirit.
Alongside such work we established the
Whatever the work, it all stemmed from Noisy Kids series of family concerts. By
the notion of music and musicians as a the middle of the nineties, most players
had come to dread children's and
vital and fundamental part of society.
family concerts. They were mostly very
Much of the work was experimental; staid, rough and ready affairs with
both in artistic terms and, most unengaged performances to distracted
crucially, in the ways in which it audiences presented by out of
engaged musicians from the Orchestra touch celebrities.
and the various communities with
The Noisy Kids concerts were
which we worked.
developed as something of an
A select group of around fifteen RPO antidote. Our early editions, in the
musicians developed their intense Royal Albert Hall, were somewhat
commitment to this work, into an anarchic affairs with huge audiences.
understanding of the communities we I'd imagined a rather updated meeting
visited, as well as actively reflecting on of Marx Brothers' Vaudeville and
the ways in which such work informed Hoffnung. We somehow, managed to
their playing within the Orchestra. This mix a variety of chaotic musical
developed into a collaborative ensemble sketches and comical asides with
called Sharp Edge; improvising, increasingly ambitious programming
and audience interaction. One of
our aims was to juxtapose serious
challenging performance with noisy,
cartoonish interludes.
One such occasion saw us attempting to
convey the quality of then leader, John
Carney's 1697 Stradivarius to the
audience by demonstrating that it
could double as a baseball bat (to this
day, some musicians have still not
realised he switched instruments!).
John approached the front of the stage,
wielding his violin. As I propelled a ball
toward him he took a swing, struck the
ball, and the violin snapped into two.
There was a collective sharp intake of
breath by the 3000 audience and
Orchestra. The hall was silent. But
then, John, slowly and calmly, picked
up the remains of his instrument,
turned to the audience, and in his
laconic US droll announced, "Don't
worry, I'll just play with the body."
A true professional!”
The last twenty years have been full of such adventures. Adventures that stretched the
musicians way beyond their usual call of duty. Adventures that have seen the RPO
extending music-making beyond the traditional confines of the concert platform and
exploring the outer reaches of society. Music is about people, it is about personality, and it
is about inspiration. For twenty years, now through its new guise RPO resound, the RPO
has been inspiring in the widest possible context.