• About the Friends of Classical Music at The Sands

• The International Classical Concert Series, 2008 - 2009

• The International Classical Concert Series, 2009 - 2010

• as a communications and advisory channel between the concert audiences and the management of The Sands Centre on matters such as

  • future concert programmes,

  • presentation and ambience.

  • concert talks and so on

• developing concert audiences for the future - schools programmes, and the like.

• assisting in bringing the concert series to the attention of more people in more areas

• having our own activities outside the concerts in Carlisle, e.g. trips to concerts elsewhere.

The Friends have been set up on a formal basis. You can find a copy of our constitution here (this is the revised version, agreed at the AGM in November 2006).  If you are interested in being involved, please send an E-mail with your details to: contact@thesandsfriends.org.uk  or, better still, complete a membership application form and send it with your subscription of £5.

The Sands Centre itself has a  web-site,

Dates of Concerts in the 2009 - 2010 Season

Unless otherwise noted, all works are being played for the first time in Carlisle since the 1999-2000 season

Saturday 10th October 2009 — St Petersburg Symphony Orchestra

conductor - Vladimir Altsculer

Mussorgsky - Prelude & Persian Dance from Khovanschina

Tchaikovsky - Variations on a Roccoco Theme - soloist: Guy Johnson, cello

Tchaikovsky - Symphony No 1 (Winter Daydreams) [Last played 8 seasons ago]

 

Friday 13th November 2009 — Polish National Radio Symphony

conductor - Jacek Kaspszyk

Elgar - In the South

Chopin - Piano concerto No 1 - soloist, Mikhail Rudy [Last played 5 seasons ago]

Beethoven - Symphony No 7 [Last played 5 seasons ago]

 

Friday 19th February 2010 — Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra

conductor - Vasily Petrenko

Weber - Invitation to the Dance

Ravel - Piano concerto in G - soloist Freddy Kempf [Last played 5 seasons ago]

Rachmaninov - Symphony No 3

 

Friday 19th March 2010 — Hallé Orchestra

conductor - Sir Mark Elder

Bax - Spring Fire (with introduction)

Chopin - Piano Concerto No 2 - soloist Polina Leschenko

Sibelius - Symphony No 7

 

Friday 16th April 2010 — Royal Scottish National Orchestra

conductor - Christof Perick

Weber - Overture Der Freischutz [Last played 3 seasons ago]

Mozart - Piano concerto No 27 - soloist Steven Osborne [Last played 6 seasons ago]

Wagner - Prelude & Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde

Brahms - Variations on a Theme by Haydn

 

Saturday 22nd May 2010 — Moscow State Symphony Orchestra

conductor - Pavel Kogan

Borodin - Polovstain Dances from Prince Igor

Rachmaninov - Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini - soloist Igor Tchetuev, piano [Last played 5 seasons ago]

Rimsky Korsakov - Scheherezade [Last played 2 seasons ago]

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Annual Report by the committee for the 2008 - 2009 Season.

This report covers two things: (1) What have we done during the 2008 – 2009 season; and (2) What are the Friends for?

(1) Activities during the last season.

Last season after the indifferent success in previous seasons we did not attempt to arrange any excursions to other concert halls. However we have done a number of things.

The things that are perhaps not obvious to audiences are the support that we give to Sue Baty and Jonathan Higgins of the Sands Centre management. The committee met three times last season: there should have been four meetings, but one had to be cancelled because of unavailability of some key people. At these meetings we discuss the arrangements for the pre-concert talks, we review the concerts and their arrangements; and we discuss and comment on the proposed programme for the forthcoming season. We also usually make contributions to the programme booklet, but that didn’t happen this time because of the absence of the June committee meeting.

The more obvious things that we have done: * We paid for a floral display at the opening concert, and fortunately these displays have continued, often paid for by the visiting orchestras. * Members of the committee have acted as hosts at the pre-concert talks. These have continued to be a great success, and numbers attending continue to rise. All the talks, without fail, have been entertaining and interesting. Some speakers, like tonight’s, ask to be interviewed with the questions that are going to be asked, put to them beforehand. Some speakers turn out to be quite loquacious. Geanandrea Noseda spoke for the second year running and could have quite happily continued for much longer had there been time available. We thank Sue Baty for making the arrangements for these speakers. As well as our appreciation of these talks, the orchestras tell us that they very much value the opportunity of talking to us and meeting some of the audience.

