The
Charnwood Orchestra
A brief history
The Charnwood
Orchestra, or The Quorn Orchestra, as it was originally
known, was founded by Joseph O’Reilly in mid-September 1973.
As Director of Music at Quorn Rawlins Upper School, Joe
was attempting “to form an Orchestra to fill a “vacuum”
for former members of Leicestershire Schools’ Orchestra”
as he put it in a letter published in The Leicester Mercury
on 17th October 1973.
The Quorn Orchestra made its debut
at Rawlins on 4th April 1974 with a concert comprising
Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto, Schubert’s ‘Unfinished’ Symphony
and Beethoven’s overture, Prometheus. These works could
be enjoyed for 30p or 15p for children and OAP’s!
The very first notice received
by the orchestra was written for The Loughborough Echo
on 19th April 1974 by Tony Foorde; who to this
day attends our concerts and shares his views with his readers.
The following is that first notice,
in full, (with kind permission of The Loughborough Echo).
“There was a great deal that was
eminently sensible, professional and even auspicious about
the inaugural concert of The Quorn Orchestra under their
conductor Joseph O’Reilly at Rawlins.
For a start, with some forty players,
many of them ex-School’s Symphony Orchestra, they looked
as if they meant business. Their programme was testing but
of modest length: no attempt at deception by playing unfamiliar
music or by stringing together endless fragments. To have
a soloist who could handle the Mozart Clarinet Concerto
as well as Ralph Whiteman was no cover either; rather it
was a challenge to their sensitivity in accompaniment, as
if they hadn’t enough on their hands already.
The concerto went remarkably well:
although there was raggedness and poor intonation, notably
in the strings, it was not worse than in the opening piece,
Beethoven’s ‘Prometheus’ Overture, which suffered badly
from first night nerves: and before being told, I hadn’t
guessed the Mozart had been very short of rehearsal. Tempi
were well judged, giving the music a natural flow that would
not have disgraced a far more experienced orchestra; and
the solo part, if not ultra-sensitive, was for the most
part secure and shapely.
“SCHUBERT’S
UNFINISHED”
After the interval, the printed
order of the pieces was rightly reversed to give us that
charming old light classic, Jarnefeldt’s ‘Praeludium,’ before
Schubert’s Unfinished. Clearly the symphony was where rehearsal
time had largely gone, for here we had not only a technically
sound enough performance but an interpretation as well,
with the dark and the light, the tension and the calm of
Schubert’s version clearly coming through. The second movement
was especially well shaped, with some nice wind playing.
Earlier in the evening, the heroic grandeur of ‘Prometheus’
had not exactly been missing either, but it hadn’t the confidence
of the Schubert.
So in a short time, three or four months, Mr O’Reilly, by
dint of hard work, clear aims and persuasive directions, has
created with his musicians a real new force in local musical
affairs. Even to maintain it in the face of changing personnel,
let alone to build on the present foundations, will not be
easy, but the potential is there, and they deserve every possible
support.”
More concerts did indeed follow
this debut performance, at a variety of venues across the
County and with an ever-increasing repertoire. By the time
this next review appeared; (produced by kind permission),
again by Tony Foorde in the Echo, after their concert
on 20th November 1976; a new name had been adopted
– The Charnwood Orchestra.
“It was some time since I had last
heard the Charnwood Orchestra, quite possibly when it was
still called the Quorn Orchestra. Naturally personnel change,
but Joseph O’Reilly is still in charge and the promise of
its earlier days has been sustained.
The district is well endowed with
experienced orchestral players and a population many times
greater might be hard put to it to produce a better amateur
ensemble.
It was a long time since I had
heard the Schumann Cello Concerto, a ruminative work until
the finale, sustained by its good melodic ideas (was this
a model for the Elgar?)
Ruth Horlock, principal cello of
the orchestra, played the solo capably, gaining strength
and confidence as she went along, and always was sensitively
balanced by the orchestra.
A breezy account of the ‘Italian
Girl’ overture preceded the concerto; the rest of a well-balanced
programme followed the interval.
Three movements from a dated rarity,
Bantock’s Old English Suite, came across unevenly: the Gibbons
Fantasia and Byrd’s Sellinger’s Round were fine, but Bull’s
King’s Hunt suffered in balance and dynamics so that the
echo effects were not telling enough.
Balance was also the main, though not too damaging difficulty
in an engaging account of Mozart’s Haffner Symphony. The usual
amateur problem of heavy wind playing sometimes drowned the
top line to the point of disguising a passage. Maybe the otherwise
helpfully resonant acoustics of Holy Trinity, Barrow had something
to do with it, though they were partly damped by a large audience
last Saturday night.”
Many more concerts were performed
across the region, some in collaboration with other local
groups, such as the Mountsorrel Choral Society and almost
before having time to catch their breath to blow out the
candles, the members of the Charnwood Orchestra were celebrating
their tenth anniversary with a special concert at Rawlins.
