Up Close and Musical: A journey back to performance

I last wrote a blog piece nine months ago announcing the inaugural Up Close and Musical Festival at the Fidelio Orchestra Café which, with nine days to the opening concert, was kiboshed with the November lockdown. This Saturday, the 17 July, finally saw the opening night of the festival after two further postponements (my colleagues and I have even joked that the festival’s first year should be called Up Close and Musical 2.0!) - and the experience was truly heart-warming.

For many of the artists at Up Close and Musical, myself included, their performance at the festival will be the first one in front of a live audience for over a year. Speaking with those who performed on the 17th – Trio Klein, Gabriel Prokofiev, and composer Nimrod Borenstein – each and every one of them noted the anticipation and excitement ahead of performing to people after such a long time.

Particularly touching was the proximity to our audience at the venue, which was always integral to the festival’s aim: bringing audiences closer to the world we inhabit as musicians. The artists played in an intimate and relaxed atmosphere which facilitated a special connection with the audience. The unique concert format supports this flow: programmes run at 60 minutes, incorporate a candid conversation led by me giving a behind-the-scenes look into their musical lives, and are scheduled around meals and drinks at the venue so that audiences can get to know the artists in a relaxed environment. 

I enjoyed this aspect of the day immensely, both from the perspective of performer and interviewer. It made my heart soar to feel the audience connecting to the music we were making and the stories we were sharing, and I felt liberated onstage, playing music and speaking directly to people who were there to be in the moment with me. It would have been impossible to anticipate this feeling in 2019. I had been developing the concept of the festival for quite some time, long before I approached Raffaello Morales at Fidelio Orchestra Cafe about hosting a festival there; but being close to the audience and taking questions about our world took on an entirely new and greater meaning after being isolated from audiences for so long. There is something magical about the first performance for a live audience after the pandemic being in such an intimate set up, with the sole purpose of welcoming audiences into our world. 

There were other aspects of Up Close and Musical 2.0 that took me by surprise. While the concept remained the same, each postponement brought with it a new iteration of the musical programme, which turned out to be a blessing in surprise, and represents the evolution I myself have undergone during the pandemic – more adventurous, exploratory, and rooted in my own narrative to celebrate the viola. Unlike other instruments, the viola is not fixed by the weight of its musical canon – we are not bound by the same expectations on repertoire and this has opened up everything. Before it felt like tunnel vision – chamber music and 20th century repertoire – but I have increasingly felt compelled to take control of the repertoire I want to perform, consolidate these ideas and address them with a new-found urgency.

In the previous rendition of the festival, Héloïse Werner was going to perform extracts of her opera The Other Side of the Sea – instead, I have commissioned a new work for viola and voice for us to perform together. I had been looking to record some Schubert and to breathe new life into it, and became hooked on the idea of a viola/soprano duo based on Angela Carter’s Erl-King story from The Bloody Chamber, which is a defiantly feminist retelling of the ancient legend, and makes for a brilliant juxtaposition with Schubert’s beloved Erlkönig. Carter’s female protagonist realises that the Erl-King is going to trap her just as he has captured the other birds in his wood-hut cages – all former lovers – and chooses to save herself by strangling him with his own hair. Heloïse’s work is always very dramatic – that fine line between acting and singing, a unique craft.

Héloïse Werner is not the only female composer featured in the festival – we included Caroline Shaw’s Thousandth Orange in my Trio Klein’s concert coupled with extracts from Bach’s Goldberg Variations arranged for trio and Gideon Klein’s String Trio 1944, composed in Theresienstadt just days before the composer was deported to Auschwitz. Including Caroline Shaw’s piece has meant inviting pianist Huw Watkins to join the Trio.   

Abel Selaocoe’s programme has morphed now too, and is an exploration of Bach’s Cello Suites, some wonderful, newly-discovered Capricci by Dall’Abaco, coupled with his own South African rooted compositions. Violinist Chloe Hanslip joins us for a solo programme of Bach, Biber and Ysaye. Gabriel Prokofiev’s performance is now doubling as the launch for his new album ‘Breaking Screens’, a product of the passage of time between the first iteration of the festival and this one – I must admit that I was thrown right out of my comfort zone when he mentioned that several of the tracks work beautifully with solo viola, and would I like to join him for them, which were proven last Saturday to be the best leap of faith I have taken in the past year! And now the festival is spread out over a month instead of one weekend, giving audiences more opportunities to enjoy the beautiful food and drink at the venue too. Even the events with the Misha Mullov-Abbado Group, Nimrod Borenstein and a reading from Immortal with writer Jessica Duchen won’t be entirely the same.

It is incredibly gratifying to me that Up Close and Musical is not only a forum for audiences and artists to connect intimately, but that now in 2021 it is the place where many of my artists will meet their audience for the first time since the start of the pandemic. Judging by the reactions on opening night, it will be treasured by us all for a very long time.

Shiry Rashkovsky’s Up Close and Musical Festival continues at the Fidelio Orchestra Café on 29 July, 14 and 15 August. For more information click here.