Today

66 December/January April/May 2011 2015/16 Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today www.KCWToday.co.uk 020 7738 2348
December/January 2015/16
Kensington, Chelsea & Westminster Today
67
Arts & Culture
Travel
online: www.KCWToday.co.uk
Photograph © Amy Randall
Richard Heason
An hour or so in the company
of baroque’s leading impresario
St John’s Smith Square
Winter 2015
Events have conspired to time the
interview with Richard Heason
as a piece that might naturally
evolve into something of a wrap of the
year. Given that the extended KCW
Today manor includes the Royal Opera
House, the Royal College of Music,
and the Wigmore Hall, attempts to
select one pre-eminent are exercises in
local luminary Gerhardie’s first novel
(Futility). Other big guns would concede
2015 has been an amazing year for St
John’s Smith Square (SJSS). KCWT
has been showering praise on SJSS
following triumphs, which have included
the launch of the Southbank residency,
Bampton Opera’s fabulously ambitious
and innovative Trofonio (Salieri), Ken
Woods’ voyage around Mozart’s Requiem
Mass in D Minor K626 with the English
Symphony Orchestra, and Warren
Mailley-Smith’s Complete Chopin Cycle,
to be continued on Friday 15th January
2016. Don’t miss the pre-concert event
at half six; this is the big one: all twentyfour
preludes.
So having spent the year loving his
work and enjoying his hospitality, it was
with some excitement that the Editor
and I went round the back of the Palace
of Westminster to the baroque icon St
John’s Smith Square to meet the dynamo
that is Director Richard Heason. To
interview Richard is to be taken on a
three dimensional, virtual tour along
psychedelic musical corridors examining
400 years of the most intense creativity in
the round. Heason reveals how the whole
era is dominated by Johann Sebastian
Bach, the one towering figure rendering
the modern era a cohesive whole, a living
tableau. We disciples listen engrossed as
the conductor brought pieces and their
authors to life with each adroit twist of
his erudite and engaged musical mind.
What journey brought you to St
John’s Smith Square?
“I’m a conductor by training, starting
out as a brass band musician in Cornwall,
which has a long tradition of brass bands
linked to the tin-mining industry. I
moved on to orchestral music and took
up conducting when I was fifteen, taking
a year out after school sitting at the feet
of great conductors, including Pierre
Boulez. I entered competitions including
the International Hungarian Radio &
Television conductors’ competition,
where I was the youngest participant,
going on via experience in France to
western Hungary for a course, winning
the conducting competition at the end
of that”.
Richard went on to discuss his
experiences reading music at York
University, finding himself engaging with
the local community as he has continued
to do throughout his career organising
and leading workshops. After that, his
career involved spells with the Orchestra
of St John’s (coincidentally the orchestra
has just moved back to SJSS), the BBC,
and venue management in Aylesbury and
Blackheath.
What does the job involve?
“Everything from engaging the artists
to fixing the plumbing in a building
that’s 300 years old. One day we’ll justify
having a chief operating officer. We do
have a box-office manager supervising
ticket sales for over 300 concerts a year”.
It’s clear that Richard is also an
entrepreneurial business leader. Richard
describes SJSS’s place in the market
with energetic clarity, differentiating the
venue from its competition with respect
and understanding. The grand hall
reflects its clerical origins, its uncluttered
core enabling events where the audience
can lose itself in the round.
The Southbank residency packs a
huge punch with an extended repertoire
and audience, a genuinely international
presence, opening in October 2015 with
Ian Bostridge and the Orchestra of the
Age of the Enlightenment.
SJSS’s role in the community is
clearly important to Richard. Perhaps
uniquely St John’s is still consecrated,
there had been a sung Eucharist with a
congregation receiving communion the
day we met in November.
“On 27th December 2015 there will
be a special 10am Sunday service lead by
our own parish vicar the Revd Graham
Buckle of St Stephen’s Rochester Row,
encompassing St John’s Smith Square in
the presence of the Rt Revd and Rt Hon
Richard Charteris Bishop of London,
who was instrumental in the reconvening
of the church when he was the local
parish vicar here in the 1980s”.