The special programme featured
Brahm’s Overture – Academic Festival, Dvorak’s Concerto
in A Minor for Violin OP. 53; soloist Robert Gibbs; Copland’s
Fanfare for the Common Man and Mendelssohn’s Symphony No.
4 in A Major – ‘Italian’.
During that period the Charnwood
Orchestra has received headline notices that have included
the following; all from and with permission of ‘The Loughborough
Echo’
--
“Sibelius’s First a tough test for orchestra.”
“Stirred by Symphony that fooled Stalin.”
“Orchestras greater assurance owes much to conductor.”
“Conductor performs ‘little miracle’.”
Orchestra in sparkling form
“Delightful New World opens up”
“Berlioz pitfalls avoided with skill.”
“With five concerts a year, the Charnwood Orchestra is the
backbone of local music making.”
“Charnwood return to fine form.”
After the tragic death
of Joe, following a long and painful illness, Paul Hilliam
took up the baton of the orchestra in 1990.
With Paul on the rostrum, the Charnwood
Orchestra moved a little from the core of their repertoire
and sometimes a little further afield. In May 1996 the Charnwood
Orchestra performed a series of concerts in Pithiviers and
Orleans in France to receptive audiences and equally welcoming
press reviews.
Paul graduated from London University
and has worked since as a conductor, as an oboist, in arts
administration and in education. His first experience of
conducting was in Bournemouth with the student orchestra
Gli Amici della Musica and an early influence was
the tuition of the renowned conductor George Hurst at the
Canford Summer School of Music. In 1984 Paul founded London
Camerata. He has worked with this professional chamber
orchestra on numerous occasions at St John’s, Smith Square
and in provincial theatres throughout the south east of
England, including appearances at the Canterbury International
Orchestra Series. The orchestra has performed with many
eminent soloists and has always received the highest critical
acclaim, both locally and in the national press.
Paul has been very much involved
professionally with directing music for children, student
and youth orchestras and amateur orchestras.
In addition to his work as a conductor, Paul has played
as a freelance oboist with various ensembles and orchestras
on London’s South Bank and in the Barbican and Wigmore Halls.
He has also performed on many occasions on the London Underground
and as a result is featured on the record ‘Buskers of London’.
From 1984 to 1988 he helped to
manage the Guilford Philharmonic Orchestra, working with
the late Sir Charles Groves. During this time the orchestra
won an award from the Association for British Sponsorship
for the Arts for its educational work.
In 1989 Paul
was appointed as one of the founder members of staff at
Northamptonshire Grammar School, Pitsford. During 1990 his
work as Director of Music at the School was made the feature
of an article in the magazine ‘Classical Music’.
After seven very successful years
with the Charnwood Orchestra Paul handed over the baton
in 1997; but he is still a regular visitor to and supporter
of our concerts.
It was at the Church of St James the Greater in Leicester
that the final concert ‘’Sous la baguette de Paul Hilliam’’
was performed. The audience treated Paul to a rapturous send
off, and the following comment from Tony Foorde followed –
“finding a worthy successor will not be easy.”
Our current conductor is Nic Fallowfield,
who took over from Paul for the concert at Rawlins in 1998.
Nic leads a varied life as conductor, violinist and teacher.
As a player he has toured all over Europe, North and
South America and Japan. He has recorded extensively, both
commercially and for radio and television.
He has held positions as co-principal
first violin in the Northern Sinfonia, co-leader of the
English String Orchestra and is currently the co-leader
of Sinfonia Viva, (formerly the East of England Orchestra.
He has been a guest leader of the Scottish Chamber Orchestra,
the Ulster Orchestra, Manchester Camerata, the Northern
Chamber Orchestra and others.
Nic is in great demand as a chamber
musician of great experience and is a well respected teacher
at Birmingham Conservatoire and at Gloucester Academy for
Music and the Performing Arts, where he also coaches chamber
music and conducts the string orchestra.
A pupil of George Hurst, Nic was
invited to make his professional conducting debut in 1991
with a series of concerts with Jyvaskyla Sinfoniaorkesteri
in Finland. Since then he has conducted orchestra in Germany,
France, Austria, Belgium, Romania and Greece.
In the UK, he first conducted the
East of England Orchestra in 1992, a concert greeted with
acclamation by audience and players alike; he was immediately
invited back for further concerts.
The repertoire and stature of the
Charnwood Orchestra has continued to grow under Nic's direction
and hopefully this will continue for a long time to come.
More about
Nic can be found on his website at www.fallowfield.org
In May 1999
Nic conducted a series of concerts that were staged in Dublin,
including one at the National Gallery of Ireland, to celebrate
the 25th Anniversary of the founding of the orchestra
by Dubliner Joseph O’Reilly. A similarly successful
tour was also undertaken in 2001.
