A WEEK IN THE LIFE OF A BRITTEN SINFONIA PLAYER: BRIDGET CAREY

It’s never just a week in the office when there’s a Britten Sinfonia project in my diary, but the week beginning 14 June was a BS special.

It began gently enough, with a rehearsal for the second of our two Aldeburgh Festival concerts. Solo violist Wenhan Jiang led us through John Woolwich’s evocative Monteverdi transcription Ulysses Awakes, and Helen Charlston introduced us to works by Haydn and Charpentier inspired by Greek myths. Britten’s Phaedra always makes the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, and from the first moment of Helen’s rehearsal it was clear that this was going to be an absolutely riveting performance.

Day two of rehearsal brought us a conductor, a woodwind section and another world class soloist in Laura van der Heijden, and as the cello symphony started to take shape we knew we heading for two very exciting concerts. Into the mix went two exquisitely delicate miniatures from the softly spoken Lisa Illean and Brett Dean’s soundscape for strings and tape evoking the story of the infamous composer and murderer Carlo Gesualdo. Somehow we also managed to rehearse Stravinsky’s Apollon Musagète, and then we were on the road to Suffolk, the summer was properly heating up and the roof of the artists entrance at the Maltings was home to several families of well fed house martins.

The balance of the first programme with cellist Laura van der Heijden (broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 - listen here), with its furtive and exploratory first half complementing the uncompromising bombast of the Britten's Cello Symphony in the second, seemed a fitting send off for our founder member and principal clarinet Joy Farrall, for whom it was the last performance with the orchestra. As we drove through the archway to leave the Maltings, a crescent moon hung in the midsummer sky with Jupiter adjacent.

Back the next day for the second concert, also broadcast live, and Sunday’s rehearsal felt a long way back. Helen’s powerful programme unfolded, leading us inexorably to Phaedra’s dark conclusion. As ever we had been handed a tall order but the sense of a team working for the best possible performance was really evident.

My midnight arrival at home wasn’t the end of my Britten Sinfonia week, however. Friday morning found me on a train to Thetford to finish off a project begun the week before called "Songs from the Library". A group of teenagers and members of the community had been meeting at Thetford Library with a group of musicians led by composer Hannah Conway and facilitator and wordsmith Hazel Gould to make a celebration of the spirit of the library in words and music. 

Working at impressive speed, ideas were shared and assimilated, stories told and songs and sound pictures assembled. By the end of Friday afternoon we had a presentation to share with families and the wider community. Intergenerational projects like this have a special energy and the group of students from the Thetford Academy grow in confidence and imagination with each scheme. Chris Bell and the L&P team have been quietly building a lasting resource over the last couple of years and I’m very pleased to be a part of it.