At St Martin-in-the-Fields we have three lunchtime concerts per week on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays at 1.00pm. The only exceptions are Good Friday which, understandably, is devoted to Church services (we generously allow our concert hall to be used as a church every now and then, you see) and Christmas Day – also for obvious reasons. If I remember correctly, there are fifty-two weeks in a year with three concerts per week that is one hundred and fifty four concerts (less the two dates mentioned above).
*PAUSE*
The lunchtime concert series at St Martin’s has been running more or less in this format since about 1946-47ish. The famous pianist Myra Hess started a series over the road at the National Gallery. Her daily lunchtime concerts ran without fail throughout the Second World War but when the plug was pulled by a forward-thinking Board of Directors, the series took up residence at the big church next door where the Reverend Dick Shepherd (vicar) had flung open the doors to soldiers, homeless and penniless returning from the war. So, if the concert series has been running since 1947, that would be approximately 9856 concerts with 462 of them taking place since I took over their organisation in 2008.
Blimey! (As they say back home.)
Each of these events needs to be auditioned, programmed, promoted, marketed, facilitated, and run. This blog is about that process, about a series of concerts taking place at the heart of London, about the pitfalls and rewards of working in a church, about the performances themselves, the people, the audiences. I hope it will be useful and that I can learn from you and you can learn from me. Hopefully we’ll both be entertained and educated. Comments are always welcome!
Shall we get started?
