Background of the London Chamber Group

The Group is an offshoot from Contemporary Music-making for Amateurs. Like COMA, it seeks to generate and perform a repertoire of contemporary music playable and performable by amateurs. It was set up in 1996, and has grown from an initial group of 9 players to include over 40 players.

These players are organised in a number of small ensembles, such as string quartets, wind quintets, and clarinet quartets. There is also a saxophone quartet and a brass quintet, plus a trio of violin, clarinet, and cello.

The Group gave its first concert in the autumn of 1996, and gave two concerts in each of 1997, 1998, 1999, and 2000. These concerts have attracted audiences ranging from a dozen up to 45. The group has become increasingly effective in putting on an interesting and well organised evening of contemporary music. But it has not been effective in attracting an audience much beyond friends and contacts of group members or composers of music whose pieces were being performed.

The Group has assembled a wide ranging repertoire. Pieces were found in the COMA music library. Some published pieces have been purchased, and others still were unpublished pieces from well known composers. Several good pieces have been obtained by asking composers known to the group to write for it without payment. Three pieces have been commissioned with grant funds.

The Group obtained an Arts For Everyone grant, and has been funded for three years by the Performing Right Society Foundation. A grant was also obtained from the NFMS. These various sources of grant aid have been invaluable in enabling the group to commission music, covering the cost of coaching sessions for the ensembles, and covering losses on concerts.

Origins of the 'Music in Place' idea

The Group had developed the capacity to perform effectively, yet felt frustrated by the limited audiences it was able to attract. In London it is in competition with many of the world's top performers for audiences. If it were based in a smaller city, or a suburb distant from central London, its capacity to attract audiences might be greater, but on the other hand the total audience interested in new music would be smaller.

The Group would only be likely to be able to play its music to significantly larger numbers of people if its performances were connected to other things which were the principal attraction. Also, people would not have to pay to hear the Group play, or should not be paying principally to hear the Group. We had discussed ideas such as playing foyer music at concert halls prior to the main event, but this had not come to anything.

We had performed twice at the Bromley Festival. This involved playing in The Glades shopping centre in Bromley. This certainly brought our music to a larger audience, but the audience appeared to ignore us completely, and continued with their shopping or their take-away meals.

These concerns were fed into a discussion about the format of future performances, in the context of a possible Millennium celebratory event. In that discussion, the possibility was raised of performing our music in order to enhance and celebrate high quality public spaces in London. The British Library was mentioned in this discussion as a possible venue.

The key elements of the project were as follows:

• that we should play for free, in a place where large numbers of people would be present for reasons other than our music
• that we should seek to celebrate and enhance a high quality modern building of real functional importance to the city we all live in - the opposite of the 'bread and circuses' approach which underlay the Dome
• that we should play contemporary music in a modern building

We approached the British Library about performing in their entrance foyer on this basis.

Development of the plan for the event

The British Library building on Euston Road is an outstanding example of modern architecture, and a pleasure to visit simply to experience the architecture. It is also very functional. The piazza outside the entrance creates a sense of quiet, cutting out the noise of Euston Road. The entrance foyer is spacious and on several levels. It leads to the collections and reading rooms, and contains exhibits, including the private library of George III. It also has a cafe. The Library would like people to make use of their building for purposes other than using their book and other collections.

Our proposals therefore fitted in well with the objectives of the Library, and we were to our surprise and delight invited to play on the Library's Open Day. The Library opens its whole building to the general public as part of London Open House - an annual event when many buildings which would usually be closed are open to the public.

We were invited to perform all day. The Library estimated that there would be 5,000 visitors. Since the length of playing time was around six times greater than any concert we had given and the venue was entirely different, we had to invent a quite new type of performance format for the Group.

We identified a number of different places around the entrance foyer of the library where the acoustic was sufficiently resonant. The aims was to perform from these different spots in rotation. A group would perform in one spot, then a different group in another spot, and so on. The effect would be to give a wide variety of different types of performance - some of fairly assertive music in spaces out in the open, and others of quieter music in less exposed spots.

One reason for playing in several different places was to avoid the music imposing on people. While there might be music from one spot for 5 or 6 minutes, the music would not return to that spot for another 20 to 25 minutes. In this way, the music would enhance the building rather than impose on people.

The music from a number of the performance spots was audible from a good deal of the entrance foyer, though the volume was less further from the performers. The foyer is on several levels, with staircases and escalators. In addition to the four main performance spots, there were also a couple of pieces performed from the staircases and balcony. In these cases - and it was loud music - the sound could be heard throughout the entrance foyer, and many people stood and paid attention.

Finding repertoire

We decided to assemble a three hour programme of music, and to perform this in the morning, repeating it in the afternoon. This meant that each ensemble in the Group needed to prepare about 4 pieces of music. The music was of two types:

• music from our existing repertoire, to reinforce the idea that we were bringing our own music before the public
• pieces written especially for the event

A general call for pieces was put out, and a number of people were invited to write pieces. Ensembles in the group then examined their existing repertoire and the new pieces submitted, and made their selections.

All the music played was therefore chosen by the players - they really were bringing the music which they had chosen, to play it before a large audience.

The big day

The audience on the day was a little lower than expected, partly because the weather was foul. The Group had publicised its performance extensively, but there was little sign that this had attracted people to the event. Essentially, people were there to see the building, and encountered the music, rather to their surprise in some cases.

We offered programmes of our performance to the visitors as they entered the building. Many people took these, and to some extent followed the course of our performance, walking from performance spot to performance spot to hear each new piece. Each time a performance took place there were a number of people standing close by, reading the programme note for the piece concerned which we displayed, and paying close attention to the music.

Some people ignored the music, and went to the various exhibitions and events which the Library had organised. Many people appeared to be interested in the music, but responded to it simply as a general background to the building.

We received some very positive feedback. We stopped for half an hour for lunch, and someone commented how sad it was that the music had stopped. Another person asked to whom they should write to ensure we were invited back the next year. In general, people appeared to find the music interesting, and a positive feature of the Open Day. Importantly, they seemed to accept contemporary music as entirely appropriate in the context of a modern building.

The players genuinely enjoyed themselves. At the start they were nervous, and there were a number of practical problems, but after the first half hour things began to run smoothly, and the players relaxed and began to have fun.

The experience was very different from playing in a concert hall. While the audience was often attentive, and while there were large numbers of people listening to the music to some extent, the audience was not concentrating and being potentially critical in the way would be the case in a concert. Consequently, the players found they could simply relax and enjoy playing.

Lessons and conclusions

• A group of amateur musicians were able to organise and carry through a large scale event of this type.
• They were able to bring contemporary music to a large number of people who would probably not enter a concert hall to listen to it.
• The music was accepted as entirely appropriate in the context of a modern building. It was taken as a positive addition to the building.
• In order for such an event to work, it need to take place at a venue where people are present in large numbers in any case, or where they will be present in large numbers on the day concerned for reasons other than the music.
• The choice of building is very important, since the music needs to be there for a reason. There are buildings which one might not wish to celebrate. The design and purpose of the building are both important to this.
• Publicising the music is not essential. People will then encounter the music as a celebration and enhancement of the building, rather than being there specifically to hear the music.
• Most people did not listen to the music played with the attentiveness which would be normal in a concert. Pieces with a more complex musical argument therefore seemed less appropriate than those which were principally atmospheric.