Leading with Warren Mailley-
Smith’s Complete Chopin Cycle, Heason
enthuses about what he calls ‘box sets’.
“Within a week of my appointment
Warren approached me, very keen to
make it work. Chopin’s enduring appeal
made it an attractive proposition. We
don’t want to become reliant on complete
cycles but they do have their place. We’ve
performed the complete Beethoven
piano concertos and in 2017 we’ll do
the complete Beethoven symphonies.
For Christmas 2017 we’re doing the
complete JS Bach organ works, throwing
open the doors free of charge”.
Catch them at six o’clock every
evening from Advent (Sunday 3rd
December 2017) until 23rd December
2017, which doesn’t seem to have a
special name other than Saturday the eve
of Christmas Eve.
The Editor and I commented on
the beauty of the organ, a Johannes
Klais, inaugurated in 2011 and recently
used to dramatic effect at the 2015/16
season launch with David Titterington’s
rendition of Carillon de Westminster by
Vierne.
“Bach is, of course, the God of
baroque music, so it is fitting that
we should house such an excellent
instrument. It’s interesting,” Heason
reflects, “that the truly great composers
arrive in pairs: Bach and Handel; Mozart
and Haydn; Beethoven and Schubert;
Brahms and Wagner; and Shostakovich
and Britten. St John’s Smith Square is
the only baroque music venue in the
country dating from the baroque era.
Handel was in London throughout the
time that St John’s was being built and
Bach was about to move to Leipzig when
it was completed in the late 1720s. There
are of course other wonderful composers,
Rameau, Vivaldi, Telemann, Purcell; but
we find ourselves returning to Handel
and Bach”.
Would they have known each other’s
music?
“Probably not. Handel was not only a
great composer; he was also a celebrated
impresario who became extremely
wealthy. In that context it’s all the more
remarkable that Bach, an isolated church
organist in provincial east Germany,
exerted such an important global cultural
influence”.
We spoke about St John’s Smith
Square’s rising profile as a venue.
“The more experimental we want
to be, the greater the need for buffer
finance. Developing the venue is fine
but artistic product militates against the
venue being a major source of revenue.
We have to remember we’re the only
baroque venue in the country and my
aim is to consolidate our position as
the natural home for Handel, Bach,
Telemann, and the rest, while on the
other hand it takes £1,500 a day just to
switch on the lights. Ideally we’d be so
busy offering cutting-edge performances
we wouldn’t have time to develop the
venue, but it’s difficult to run a historic
monument on ticket sales alone. The
challenge is hard at times but it’s
probably a good thing not to have an
unlimited budget”.
Baroque ’n’ Roll in a Queen
Anne church five minutes’ walk from
Westminster tube. What I’ll take away
from meeting Richard is an enduring
affection for a venue that oozes
individuality, provenance and glamour
together with a revitalised appreciation
of JS Bach.
Was the pinnacle of musical
achievement Bach’s St John Passion
BWV 245, or St Matthew Passion
BWV 244?
“That changes by the hour. I have a
vision, one on each of a pair of Desert
Islands and swimming between the two”.
James Douglas & Kate Hawthorne
ST JOHN’S SMITH SQUARE
is delighted to announce that
it has been selected as one of
the 6 shortlisted finalists for
the Dot London Small Business
Awards in the category,
Independent Cultural Venue of
the Year.
Richard Heason, Director of St
John's Smith Square said: “We
are particularly thrilled to be
shortlisted for the Independent
Cultural Venue of the Year category
of the Dot London Small Business
Awards as we are the only solely
classical music venue to have made
the shortlist. St John’s Smith Square
is the UK's only concert hall from the
baroque period and, whilst we are
very proud of our unique heritage
setting, it is really pleasing that
this award recognises our forward
thinking approach to the promotion
of classical music. We are always
looking for ways to develop and
engage new audiences, especially
through emerging technologies,
and success in this award would be
a great endorsement of all that we
have achieved over the past year.”
The finalist with the most votes
from each category by January 2016
will take home the coveted trophy,
along with prizes including £1000
cash and one-to-one mentoring from
Dot London's awards sponsors. The
public voting will close at 5pm on 8th
January 2016 and the winners will be
announced at the Awards ceremony
on 21st January.
