A tale of three Proms...and one amazing house

A new season approaches so it's time to dust off the blog and let you in on a few things that have been happening in the world of Nottingham Classics.

Last week I took the chance to get down to London to hear some of the BBC Proms. The thought of making several separate trips down and enduring the late train back (and by 2.00am it does start to feel like the slowest train in history) was enough to prompt me to do three in a row and stay in London for a couple of days. It's not as expensive as you might think. Over the last couple of years my wife Deb and I have discovered the joys of LSE accomodation. It has a half dozen colleges dotted around central London and they're often staggering value - my last two nights, about three minutes walk from Sadlers Wells - cost me £32 each, including very big breakfast, part of which got recycled into lunch. It's not the Ritz, but it's not bad either - maybe one to consider next time you're doing a cultural overnighter in the big city.

And the fringe benefit of staying a couple of nights was having the time to experience a few of London's special places. Before I went, you may remember me asking for a few suggestions from the Nottingham Classics audience - which proved to be really rewarding. Of the places suggested I made it to two characterful pubs - the George Inn in Southwark (a 17th century courtyard inn owned by the National Trust - thanks to Anna Lloyd for the recommendation) and the Princess Louise in Holborn (an opulent Victorian drinkery) - a sophisticated Italian 'tapas' restaurant, Polpo, in Soho (thanks to Peter Speakman for both of these), and a really astonishing museum. I'd never been to the Sir John Soames Museum, in Lincoln Fields, just off Holborn, but the fact that four of you suggested it meant that it went to the top of the list. And what an amazing place it is! - a monument to a great architect's passion for antiquities with every room crammed with great paintings, exquisite architectural models and huge chunks of Greek and Roman temples, sometimes suspended in improbable places. Here's a snapshot to give you a flavour.

Poor Sir John ended his days a rather bitter man, alienated from his sons and something of a recluse but he certainly left a wonderful legacy behind. The picture room, containing treasures such as paintings by Canaletto and Hogarth is a real eye-opener, not least because the room itself has massive panels which actually function as extra walls for hanging even more great paintings. It was one of the highlights of the last couple of years for me so thanks to Peter Speakman, Kath Jones, Pauline Hillyard and Dorothy Kurpanik for the recommendation.

As for the Proms themselves, I really couldn't have done much better. I did the Pittsburgh Symphony on 6th September, BBC Symphony on 7th and Philadelphia on 8th, with a late nighter by the BBC big band on 7th. They all had something special to enjoy, whether in Anne-Sophie Mutter's stratospheric lines in Wolfgang Rihm's Gesungene Zeit or the Pittsburgh Symphony's flawless horn section in Mahler's 5th. Even Sir Harrison Birtwistle seems to have taken on the status of 'grand old man of music' these days, judging by the ovation after his angular Violin Concerto. Charles Dutoit's peerless stick technique really impressed me in the Rachmaninov Symphonic Dances and there was real sheen to the legendary Philadelphia strings. Perhaps the only disappointment was David Robertson's rather earthbound The Planets but that was followed by the BBC Big Band's tribute to Stan Kenton, whose often-derided progressive jazz was fiercely exciting, harmonically rich and played for all it was worth by a crack ensemble. Claire Martin's effortless vocals added some real class to a really enjoyable event. Band leader Jiggs Whigham certainly approved of the red dress!

After four concerts and two days of almost non-stop walking around the city I was ready for a return to the office chair, but, as ever, it was a great privilege to hear some of the world's great orchestras in some heavyweight repertoire. Inspiring, too - it certainly got me in the mood for thinking about the shape of next season.

Which is a big one, of course. 2012-2013 is the 10th anniversary of the Halle's residency in Nottingham, a very important moment in the history of Nottingham Classics and the point at which things really began to look up for the series. The times we're in and the squeeze on our finances will mean we'll have to be imaginative but we'll definitely be celebrating the anniversary throughout the season. I've got almost half of the concerts booked in now and it's looking really exciting so far, but there's still a long way to go. And not forgetting that we start the 2011-2012 season in a fortnight with the Halle and the wonderful German cellist, Alban Gerhardt. Alban is not only a very exciting performer but he's also a really engaging commentator on music and on the ups and downs of being a soloist. His blog is always worth reading - you can sign up at http://www.albangerhardt.com/ and you can hear his thoughts on Dvorak's Cello Concerto which he thinks may be the best concerto ever written in a video on YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkjEbF0ulOw - highly recommended, not just for his insights into the piece, but also for some demonstrations of his prowess as a performer.

That's it for now. More to follow in a fortnight.

Neil