Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama - Newspaper - Issue 1, Spring 2015

FREE SPRING 2015 ISSUE 1

Inside the ROYAL WELSH COLLEGE

New Writing to Provoke, Challenge and Inspire

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ne of the most exciting experiences of a new play I’ve had in years,” effused acclaimed playwright Simon Stephens amid a torrent of rave reviews for Pomona — a dystopian drama, which opened at The Orange Tree in London in November.

Written by young dramatist Alistair McDowall, who has been described

by The Guardian as ‘one of the most distinctive new voices in British writing’, and directed by emerging talent Ned Bennett, Pomona has been nominated for five Offie (Off West End) awards including Best New Play, Most Promising New Playwright, and Best Director.

Pomona was one of four new plays commissioned by the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama last spring and developed in association with Paines Plough – the ‘national theatre’ of new plays – and the Royal Court Theatre. It was first produced by the College and directed by Ned Bennett in April 2014, with a cast of actors in the final year of

their training. The College and the original cast members are credited in the script, which has been published by Bloomsbury.

The initiative enters its second season in 2015 with four more new plays from four different playwrights.

The season culminates in a week of performances at the College, and at The Gate Theatre in Notting Hill. The hugely ambitious project involves all 32 graduating actors, as well as students from the design and stage management courses, who will collaborate with some of the country’s most exciting young directors.

Who’s Doing What?

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Dave Bond is Head of Actor Training at RWCMD. He explains why the College is taking such bold steps to promote new writing.

“As a College we’ve always been interested in new writing and in the creative process as a whole. Our students are encouraged to write as part of their course and many of our graduates have made this very much part of their careers.

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Dylan Thomas Round-Up 4

Sheen Unveils National Play Archive

Working with Welsh National Opera

Meeting Philip Glass

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elsh actor Michael Sheen made a special visit recently to unveil a major addition to the College’s library collection. With support from the Arts Council of Wales, the College has provided a new home to a unique archive including more than 100,000 rare and out-of-print play texts and sets of plays by playwrights including Harold Pinter and David Hare. The archive, which Sheen described as being of ‘hugely significant cultural value’, has been compiled over several decades by the Drama Association of Wales and includes collections donated by institutions such as the British Theatre Association, as well as smaller private collections.

In partnership with the Drama Association of Wales and the Arts Council of Wales, the College will play a vital role in making these important texts more widely accessible to students and to the theatre-loving public.

Michael Sheen is Vice President of the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama and one of the College’s International Chairs in Drama, supported by the Jane Hodge Foundation. He is also Patron of the Drama Association of Wales.

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SPRING 2015 WWW.RWCMD.AC.UK Rehearsals for Pomona at RWCMD in March 2014

Continued from page 1 “We have been commissioning new plays in English and Welsh for more than ten years. Working with new material benefits our students not only creatively but also professionally - collaborating with exciting new writers, and young directors, can lead to future opportunities.

“A whole season of new writing is an extraordinary thing for a drama school to take on but it is allowing us to make an important contribution to the industry the students are about to enter. It’s never easy for professional theatre companies to fully resource and produce new work, but we are in a position to play a significant role in helping them bring this work to fruition.”

Pomona director, Ned Bennett, returns to RWCMD this season to direct a new play by Welsh dramatist Gary Owen.

They are hungry to learn, to talk about their craft and be involved in the creative process.

One of this year’s writers is 25-yearold Brad Birch, whose play The Endless Ocean is being developed in association with National Theatre Wales. “It’s exciting to work with actors at this stage of their careers.” he said. “They are hungry to learn, to talk about their craft and be involved in the creative process. This play will become what it is because of these actors - if I was writing for another company, it would be a different play.

It’s a great opportunity for the actors and it’s fantastic that the College is supporting new writing in this way.”

The NEW: season runs at RWCMD from 31st March until 3rd April, and at the Gate Theatre from 7th to 11th April. As part of this celebration of new writing, the College has invited leading contemporary playwrights to talk about their work. For details of all performances and events, see: www.rwcmd.ac.uk/whatson The Richard Burton Company is sponsored by Brewin Dolphin and the 2015 new writing commissions are supported by the Richard Carne Trust and the Spielman Charitable Trust. Performances at the Gate Theatre are principally supported by the Garfield Weston Foundation. Simon Stephens is an International Chair in Drama at RWCMD, supported by the Jane Hodge Foundation.

