El Sistema

Have you all been watching the Proms? I love the fact that the combination of BBC4 and Sky+ means that I can see all the ones that are televised (which is not all, but lots of them) without having to remember. This year's season has definitely been the one I've enjoyed watching the most. I was disappointed, though, that the one involving the Hallé wasn't on TV, but at least we saw Mark conducting the National Youth Orchestra. However, neither of those was my favourite. I know a few people who were looking forward to the one with Rhapsody in Blue with an additional jazz trio, but it left me a bit unmoved. Mind you, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it - it would be more accurate to say that I was intrigued to see how it would work, but I expected to hate it. This is because although I have no problem with improvisation in general, I get very uncomfortable when things that I know really well are changed slightly. As it turned out it wasn't as bad as I'd feared - they played most of the piece 'properly', and interspersed improvised bits. The only bits that I didn't like were those where the jazz trio altered the really well-known bits - boring of me, I know, but there you are!

My favourite Prom until a few days ago was from the very first weekend of the festival - in fact I heard part of it on my way home from the last day of the choir weekend. Seems ages ago now! It was a concert that on paper sounds extremely unlikely to have ever happened - it featured Sir John Eliot Gardiner, the English Baroque Soloists, the Monterverdi Choir, a load of soloists... plus a South African string ensemble and a load of French and South African dancers... performing Rameau! I'd love to know whose idea it was in the first place, and how it came about. [EDIT: This Telegraph story gives some idea.] But however it happened, it was fabulous - just full of joy from beginning to end. Well, I assume it was - I only actually saw the last fifteen minutes, and was annoyed that I missed the rest, because it was so wonderful. Particular highlights were the tenor soloist who sang brilliantly while dancers whirled round him (you'd have to see it to see how impressive he was - sadly I don't know which of the listed soloists he was), and the very cute little boy who brough the house down when he appeared to lift the ballerina with the false nose :-)

I raved about this concert for weeks to anyone who would listen, and didn't expect to see a more enjoyable one this year. But then last Sunday (19th) there was one that I enjoyed far more - so much so that I actually cried with joy, and I can't remember the last time I did that. (Well, actually, yes I can - it was while reading Harry Potter 7!) It was the one featuring the Simon Bolivar Youth Orchestra of Venezuela, which is the pinnacle of a music education system whose correct full title is "Fundación del Estado para el Sistema de Orquesta Juvenil e Infantil de Venezuela", but is usually just called "El Sistema" for short. Now, I'd already seen Proms featuring the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain (under Mark) and the European Union Youth Orchestra (under Sir Colin Davis), but I think the Venezuelan one was better, and I just hadn't expected that. I knew nothing about them before this concert, but when I looked them up afterwards I found that not only had there been all sorts of articles about them, but many of these articles were on websites that I read every day! I even remembered reading some of them, but I just hadn't realised how very good the orchestra actually is until I'd seen them, so the articles didn't stick in my mind.

I'll link to some of the articles (and reviews) in a second, but first I must explain why I loved this concert so much. Many reasons!

• All the music was fabulous in its own right, even if it wasn't a conventional programme by any means... and given the pieces that were played, I doubt most orchestras would have played them in the order this one did. They started with Shostakovich 10, just as a bit of a light warmup (ha!) before a second half that started with Bernstein's Symphonic Dances from West Side Story and ended with some Latin American music by composers I'd never heard of.

• The orchestra was absolutely huge, and sounded amazing. This is particularly impressive given the background of the kids who are in it (see later). All the section leaders who played solos were excellent, but I think my favourite was the principal horn, if only because he had the best grin when he took his bow! The strings, in particular, had a gorgeously rich sound; the brass were just spectacular; the woodwind were full of individual character yet blended beautifully too; and the extremely energetic percussion section raised the excitement level several notches higher.

• The conductor - Gustavo Dudamel - is only 26 years old, and he was the most enthusiastic conductor I've ever seen. (Simon Rattle describes him as "the most astonishingly gifted conductor I've ever come across". He also says "If anyone asked me where anything really important is happening for the future of classical music, I would simply say here in Venezuela.") Not only was he extremely competent and enthusiastic, but he also had two more good points: he didn't wear one of those awful black smocks that all the top conductors these days seem to love so much, and when he was receiving applause, he didn't stand on his podium but in the middle of the orchestra with his arms round the players.

• I'm never seen an orchestra enjoy themselves so much. They were clearly having a whale of a time the whole way through, but when it came to the encores they took it to a whole new level: they all (including the conductor) put on jackets made out of the Venezuelan flag, and they added movement to their performance! They stamped their feet, held their instruments in the air, did Mexican waves while taking applause... the double bass players twirled their instruments... then, not to be outdone, so did the trumpeters. They swayed in their seats. They stood up and danced WHILE STILL PLAYING. And throughout all this they SMILED. It was great :-)

I believe the second half of the concert is to be shown on BBC1 at some point (it hasn't been on yet, and it's not in the listings for the next week), and I'm sure BBC4 will repeat the whole thing eventually (which would be great, because if you don't see them playing the Shostakovich in the first half, you won't realise how good they really are). But if you want to see what I'm talking about, someone has helpfully put my favourite encore on YouTube. Not great picture quality, but it'll give you the idea. And if you're quick you can still catch the whole concert on Radio 3's Listen Again, but of course you won't be able to see the twirling trumpets there...

