Upbeat Spring 2013 - Royal College of Music

10
Farewell to Peter
After 22 years as Director of the RCM’s
Junior Department, Peter Hewitt is leaving
for new adventures abroad. He tells
Upbeat his most poignant memories…
How did you come to be Director of
the RCM Junior Department?
I’d been teaching music in schools for
a number of years, latterly as a head of
department in Hertfordshire. Then this
opportunity arose at the College, and for
some reason I got it.
I’d always known of the Junior
Department. Edmond Fivet was the
Director then, before that it was Barbara
Boissard and Michael Gough Matthews
(later Director of the RCM), also Marjorie
Humby and Angela Bull – an illustrious
set of forbears! I like to think it was
serendipity that landed me here.
I came into the Junior Department on
several Saturdays before I officially took
up the position, just so I could see how it
worked, and I remember being absolutely
amazed by the quality of the teaching
and the focus teachers gave to individual
students. I like to think that is still a
hallmark of what we do now.
How has the Junior Department
changed during your time as Director?
The number of teaching staff has
increased and the quality of teaching
is at least as good as it’s ever been. The
number of students is also buoyant and
the overall level of applicant at audition
is rising inexorably. We’ve introduced
new instruments such as Jazz piano and
Jazz saxophone and the curriculum has
evolved too – there is now chamber
music for all and a wider range of such
ensembles, and choral singing is offered
to everyone, something close to my
heart. I’d say Musicianship – classes
such as Improvisation, Composition and
Practical Musicianship – has also really
developed over recent years.
We give increasingly careful guidance
towards career pathways for students
now too. I’m very proud that our
students go off in many different
directions. It’s our job to make sure their
decision is as informed as possible and
of course we’re delighted if they want to
study at a conservatoire, particularly the
RCM, but sometimes it’s appropriate for
them to follow a different pathway.
In my time, about 2,000 students have
come through the Junior Department.
And they’ve gone onto all sorts of careers
and branches of music. Some of them
have even returned to the JD as teachers.
There is an incredible loyalty to the
department and the College itself.
What is it that makes the Junior
Department so special?
It’s that coming together of like-minded
people, all wanting to make music
together at a very high level, which on
the whole they’re not able to do locally.
There is a very warm family atmosphere
here: the team and I know all the
students very well, as we also know their
teachers and their families, which makes
for a wonderfully personal approach.
I work very carefully to match new
students with teachers. You try to
address individual student needs and
then find somebody who can best
develop them. And people seem to
sense that we focus on the person, not
just the music making. I like to think of
it as nurturing rounded and grounded
people who just happen to be skilled
creative musicians. I have to mention my
fantastic admin team too – we have such
short terms and they do a brilliant job
packing everything in, making Saturdays
as efficient as they can be.
“Peter Hewitt was extremely kind
to me during my time at RCMJD,
as he was to a great many of my
contemporaries. From a young
age he encouraged me to develop
as a composer, and the success of
Saturday mornings owed much to
his incredible energy and ability to
enthuse and organise a myriad of
teachers and students every week.
Peter is a superlative musician himself,
and would even occasionally step in
and take rehearsals when tutors were
indisposed.” – Tommy Hewitt Jones
(no relation!), composer and RCMJD
alumni 1996-2003
How well is Sparks Juniors, the JD’s
outreach programme, working?
I was closely involved, with Hayley
Clements and Sue Sturrock, in setting up
Sparks Juniors, since a key feature was
how to integrate the students with the
rest of the JD. And I think it’s worked very
well – particularly through the choirs –
and it’s been great to welcome them and
their families into the community.
It’s been going for four years now and
they’ve really become part of the fabric.
It’s great to see them all benefitting
from belonging to such a marvellous
institution. In the future, I’d like to see
the graduates really coming through
as skilled and full members of the JD.
This hasn’t happened yet and it is a very
ambitious wish, but that would be the
ideal. It would be wonderful to be able
to provide that quality of experience
to much larger numbers, but we are
constrained by the size of the building.
How does the JD collaborate with
other institutions?
We’ve set up a number of collaborations
over the years which have greatly
benefited our students. Two I’m
particularly proud of are Sound Moves
and Living Song.
Sound Moves is a project with young
dancers from The Place, and is led by JD
teachers David Sutton-Anderson and
Avril Anderson. Composers from JD
collaborate with young choreographers
to create a piece which is then performed
by fellow students both here at the RCM
and at The Place. It’s been going for
about 14 years and is just terrific.