The tentacled Cthulhu mask created by student designer Isa Shaw-Abulafia for RWCMD’s production of Pomona, was also used in The Orange Tree’s acclaimed production.

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How to Make an Aria

The project challenges young artists to collaborate on the creation of an aria - a single moment of opera, where a character has the need and opportunity to explore or reflect on their situation. The process is structured and supported by a series of consultation sessions with MTW’s ‘two Michaels’ (Artistic Directors McCarthy and Rafferty).

The culmination of the project is usually the public masterclass led by one of the UK’s leading opera composers – this year, Jonathan Dove.

A piano reduction of the score is played by a professional repetiteur and the arias are performed by a professional singer, and conducted by Michael Rafferty.

With feedback and comments on how each aria is working, covering its musical and dramatic qualities and how these are achieved, the masterclass provides audiences with a fascinating insight into the early stages of the creative process.

This year, adding a new dimension to the project, the students will also have the opportunity to perform their scenes for the general public in the castle and grounds at St Fagan’s.

These site-specific performances have provided a source of inspiration for the participants, who are encouraged to create a more convincing scene by taking the time to consider their character and the dramatic context that compels them to sing.

Amy Willock is a composer in the fourth year of her undergraduate studies at RWCMD. This is the first time she has composed for opera. She explained the inspiration behind the narrative she and her writing partner, Tom Stuart, have been developing.

“As part of the introductory day at St Fagan’s, we were told about the history of the main house, particularly about its use as a hospital during the First World War. We learned about some of the characters associated with the house at the time, and saw photographs and artefacts from the museum’s collection.

“Tom and I were both drawn to the same character – a lady who kept diaries throughout the period, which we were able to read. Sadly, the woman lost all of her grandsons in the war and her diaries ended abruptly.

We both felt that this sudden end to her writing would be a good dramatic basis for our aria.”

Music Theatre Wales Artistic Director, Michael McCarthy, explains the wider aims of the project, which is running for the fourth time at RWCMD this year.

“The primary aim is to provoke and explore the nature of the collaboration between writer and composer when creating opera. As a company, we are dedicated to demonstrating that opera is a truly contemporary means of expression.

“Working with young people and developing artists is a major part of this mission, and we hope that projects such as this will have a long-term impact. We know all too well that one moment of inspiration or discovery, made through practical participation, can change a young artist’s direction, and we hope to offer this possibility.”

One of the project’s success stories is graduate composer Spyros Syrmos, who took part in the Make an Aria project in 2013 with librettist Fay Wrixon. Their aria featured in a public masterclass with Sir Harrison Birtwistle, and later that year it was chosen as the winner of the Flourish competition, allowing them to develop it into a full-length production, The Blank Canvas, in association with Opera Up Close. The opera premiered at the King’s Head Theatre in North London in September 2014 to critical acclaim - The Guardian’s 4-star review praising the clarity and economy of Syrmos’s ‘effective score’.

The primary aim is to provoke and explore the nature of the collaboration between writer and composer when creating opera.

Meeting Philip Glass

“RWCMD was an ideal place for me to develop and cultivate new ideas and techniques and to collaborate with exceptional colleagues,” says Syrmos.

“My advice to the current participants would be to bring their ‘personal truth’ to the aria, to live as one with the character they write for, and most of all to enjoy this wonderful and unique opportunity.”

Audiences can hear the five new arias for the first time in a public masterclass led by Jonathan Dove at RWCMD on 26th February. The performances at St Fagan’s will take place throughout the day on 7th July.

Image: Stewart Cohen

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ast October, five student composers from RWCMD attended a speed-dating event with a difference at St Fagan’s, the National History Museum of Wales. The aim was to create new composer-writer partnerships to take part in the Make an Aria project run by Music Theatre Wales - one of the UK’s leading contemporary opera companies.

The public masterclass in which student composers present their new arias has previously been led by composers including Sir Harrison Birtwistle (pictured). This year’s masterclass on 26th February is with Jonathan Dove.

