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Sistema Scotland Press Release – 11/7/11

Raploch’s New Maestro

Sistema Scotland is delighted to announce the appointment of one of the UK’s finest music educators as its Director of Music.

Violinist Francis Cummings is currently Director of Music at St Mary’s School in Edinburgh – Scotland’s only full-time specialist music school.

He will take up the new appointment in August, overseeing a drive for musical excellence at the Big Noise orchestra in Raploch, Stirling and future Big Noise centres around the country.

Modeled on Venezuela’s world-famous El Sistema, Big Noise was launched in 2008 and aims to transform the lives of children through music.

As a founding member of the Chamber Orchestra of Europe, Francis worked extensively with eminent conductors and soloists including Claudio Abbado, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, George Solti and Lorin Maazel, appearing in festivals throughout Europe, Japan, Australia and the USA.

He has worked regularly with a number of UK orchestras including the BBC SSO, Manchester Camerata, Northern Sinfonia, Scottish Chamber Orchestra, The Hallé, Liverpool Philharmonic and The Orchestra of the Golden Age.

Francis has held teaching posts at the University of Huddersfield, University of Lancaster and Chetham’s School of Music. He is a former leader of the National Youth Orchestra of Scotland and took up the post of Director of Music at St Mary’s Music School in April 2007.

Sistema Scotland Chairman Richard Holloway said: “A recently published evaluation commissioned by the Scottish Government shows Big Noise is having a huge social impact in Raploch. Good behaviour, confidence, self-esteem and pride are on the rise.

“We are proud of the music that has been made too, and the work of our existing team of 16 musicians – but we are upping the musical stakes now. The children have given us no option. Many of them have revealled a talent and a hunger to excel which we feel obliged to match.

“We are matching it with Francis Cummings. I am utterly thrilled that we have secured the services of such an eminent artist and educator. St Mary’s is very highly regarded and we want the same excellence for Raploch.”

Sistema Scotland Director Nicola Killean said: “Francis is a dream addition to the team. This community, which three years ago had no tradition of orchestral music-making, now has access to the very best musical influences imaginable.”

The appointment follows the arrival of four new board members also enhancing the organisation’s musical intelligence – Nicola Benedetti, Kathryn Jourdan, Paul Jourdan and Fergus McWilliam. (See Notes below for biographies)

For further information contact George Anderson on 07900 891691.

Notes for Editors
Summary findings of a recently published evaluation of Big Noise commissioned by the Scottish Government can be viewed at:

http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Publications/2011/03/11150907/1

Nicola Benedetti began violin lessons at the age of five. In 1997, she entered the Yehudi Menuhin School, where she studied with Natasha Boyarskaya. After leaving the Yehudi Menuhin School she continued her studies with Maciej Rakowski in London. She is currently taking lessons from Pavel Vernikov in Vienna.

In recent seasons Nicola has performed with almost all of the UK and Ireland’s major symphony orchestras including the London Philharmonic, Philharmonia and City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestras, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, the BBC Scottish Symphony orchestra and the RTE Orchestra. She has received invitations to work with a list of international orchestras including the Deutsche Symphony Orchestra in Berlin, the Tonhalle Orchestra in Zurich, NDR Orchester in Llubjiana, Het Brabants Orkest, the Orchestre de Picardie, KBS Symphony and the Japan Philharmonic. Nicola’s busy schedule has also seen her perform in North America with the National Arts Centre Orchestra and with the Vancouver, Colorado, Phoenix, Toronto and Indianapolis Symphony Orchestras.

In addition to her performance and recording activities, Nicola has devoted herself to humanitarian and educational causes. She is already involved with Big Noise as our “Musical Big Sister”. Since 2005, she has visited schools throughout the United Kingdom in conjunction with the CLIC Sargent Practice-a-thon, in which she encourages pupils of all ages to pick up their instruments and enjoy classical music. Nicola is also a UNICEF Celebrity Supporter.

Kathryn Jourdan studied music as an instrumental award holder at Clare College, Cambridge, then viola with Simon Rowland Jones at the Royal Northern College of Music. Whilst in Manchester she taught violin and chamber music at Chetham’s School of Music, and was a practice supervisor with special pastoral responsibility for 11-14 year olds. She freelanced with the Manchester Camerata, BBC Philharmonic and various chamber ensembles and on leaving college in 1990 she joined the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, where she was a member for five years, taking an active role in the outreach work of the orchestra in the inner city education and community settings.

