Thursday 23 June 2011

#StMagnusFestival Extra Snippets #1

In The Reel earlier today (on St Magnus Festival Extra day, and between individual debriefing sessions for participants in the St Magnus Composers Course, along with Sally Beamish) Alasdair Nicolson answered a couple of questions that I've been wondering about.

Alasdair Nicolson, Artistic Director, thanking festival staff, volunteers, performers and visitors, just after midnight following the last night of the 2011 festival

Firstly, I asked about the Orkney 24 Hours exhibitions of photographs taken all over Orkney at various times of day on 14 February 2011, and displayed in the Pickaquoy Centre, St Magnus Cathedral and the St Magnus Centre: the pictures will be displayed until sometime next week (great news for people like me who totally failed to make time to see them during the festival). Alasdair was not sure exactly what would happen to them thereafter (a web archive, or even a Flickr album would be great!), but confidently predicted that "something would be done with them", so that is good news.

Secondly, having found a document (pictured below) lying around in St Magnus Cathedral on Wednesday afternoon, I wondered how the composers and conductors are paired for the Cathedral concert in which a new piece by each of the participants on the Composers' Course is conducted by a participant on the Orkney Conductors' Course. The answer is that in the first few years of the courses, thought was given to pairing composers and conductors, based on who might work well together. It was found by experience, however, that simply allocating pairs on a fairly random basis was as effective, so that is what happens now!

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