In the run up to this year’s Make an Aria project, Music Theatre Wales arranged for RWCMD’s student composers to meet with Phillip Glass, the composer of their latest commission, The Trial, which premiered at the Royal Opera House last autumn. The influential composer spent an hour talking to the students and answering their questions about the process of making opera.

The Make An Aria project is part of a partnership between Music Theatre Wales and the Royal Welsh College of Music & Drama, which is funded by the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and supported by the National Museum of Wales.

“We learned a huge amount about the process of making and presenting new opera,” said Amy Willock, “from the initial ideaforming and writing stages, to the practical considerations of staging and working with librettists, singers, directors and musicians.

“We were also joined by the two directors of Music Theatre Wales, and it was interesting to hear the advice and anecdotes all three of them offered about their current and past collaborations.

Later on, we attended a special pre-show talk at the Royal Opera House, where we heard extracts from The Trial and interviews with its creators. We all returned to College feeling enriched by the experience.”

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Celebrating a Welsh Literary Legend

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t is difficult to overstate the contribution made by Dylan Thomas to the cultural identity of Wales and to the literature of the 20th century. In 2014 - the year that would have seen his 100th birthday – a year-long festival of special events, curated under the umbrella of DT100, provided audiences with a boathouse load of fresh opportunities to immerse themselves in his vast body of work. Here’s a round-up of how students and graduates of the College were involved in the celebrations.

May 2014 April 2014 Acting graduates Sion Ifan and Gwawr Loader appear in another Clwyd Theatr Cymru production, Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog – a theatrical journey through Thomas’ prose writings, described by one reviewer as “an awe-inspiring assault on the senses not to be missed”.

A unique, one-off BBC Wales TV production of Dylan Thomas’s famous ‘play for voices’ Under Milk Wood is performed by a community of Welsh talent in New York, Los Angeles, London, Cardiff and Laugharne. The production features a who’s who of Welsh talent, including alumni, fellows and friends of the College – from Michael Sheen and Matthew Rhys to graduates Eve Myles (Torchwood) and Kimberley Nixon (Fresh Meat), plus many more.

October 2014 The BBC and Aardman Animations produce a short film based on Thomas’ poem The Hunchback in the Park.

Michael Sheen narrates the poem, which is set to a score composed and conducted by John Hardy – RWCMD’s Head of Contemporary Music – and performed by the BBC National Orchestra of Wales.

February 2014

April 2014

October 2014

Clwyd Theatr Cymru’s revival of Under Milk Wood receives rave reviews as it tours the UK. The Guardian says: “The pitch-perfect, brisk tempo of the delivery is testament to the exemplary ensemble of Welsh actors.” Nine of the cast of 13 actors are graduates from RWCMD. In 2015, the production embarks on a world tour, including performances in the USA and Australia.

A Poet in New York on BBC One tells the story of the poet’s final days across the Atlantic, with Tom Hollander as Thomas and a host of RWCMD alumni in the cast.

Acting graduate Arthur Hughes – winner of the 2013 BBC Carleton Hobbs Bursary Award for radio drama – plays Dylan Thomas in Ffotogallery’s production of Bedazzled – a play set in the heady bohemian world of New York in the early 1950s.

Sir Ian McKellen at the 36-hour Dylathon event in Swansea

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In Profile

Pamela Howard International theatre designer, director and scenographer

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WCMD theatre designers were recently visited by Professor Pamela Howard OBE - scenographer, director, curatorteacher and writer.

Professor Howard has worked as a stage designer in the UK, Europe and USA since 1960, and has realized over 250 productions. She has worked at all the major national and regional theatres, and created several largescale site-specific works in Glasgow with the late John McGrath.

October 2014

The culmination of the DT100 festival was a one-off, non-stop, 36-hour Dylathon at Swansea’s Grand Theatre, with an eclectic cast of readers and performers including Sir Ian McKellen, Sian Phillips, members of the Wales Theatre Company, singer Katherine Jenkins, comedians Jo Brand and Kevin Eldon, writers, broadcasters, politicians, and Welsh sporting heroes.

Since 2000 she has been developing her work as Director/Scenographer specialising in contemporary opera and music theatre, with a particular interest in site specific and sustainable theatre.

In an inspirational talk that gave an insight into her creative process, she shared the story of her latest project Charlotte – an original music theatre production about the life of the German-Jewish artist Charlotte Salomon for Canadian Stage Company.

