Tonight, 25th January 2010, I conducted both the Junior and Senior Wind Bands of the RIAM in a concert at the National Concert Hall.  Truth to tell, both groups were under rehearsed as the recent snow closed the Academy for one of our scheduled rehearsal days and the planned weekend workshop with the seniors didn't happen as a result.

You know, some things never change.  If any teacher can come up with a way to convince EVERY player in every ensemble to check the key signature before they play a piece that may be unfamiliar, they will become both rich and famous!  And if any company can produce a pair of glasses that will keep the conductor in clear sight at all times, well, I'll dream on. Tonight we had a number of examples of the hieroglyphics on the left hand side of the page being ignored at worst or overlooked at best. But that aside, this blog is not being written to moan or to castigate. In fact, it's quite the opposite.

In any educational institution where ensembles play a part in performance activities, standards change from year to year depending on the particular membership at any particular time.  And the expectations of the conductor as to performance standards will be tempered by the quality of the performers in the group in any academic year. But what I experienced tonight was a real eye opener.  As I said previously, both ensembles were under rehearsed. The music performed was too unfamiliar to most members to be comfortable and there were mistakes and some intonation and ensemble issues.

But, and here's the rub, both groups performed admirably!  I was astounded at the level of performance achieved by the juniors, a group of young players who need repeated exposure to any material in order to feel comfortable with it - or so I thought!  They were fantastic, confident and up for the challenge and they achieved more than I would have believed before the gig. Likewise the seniors but on a different (obviously) level.  They had twice as long a programme with the same rehearsal time and, yeh, there are lots of things that I would like to fix in hindsight but live performance is just that - live and unforgiving.  And again, they rose to the challenge and over-achieved. Some particular fine individual performances added to the pleasant flavour of the evening.

Other ensembles performing included the Junior strings, Intermediate Orchestra and Symphony Orchestra. I know that some of these groups suffered from the same lack of rehearsal time that I experienced with my groups but you wouldn't know it. In short, it was a good night for the Academy and a great night for the future of music performance in Ireland. Congratulations must go to the other conductors Yvonne Donnelly and James Cavanagh with special mention to Mr Cavanaghs conducting student Emma O'Halloran who conducted with a confidence and flair belying her experience.

Finally, a word of thanks and congratulations to Willie Dunne, the Manager of the Performing groups who, with a small band of volunteers (and thank you all!), coreographed a seamless performance of 5 different groups made up of hundreds of young performers.  Looking back, my job was easy compared to his.

Fergus O'Carroll