(2) What are the Friends for?

At our last committee we reviewed our objectives. What had we achieved? What were our purposes? While there are over 400 subscribers, only about 80 people have ever expressed an interest in the Friends. We made the following conclusions, some of which have already been referred to in the review of the past season:

• Helping with the Pre-Concert Talks.


• Advising the Sands Management on the choice of music in concert programmes, and the layout of the hall, etc., and help with preparation of the programme booklet.

At our last meeting we heard about the plans for The Sands which were featured on the front page of yesterday’s Cumberland News. At our meeting Jonathan Higgins told us that the plans would have little impact on The Sands as a concert hall, apart from some quieter air conditioning. We said “What about the acoustics?” One of the most frequently heard complaints is the very dry acoustic of The Sands. Jonathan said that it might be possible to do something with reflective wall panels, but little could be dome about the ceiling. In yesterday’s Cumberland News article it did mention improved acoustics, so I hope that comment has been taken on board. Another thing that we discussed was stage risers – so that the players at the back of the orchestra are raised up and are thus visible to the audience. We were told that The Sands has insufficient risers to raise up a whole orchestral section, and so orchestras will not use what they’ve got. The problem is storage space when the risers are not in use. We hope that when the revamp of The Sands comes about that more storage space can be created.

• As a politically motivated “ginger” group.

One of our committee, David Ferriby, commented that when things were going smoothly, people took little interest; but when there were problems, or threats to the future of the concerts, then such a group as the Friends would be very valuable. David’s experience as a deputy head teacher showed that when things were going well at school, there was little interest in the PTA. But if you were at our AGM last year you will have heard that there was a problem with funding for these concerts since the Arts Council withdrew its grant to Carlisle City Council, some of which was used to support the International Series of Classical Concerts. There was talk of perhaps having to reduce the number of concerts from six to five or four per season. At the moment The Sands are working on the basis of six concerts in the 2010 – 2011 season, but the future is still uncertain: the matter of financing concerts is still not clear. You would think that with Carlisle City Council making a bid to be considered as a City of Culture in 2013 that there would be clear support for what we’ve already got. Carlisle Leisure Ltd has appointed a Grants & Sponsorship Officer, whose job it is to try and get support for activities such as the International Classical Series. Tied to this is perhaps the appointment of a so-called residential orchestra – which would probably be the RLPO. There are both advantages of having a ‘residential orchestra’ and disadvantages – particularly if it means less variety of orchestras, conductors and music. But on the other hand experience has shown that where one orchestra visits frequently, they build up a relationship with the audience, and also there is a much greater ability to influence the choice of music played at concerts. We shall have to wait and see what happens with this development.

Incidentally the bid to be a City of Culture by Carlisle Renaissance on behalf of the City Council does not focus very strongly on music. It is mostly about the visual arts and about Carlisle’s architectural heritage. I am on the board of Carlisle Festival Ltd., which promotes the summer music festival and the concerts every Thursday lunchtime in the cathedral, and we were consulted about the report that was commissioned. Having seen the report I wrote on behalf of the Friends to Carlisle Renaissance asking them to give more consideration of the musical life in the city. One point I made was that the ticket prices here are high. You could have gone to the Cadogan Hall in London on Friday of last week to hear the St. Petersburg SO play there at a price much less than here, although the best seats there are more expensive. And the Cadogan Hall has superb acoustics. This all comes back to how our concerts are financed. The break-even situation at The Sands is an average attendance over the season of about an average attendance of 925. Some concerts easily achieve that, but others fail by a long way, so this average is difficult to achieve. Hence our higher prices.

• The existence of The Friends is also of benefit to CLL when making grant applications, demonstrating a committed audience base; this over and above the healthy subscription base.

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