Sebastian Noel, currently in his final year at RWCMD, worked as the Designer on the event, while stage management students Lucie Watson and Sam Griesser (pictured) joined a stage management team made up exclusively of RWCMD graduates.

Here’s just some of the advice she gave to young theatre designers just starting out in their creative careers.

“I was on the graveyard shift starting at 10pm on Sunday,” said Watson. “By the early hours of the morning, everyone was struggling with tiredness and becoming a bit disorientated. People were actually asleep in sleeping bags backstage. It was a bit surreal - at one point I had to wake up a cast member for their call.

“Always have a project on the go”

“As well as being a good student and a good person (if you’re a nice person, people will want to work with you), it’s also important to dream about what you’d like to do.

“It was fantastic to work alongside seasoned stage managers and to get first-hand experience of how they deal with all sorts of unexpected situations. We’re always taught to be like swans – calm on the surface while paddling frantically underneath. Working in the professional stage management team was a masterclass in doing exactly that.”

Image: D Legakis

“It was a completely new challenge for everyone involved, but especially for me and Lucie because our background is in theatre where most of the work is done in rehearsals,” said Griesser.

“The ‘Dylathon’ was completely unrehearsed and there were cast changes every five minutes so we had to stay on our toes.

You never know when somebody could ring you up. One day, someone rang me up and said ‘We’re thinking of appointing an international artist in residence, and we’d like to give you the time, space and money to work on a project of your own.’ So always have a project on the go – just in case somebody like that rings you up one day. I have nine projects on the go at any one time.”

“Be a compulsive observer of human life”

“All performance begins with a person in the space, so as visual artist, you have to be a compulsive observer of human life. If you see a very fat man on a bus – draw him! Don’t go past a shoe shop without going in and asking for a few empty shoe boxes. When you get them home, label them ‘fat men’, ‘thin men’, ‘old women’, ‘young women’ and file your drawings away.

Then if you’re working on a character, you’ll have plenty of observations to call on.

“If you observe people, you get to see how people’s posture and stance is shaped by their lifestyle and occupation. This is what gives them character. You’re essentially like a sculptor, sculpting that space with people – it’s about composing people in the space.”

“See how much you can make with how little”

“I love to see how much you can make with how little. It’s a fantastic exercise that you should do as a creative artist.

Every time someone says ‘No, you can’t do that’, you say ‘Yes, but…’ and you think of another way to do it.

Visual artists are really the soldiers of fortune - we dare to do what others don’t. It’s a fantastic opportunity but also a great responsibility.”

Pamela Howard is one of the Jane Hodge Foundation International Chairs in Drama at RWCMD.

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Welsh National Opera partnership is a ‘no-brainer’ I

n 2014, RWCMD celebrated the 10th anniversary of a unique working relationship with Welsh National Opera. The collaboration, which began with the establishment of a professional orchestral placement scheme for brass students, has since evolved into a holistic partnership taking in the full range of orchestral performance as well as opera performance, repetiteurship, production and design.

Nowadays, the WNO orchestral placement scheme, which offers students an immersive experience of working as part of a professional orchestra, is open by audition to the most talented musicians from the College’s strings, brass, woodwind and percussion courses. Graduates of the placement scheme have gone on to regular employment with WNO and other leading orchestras.

Violinist Jess Townsend has been part of the scheme since September. “I have been invited to play with the orchestra for their opera rehearsals, including sitzprobes and dress rehearsals in the

orchestra pit at Wales Millennium Centre,” she explains. “I am essentially expected to play as any other section member and I’m treated as an equal, which helps me get a true picture of how an orchestra like this operates.

I feel very fortunate to be able to approach an orchestral career from such an informed position.”

The relationship has also given rise to WNO’s bi-annual residency at the College, which gives more students the opportunity to play in special ‘side-by-side’ concerts with the professional players.

2010 marked another milestone in the relationship, with the establishment of a two-year master’s degree in opera performance at RWCMD. The course, which has already enjoyed immense success – graduates have gone on to perform with the Royal Opera, English National Opera, Glyndebourne and others – gives students regular access to WNO rehearsals where they can observe the professional production process at close hand. Each student

has a professional mentor from the company, and there is weekly coaching with WNO repetiteurs.

