It’s a sure sign of Julian Lloyd Webber’s concern for the future of classical music that he’s prepared to spend a week rehearsing and performing with the teenagers of the Edinburgh Youth Orchestra (EYO). Indeed, the international cellist – brother, of course, of the famous Lord Andrew – has made it something of a mission in recent years to shout loud and clear about the lack of effort by politicians to safeguard the art he, himself, so passionately believes in, particularly where young people are concerned.
He does that through numerous channels: either in his punchy regular column with the Daily Telegraph; through collaborations with the likes of Evelyn Glennie and James Galway as part of the campaigning Music Education Consortium; or on occasions such as tonight’s opening concert of the Aberdeen International Youth Festival, where he quite simply mucks in with youngsters, delivering inspiration by practical example. Added to which, he is a patron of the EYO, and takes his role very seriously.
“I think it is important for soloists in my position to put emphasis on young people,” he says. “Classical music has been so much sidelined by the media, we have to get out and become more involved with children.” He spent a day going round schools in Aberdeen recently. “Things seem better here than in south of the border,” argues the cellist. “A lot of kids seem to be playing instruments. Yet in some English cities there are whole areas where kids just can’t get access to musical instruments.”
And the standards reached by youth orchestras like the EYO are, he says, proof of the benefits. The last time he appeared with them was in Philip Glass’s Cello Concerto. But this time the stakes are upped for one of the repertoire’s most challenging works – the Elgar Concerto. “This is a completely different style of music for that orchestra, but they are so well disciplined. There’s no talking, they just get on with the job like true professionals,” he says.
Tonight’s Aberdeen concert marks the start of the EYO’s summer tour which moves on to Perth Concert Hall on Sunday, and Paisley Abbey next Tuesday. Garry Walker, another champion of youth music-making, conducts the programme, which features music by Wagner, Mussorgsky and Malcolm Arnold, as well as the Elgar concerto.
It’s a work that has presented its own challenges for Lloyd Webber already this year. Back in June, on what would have been Elgar’s 150th birthday, he performed it twice on the one day – in Worcester (Elgar’s birthplace) in the afternoon with the Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, and then several hours later in an evening performance with the Royal Philharmonic in London’s Royal Albert Hall.
“I was happy to do it as a tribute to one of the greatest composers Britain ever produced, but never again,” he says. A helicopter provided swift transport between the two cities – “a rather un-eco solution”, he says, but one the issue-conscious Lloyd Weber was willing to go along with on such a special day.
No such circus antics this week. Just a relaxed opportunity to gently inspire the young talent lucky enough to benefit from his tireless patronage.
