We sat down for an exclusive interview with Toby Chadd, the Artistic Director of Sinfonia Smith Square. Sinfonia Smith Square is the coming together of two much-loved organisations: Southbank Sinfonia and St John’s Smith Square.
Sinfonia Smith Square season opens on 15 October. Hyeyoon Park joins them to perform Bruch’s Violin Concerto No. 1 in a programme that includes music by Anna Clyne and Beethoven. Tickets are available here.
What makes the transition from music college into professional orchestral life particularly challenging, and how does Sinfonia Smith Square help musicians navigate that crucial stage of their careers?
Since its foundation almost 25 years ago, Sinfonia Smith Square has been focused on helping musicians to make the transition into the professional world. The professional scene has changed hugely over this time, but various things have remained constant. You need to be able to perform repertoire quickly and idiomatically across a range of styles: our programme replicates the week-in-week-out schedule and pace of professional life. We also help our players with some nuts and bolts skills: how to give your best in an audition, how to look after your body, how to file a tax return. Perhaps most importantly of all, we try to give a taste off, and some initial skills in, a whole range of musical pursuits, particularly education and community work. Often our players end up having very fulfilling careers in areas they never expected!
With 34 musicians from 15 different nationalities in this year’s cohort, how does bringing together such a diverse group of perspectives shape the orchestra’s sound and identity?
Sinfonia Smith Square’s internationalism is a key part of our identity. Each year we have a completely new group of musicians, and the programme is an opportunity for them to develop their musical skills, but also to share with and learn from their colleagues in a broader social and cultural way. At the beginning of each year, there’s no set ‘identity’ for the orchestra: the players have to build that, bringing their own perspectives and listening to others. This is an invaluable experience, and reflects the fact that being an orchestra isn’t just about playing music: it’s about developing a culture in which different viewpoints come together to create something greater than the sum of its parts. We also actively involve our musicians in decisions around repertoire and programming, and every year we discover new pieces and ideas through them.
How important is it for emerging musicians to work with artists at different stages of their careers, and what do you hope they take away from those collaborations?
We are fortunate to have a committed range of collaborators, each of whom brings something very different to the programme. In a couple of weeks, we’re spending time with the National Gallery and the Globe – organisations outside the music world, but who bring valuable perspectives in how to engage audiences and from whom we have much to learn. Our ongoing relationship with the Royal Ballet and Opera in Covent Garden gives our players an insight into the life of working in that world. We have numerous individual collaborators – soloists, coaches and conductors – who generously give their time amongst busy international careers. We are also fortunate to have a group of over 700 alumni, and they pass on a huge range of expertise and experience.
The Bruch and Beethoven concert places established repertoire alongside contemporary works by Anna Clyne and Britta Byström; how does this balance reflect your vision for the future of orchestral music?
A concert should be an experience. We have a captive audience for a couple of hours, and that is both a privilege and a responsibility: the people for whom we’re playing should go away somehow transformed by what we’ve produced. Our season opener seeks to reflect the nature of the Sinfonia and its musicians. Beethoven’s beloved sixth symphony is irresistibly joyful; the Bruch Violin Concerto will be performed by a fresh new voice on the international scene, Hyeyoon Park. These pieces are in dialogue with two contemporary works, and in the Britta Byström we’ll hear the voices of the musicians, bringing to life that music is fundamentally an exercise in communication between people.
Sinfonia Smith Square aims not only to develop musicians but to empower them to shape the wider orchestral landscape; what ideas or changes are you seeing this generation bring to the profession?
Orchestral music – and the cultural economy in general – has changed hugely over the past 20 years, driven to a large extent by the rise in digital consumption and the impact of the pandemic on audience habits. Our players are mostly in their 20s, and they bring huge energy and insights into how we might better connect with their generation. They are brilliant at creating engaging content on social media; they also have ideas about collaborators and ideas from outside music that resonate with younger audiences. Strikingly, though, one thing remains absolutely constant, which is their clear belief that quality music performed well is still paramount.
With projects ranging from the Sanctuary series to the London Festival of Baroque Music, how are you thinking about creating concert experiences that feel relevant and meaningful to audiences today?
Our ambition is for Smith Square Hall to be a place where a broad range of audiences feel welcome. Our programme reflects that, and accordingly there is a lot of diversity in what we offer. Sanctuary is a new series curated by cellist Matthew Barley in which we are collaborating across genres (the first instalment features dancers from the Royal Ballet) to create a reflective, almost spiritual experience. The London Festival of Baroque Music continues to be the benchmark series for the best baroque groups from around the world. We are increasingly commissioning staged and cross-genre productions, and we’ve recently worked with Mark Rylance and Tom Morris (director of War Horse). You can immediately see a change in the audience demographic for this work, and it’s a thrill to introduce new audiences to orchestral music in this way.