As a world class opera

company, WNO needs the best

possible access to

emerging talent.

WNO Chief Executive and Artistic Director, David Pountney

Student violinist Jess Townsend with WNO leader David Adams

There have even been opportunities for RWCMD’s singers to perform with WNO. For their recent youth opera production of Paul Bunyan, almost all of the principal roles were cast from the College and this season, six opera students will appear in the company’s major new production of The Magic Flute.

David Pountney, WNO Artistic Director and Chief Executive has described the relationship as a ‘nobrainer’. “As a world class opera company, WNO needs the best possible access to emerging talent,” and he says, “there is no better way to gain that than by working directly with tthe growers!”.

As for the College, there are also benefits from being part of WNO’s wider professional network. Strong links with the prestigious National Opera Studio in London have led to joint masterclasses at the College with leading figures from the world of opera including WNO’s former Artistic Director, John Fisher – now the College’s Jane Hodge Foundation International Chair in Opera – as well as conductor Peter Robinson, baritone Donald Maxwell and soprano, Kathryn Harries.

For RWCMD’s pianists, access to WNO and enhancements to the opera training have opened up potential new career paths – they can now choose to specialise in opera repetiteurship at masters level.

David Doidge, who completed his studies last year, is now a full time member of WNO’s music staff.

Links are also well established between the organisations’ respective production and design departments. This has opened up a range of opportunities for students to gain professional experience in production roles with WNO and with Cardiff Theatrical Services, which is not only the company’s in-house workshop but also supplies scenery to leading performing companies around the world.

As the relationship continues to evolve, both organisations stand to reap the many benefits of working together to identify and nurture the best new talent, and ultimately making a significant contribution to the long term success of opera in Wales and beyond.

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Review

War Requiem: ‘A staggering, towering masterpiece’ O

n Remembrance Sunday in the year that marked the centenary of the outbreak of the First World War, there was an appropriate sense of occasion at St David’s Hall for RWCMD’s performance of Britten’s War Requiem - one of the seminal choral masterpieces of the 20th century and easily one of the College’s most ambitious undertakings to date.

The landmark concert, conducted

by Italian maestro Carlo Rizzi, united more than 400 of the College’s musicians, who made up the symphony orchestra, chamber orchestra and chorus. Rizzi, who has a strong connection with the College - he conducted Verdi’s Requiem for RWCMD in 2012 - first heard Britten’s masterpiece at the age of 14.

“I decided then that one day I wanted to conduct it, and that day has now come. I can’t express how privileged I feel to explore it with the students,” he said.

Challenging

Composed by a committed pacifist in the aftermath of two devastating world wars, and at the height of the Cold War in 1961, Britten’s Requiem confronts the inherent paradoxes of war. It is a musical vision of hell on earth, which is both a pitiable lament and a plea for peace. Ingeniously,

Britten sets the WW1 poetry of Wilfred Owen – sung in English against the sacred Latin Mass for the Dead, serving to directly challenge the traditional rhetoric of war.

Personal

Appearing as special guest soloists narrating Owen’s devastating text were baritone Simon Keenlyside, and tenor Adrian Thompson. The soprano solo was performed by Alwyn Mellor.

Keenlyside, who works regularly with RWCMD’s student singers, has previously recorded the War Requiem with the London Symphony Orchestra. “It is a staggering, towering masterpiece,” he said, “a requiem to stand alongside Verdi and Brahms.

It gives us the channel through which to express our gratitude and to remember how dearly our own freedom was bought.”

The music also has a personal significance for Thompson, who first met Britten as a schoolboy performing in the composer’s Children’s Crusade at St Paul’s Cathedral in May 1969.

They corresponded up until Britten’s death seven years later. Thompson treasures the letters he received from the composer, which reveal a warm, encouraging and playful personality.

Most are signed simply ‘BB’.

Dramatic

The children’s choir, representing the otherworldly voices of the innocent, was made up of choristers from RWCMD’s Junior Conservatoire, Wells Cathedral School and Cardiff ’s Bryn Deri High School. They were conducted by James Bingham, a masters student in choral conducting at the College. Earlier in the year, Bingham sang with the BBC Proms Youth Choir in another performance of the Requiem at the Royal Albert Hall. It was also the subject of his undergraduate dissertation. “Some people think this sort of music is too difficult or too serious for children,” he says, “but they have taken it on board because it is exciting music - the interplay between the children’s voices and the adult choir is incredibly dramatic.”