Voting is now open via the
website www.awards.london. Please
spread the news of St John's Smith
Square's success and vote for us!
Vote here: http://awards.london/
independent-cultural-venue-of-theyear.php
Madeira
By Derek Wyatt
My Sunday school teacher was
called Miss Penelope Isle. She
used to take her holidays in
Madeira. We thought that very posh.
We did not know where it was but
it sounded exotic. We were rather a
naughty lot and when she returned we
used to come into class with our arms
flapping like a plane whilst making a
noise like a missile. It was a terrible
joke but we repeated it until the penny
dropped.
Fifty five years on, I have finally
made it to this extraordinary archipelago.
If you want a short break in the sun
in November or December where do
you go? The Keys in Florida is too far,
Greece cannot guarantee the weather.
Egypt even before the Russian plane
disaster is a no-no if you also want peace
and quiet. We chose Funchal, the capital
of Madeira. We were not disappointed.
Funchal itself is not overly attractive
and has no beaches. It is volcanic so
there are steep cliffs and black lava
doubles as so-called sand. It has a small,
deep harbour which can easily take those
wretched cruise liners. A million tourists
visit here annually so it must have
something.
The key is to find a hotel which acts
as an oasis. So not the famous Reid’s or
the many new hotels built on the front to
the west which have little to commend
themselves. Up a little from the hurly
burly are a small number of old houses
or quintas with wonderful gardens,
outstanding service, a heated pool and
old fashioned charm.
We were recommended to try
Estalagem Quinta da Casa Branca and
we were not disappointed. The blurb said
its new extension was in honour of Frank
Lloyd Wright but we thought it more
Mies van der Rohe (Barcelona Pavilion
et al) but it matters not for it is work of
sheer beauty.
Tourism has changed Madeira.
Funchal’s boundaries have expanded up
the mountains without, depressingly, any
obvious planning regime. Its 130,000
population is employed in tourism, wine
making (“Another Madeira, m’dear?”)
and agriculture.
It was surprising to see so many
manicured terraces up the mountains,
by the road side and frankly even
where there was the smallest of spaces.
Growing bananas, grapes, potatoes,
mango, sugar cane, bamboo and
tomatoes is de rigeur. Almost anything
can grow in these rich soils and does.
Of course being an island, fishing
provides another living and there is a
vibrant fish market in the old town. The
fish on our menus included scabbard, red
pepper, sardines and halibut,
We took a tour of the Island with a
driver. The last train failed to make it
home but there are buses and you can
hire a car. Madeira has been enriched in
every way by the EU. Dozens of difficult
and cleverly placed tunnels make the
journey easier. We took the old roads and
pottered at our leisure finishing up at a
delightful restaurant in Santana on the
north coast for lunch.
There is only one downside to a
November break in Madeira and that
is the hundreds and hundreds of wild
flowers are sadly not in bloom. I still fell
in love with the Bird of Paradise, X and y
so not all was lost.
We came for a spot of R&R and
were not disappointed. We favored lazy
lunches and smarter evenings out. We
had goodly times at Taberna da Escuina,
Zarco’s, Viverde (Santana), Tokos,
Centre de Design da Nini, Challet
Vincente, Il Gall d’Oro (the only one
star on the island) and Restaurante do
Forto.
The most famous recent Madeiran
has been Christian Ronaldo, now playing
for Real Madrid and the subject of a new
film currently on theatrical release. I first
saw him as a youngster for Manchester
United versus Charlton at the Valley.
That day he was keen on falling over at
every attempted tackle. Ronaldo hails
from a poor family and had to beg and
borrow his soccer kit when he was very
young. He has repaid this in spades
funding projects and creating a Ronaldo
museum . They adore him here.
Finally, Portuguese wines have been
overlooked for too long. Try in the
whites: Curtimenta 2011, Ninfa 2013
and Esporoa Reserva 2102 and in the
reds: Herdade San Miguel Reserva 2011
and for a classy Madeira try Bual 10 anos
(Blandys, of course!). Enjoy.
Photograph © Bjorn Ehrlich
Photograph © sDerek Wyatt