On leaving the orchestra Kathryn returned to Cambridge to train as a secondary music teacher whilst playing in a London-based string quartet for three years. In 1998 she moved to Edinburgh, where she freelances with the Scottish Chamber Orchestra and other chamber groups.  Kathryn coaches chamber groups at St Mary’s Music School, teaches the viola at George Watson’s College and trains junior choristers for Old St Paul’s Church.   She is currently completing a PhD in music education based in the Faculty of Education, Cambridge University.

Paul Jourdan studied music at Clare College, Cambridge, and then violin
with Roger Raphael at RNCM in Manchester, teaching as Roger’s assistant at Chethams School of Music, where he also coached chamber music and conducted the school’s string ensemble. Having worked with Manchester Camerata, Liverpool Philharmonic and BBC Philharmonic, he went on to join the first violin section of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra from 1990-94, where he was also involved in the orchestra’s community and educational outreach work in the inner city area. From 1995-98 he completed a PhD at Clare College, Cambridge on Mendelssohn’s Visits to England, 1829-37, looking at the early development of the modern music profession, whilst also performing regularly with the Jourdan String Quartet, including a South Bank debut concert and a residency series at Highmore Hall.

Paul was a founding board member of the Dunedin Consort, and in 2010 he became a director of Hebrides Ensemble. After a few years on the Strings Advisory Board Paul was appointed a Governor of the RSAMD.

Since 1998 Paul has also worked extensively in the Edinburgh financial sector. In January 2010 he led a management buy-out to acquire Noble Fund Managers, and re-named the company Amati Global Investors.

Horn player Fergus McWilliam was born in Scotland and grew up in Canada where he began his musical studies. Further studies were undertaken in Amsterdam (Adriaan van Woudenberg) and Stockholm (Wilhelm Lanzky-Otto).  

From 1972 to 1979 Fergus was a member of several Canadian orchestras and chamber music ensembles before joining the Detroit Symphony Orchestra under Antal Dorati. From 1982 to 1985 he was a member of the Bavarian Radio Symphony under Raphael Kubelik and Leonard Bernstein.

In 1985 Fergus was appointed to the Berlin Philharmonic under Herbert von Karajan. In addition to the orchestra’s two most recent Musical Directors, Claudio Abbado and Sir Simon Rattle, he has also performed as a Berliner Philharmoniker with Carlos Kleiber, Günter Wand, Carlo Maria Giulini, Bernard Haitink, Eugen Jochum, Klaus Tennstedt, Sergiu Celibidache, Seiji Ozawa, Riccardo Muti, Pierre Boulez, Nikolaus Harnoncourt, James Levine and Daniel Barenboim. Other historical figures with whom he performed, collaborated, or by whom he was personally influenced include Aaron Copland, György Ligeti, Leopold Stokowski, Mstislav Rostropovich and Glenn Gould.

Fergus also teaches students from around the world and he has given master classes at a number of leading music schools in many different countries. Not only has he taught at both the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra Academy and the Hanns-Eisler-Musikhochschule in Berlin; he has also been a visiting lecturer at, for example, the Royal Academy of Music and Guildhall School in London, the Paris Conservatoire and the Tokyo University of Fine Arts. He currently maintains a teaching commitment at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama in Glasgow and continues his decade-long active involvement with El Sistema’s brass programme.

He has been active in orchestra politics for over 20 years, chairing and serving on commitees responsible for the Berlin Philharmonic’s famous self-administration and as a member, both of the orchestra foundation’s Board of Trustees, as well as of the Board of Directors of the Berliner Philharmonie GmbH.

We would love to hear from anyone with an instrument to donate, as we prepare to introduce woodwind, brass and percussion to our orchestra. Get in touch by emailing george.anderson@sistemascotland.org.uk if you have a trumpet, euphonium, tuba, trombone, horn, flute, clarinet, oboe, bassoon or percussion instrument in good condition. We promise to put them to good use.

To celebrate the Big Noise Orchestra’s birthday, we printed a booklet of photographs which were distributed in the community. The pictures told the story of year one in the life of the UK’s first Sistema Orchestra. You can download a pdf of the booklet by clicking here.