Compelling

In this concert, everything came together under Rizzi’s inspirational direction to create a genuine sense of authenticity in the performance of this challenging music. The confidence and virtuosity of the Chamber Orchestra was matched by its ability to respond to each nuance of the soloists’ compellingly delivered text, while the playing of the Symphony Orchestra continually rose to the monumental demands of Britten’s score, powerfully

My subject is War,

and the Pity of War. supporting the Latin Requiem text of the chorus and towering lines from the soprano soloist. Elsewhere, the ability of the chorus to capture the more introspective passages of the Britten’s music was exceptional.

The distant, off-stage purity of the children’s choir brought hushed moments of innocence and stillness to the performance, while subtle shifts in lighting levels both helped direct the attention of the audience towards the changing focus within the performance space as the

work progressed, and contributed to a compelling sense of overall structure which took the audience on a dramatic emotional journey.

Carlo Rizzi is the International Chair in Conducting and Simon Keenlyside is the International Chair in Voice. The College’s International Chairs are supported by the Jane Hodge Foundation.

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Graduate Round-Up

Globe to Globe Hamlet

South Bank Sinfonia

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manda Wilkin is in the middle of a remarkable world tour with Shakespeare’s Globe. The Globe to Globe Hamlet production will tour to unique and atmospheric venues in every country on earth over a two-year period ending in April 2016. At the time of writing, the tour had visited 64 countries and covered almost 100,000 miles.

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assoonists Harry Ventham and Gareth Humphreys have won coveted places with the South Bank Sinfonia. Each year, the orchestra sets out to blaze a trail for classical music by bringing together 32 of the most outstanding music graduates from all over the world for an unrivalled orchestral experience.

Image: Alex Mills

Image: Guy Levy

Image: Bronwen Sharp

The innovative programme includes performances across Britain and Europe, community and youth projects, and collaborations with partners including the Royal Opera House, BBC Concert Orchestra, the Academy of St Martin in the Fields and The National Theatre.

BBC Ten Pieces Film

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ean Chan was the designer on National Theatre Wales’ Bordergame, a live theatrical experience which cast audience members as refugees attempting to cross the border into a fictional Autonomous Republic of Cymru (Wales). The production, which took place at ‘covert locations between Bristol and Newport, and online’ was the winner of the £20k Space Prize for digital theatre. Chan, who graduated in 2008, was the winner of the Linbury Prize for Theatre Design in 2009.

All-female Shakespeare at the Donmar

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laire Dunne played Prince Hal alongside Harriet Walters in Phyllida Lloyd’s recent all-female production of Shakespeare’s Henry IV at the Donmar Warehouse. The Designer on the production was fellow RWCMD graduate Ellen Nabarro. Productions like this have given female stage actors the chance to tackle some of Shakespeare’s most fascinating characters and most powerful speeches. RWCMD staged an all-female production of Hamlet in 2013.

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ianist/composer/producer Dave Stapleton was nominated for this year’s Welsh Music Prize with his band Slowly Rolling Camera, whose music is a diverse mix of trip-hop, jazz, and drum and bass rhythms. The album has received five-star reviews and the band play gigs across Europe.

The band’s drummer is RWCMD percussion tutor Elliott Bennett. The Welsh Music Prize was created in 2011 by Radio 1 DJ Huw Stephens and music promoter John Rostron to coincide with Cardiff ’s SWN festival - one of the UKs biggest independent music festivals.

Newspaper Design: Burning Red

Designing the Bordergame

Welsh Music Prize Nominee

Image: Helen Maybanks

Image: National Theatre Wales/Farrows Creative

impanist Christina Slominska was one of the graduates performing with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales for the recording of Ten Pieces, a new film aimed at inspiring primary school children through classical music. The film, which combines animation and live action, was seen by 100,000 children during a week of screenings in cinemas across the UK. It is available free to schools on DVD. The RWCMD Symphony Orchestra performs three of the iconic pieces at St David’s Hall on January 26th.