In case you want a second opinion, here are lots of reviews, many of which have many pictures: a lengthy one from Londonist that captures the atmosphere brilliantly; one from Alan Coady's blog; one from the Intermezzo blog; a 5-star one from the Guardian; a 5-star one from the Times (strictly this is a review of the orchestra's Edinburgh gig a few days earlier, but it was the same programme); a 5-star one from the Independent; one from the FT; and finally one from the Telegraph that suggests it was the "greatest Prom of all time". EDIT: Here's a review by Rob at "Eine Kleine Nichtmusik" which tends to agree! Again, this is of the Edinburgh gig, but he watched it again on TV when they did it in London.

If you're interested in background info on the orchestra and the conductor, here's a Guardian article from last November; a Times article from this February; an Observer article from last month; an Independent article from earlier this month; and another Independent article from a few days ago. (I should point out, in fairness, that there are some people who don't entirely agree with all this euphoria - see On An Overgrown Path for some food for thought.)

Most importantly, though, make sure that if you didn't see this concert when it was on BBC4, that you move heaven and earth to see it if it's ever repeated, or at least catch the second half on BBC1 (presumably soon). And in the meantime pray that we all eventually get the chance to see them live!

To the Barbican box office, driver, and don't spare the horses

Sheena is, as ever, much more on the ball than me, and has spotted that tickets are now on sale for our Verdi gig at St Paul's Cathedral. Whee!

Warning: no musical content in this post! Mainly astronomy....

Just a couple of quick updates.... things which you may or may not have wanted to know, but I felt the urge to tell you anyway!

1. I had a job interview yesterday - my first one in months of trying, and as a bonus it involves music! It seemed to go OK, but I won't know the result until next week. Please all keep your fingers crossed!

2. The football season starts today, and Jan Vennegoor of Hesselink, this blog's favourite player, has already scored a goal! Sadly he doesn't seem to have his full triple-barrelled surname on his shirt any more, which was my favourite thing about him, but never mind. I was also very amused by a story about the unfortunate Leeds United (ha!), in which they talk to a painter/decorator who "refuses to paint red (Manchester United) and will paint the first layer of white over red for free". Oh, and "The thing that riles him most is that Leeds are to be sponsored by a company called Red Kite this season, and a splash of red has been introduced into the shirt." Hee!

3. The Fastnet yacht race starts tomorrow morning, and the weather forecast for the race route suggests that it might be pretty exciting. I'm quite amazed that there seems to have been no mention of it anywhere, and even Sky Sports (who quite often show sailing) seem to be ignoring it. Bizarre. Anyway, I just wanted to draw people's attention to it. If you want to follow it, try the official site. EDIT: The start has been delayed for 25 hours due to the extreme weather forecast. The race now starts on Monday morning.

4. More relevantly, probably, for most people, is the fact that this weekend is the Perseid meteor maximum. Which I'm sure you all knew (it's been in the news, unlike the Fastnet), but I just wanted to urge you all to go out and have a look at the sky at some point this weekend. I still regularly meet people who tell me they've never seen a meteor (a.k.a. shooting star), which amazes me. I have a theory that it's just because they never look at the sky for more than a few seconds at a time. In my experience, if you stare at the sky for 10 minutes at any time or place (well, assuming it's night-time and not overcast), you're quite likely to see a random meteor, but there are several ways in which you can improve your chances.

The first is to look during a known meteor shower, of which the Perseid shower is the best and most reliable. What's a meteor shower? Well, meteors in general are caused by specks of dust or tiny stones hitting the Earth's atmosphere and burning up. This can obviously happen at any time, because the galaxy is full of dust and small rocks just floating around. Meteors caused by one of these are known as "sporadic". (Oh, and while we're on definitions... the rocks are called "meteoroids" while they are floating in space. When they hit the atmosphere they become either "meteors" or "meteorites". The difference? Meteorites are bigger, so they reach the ground without burning up entirely. Meteors are so small that they totally vanish on the way down.)

However, there are certain places in the Earth's orbit where there are clouds of dust etc., probably caused by comets shedding parts of themselves when they approach the Sun. These clouds of stuff are in specific, predictable places, which means that the Earth always passes through them on the same date each year. For the Perseid meteor shower, the Earth passes through the relevant cloud on about 12th August.

Other ways of seeing more meteors (other than looking THIS WEEKEND):

- Go somewhere dark if you can (or at least darker - e.g. I have street lights near me, but if I go to the bottom of my garden, the lights are hidden by the trees and I can see the sky much better).

- Go out when the moon isn't in the sky, as the moon is so bright that it makes other things much harder to see. Ideally you want your meteor shower to occur during a new moon, and - very helpfully - this year it does!

- If you are wandering round in the dark, don't use a normal torch to stop you falling over - you'll lose your night vision and it will be quite a while before you can see in the dark again. Use a torch with a red bulb (or a normal torch with a piece of red cloth etc. tied over it) - that's what astronomers do.

- Try and look after midnight rather than before. After midnight, your side of the Earth is turning towards the Sun rather than away from it, and that means that anything that's hitting the atmosphere is more likely to do so. (For the same reason, bugs tend to accumulate on a car's front windscreen far more than the rear one.)

If you don't read this till Monday, you've missed the best of the Perseids, but do still go out and look - there are still Perseids around for several days before and after the maximum, so you should still see one or two. Enjoy!