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Our tutors for the week were William Bennett, performer and professor of flute at the Royal Academy of Music, Neil Black, performer and professor of oboe at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama and Richard Deakin, performer and professor of violin at the RAM and the Royal Northern College of Music.
The coaching sessions were structured in 90 minute slots which is just the right length of time to maintain concentration with no sense of having to rush. We had coaching with William Bennett and Neil Black every day - sometimes two or three sessions. Both were very positive towards our playing, they gave us fresh ideas for phrasing and listened from outside the group to the balance between the parts. It was good to have a lot of intensive coaching in a short space of time and we really noticed the improvement in our performance. They also encouraged us to think for ourselves about shaping phrases and the things we wanted to say with the music.
We worked mainly on the Holst Terzetto, the Janacek Three Moravian Dances, the Malcom Arnold Divertimento and Mozart Divertimenti for Bassett Horns Nos. 1 & 2 In the Mozart we were encouraged to play and phrase as if we were using a bow. To help with this, we had a coaching session with Richard Deakin, a violinist, who talked to us and played to demonstrate the required effect. We were given enough free time to be able to work on the ideas that were suggested. Veda and I also had individual lessons with Neil Black and William Bennett respectively which gave us both fresh ideas and opened our ears to new sounds.
Overall it was a good week with a fantastic atmosphere and we left with a huge amount of new knowledge.
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