Sitting down with Peter Joyce, founder of the Esker Festival Orchestra, we had no idea what a whirlwind of ideas and confidence were about to come at us. Clearly he knows what he’s at in establishing Ireland’s first fully-funded, residential pre-professional orchestra, and we’re dying to get clued in.
Pegged as an orchestra for 18 to 30 year olds, Esker intends to fill the gap between national (paid) courses such as the National Youth Orchestra of Ireland (NYOI) for 12 to 18 year olds and the few fully professional ensembles like the RTÉ National Symphony and Concert Orchestras. It seems pretty odd that there is a need for it in a country that prides itself on our musical culture. The project is aimed at musicians who are in that period between leaving school and college, and deciding whether they want to try make it as a full time musician. That’s not easy in a country like this where if, like me, you play an instrument like the clarinet there’s four strictly classical [full time] jobs in the country. I think the [NYOI] is still doing a great job encouraging people under 18, but what our project is really trying to do is give people that extra push when they’re at a stage of making the decision of whether they want to pursue music professionally.
How exactly is Esker going to help this group, where other attempts at similar ensembles have fallen by the wayside? Ideally, what will set this project apart from what has happened before is that they could cost a lot of money. We want the project to be musically beneficial, in a hard working environment, with great socially inclusive benefits, but it shouldn’t cost the players any money – this is something I’m pretty adamant about. The cost can turn people off. Even internationally, if the course is free there are still travel expenses. Most countries in Europe have a national, pre-professional orchestra that is free to go to. We haven’t had this here EVER, not that was truly nationally successful. The social side of courses like the [NYO]I were really great, I know very few people them came out of it not enjoying it. That’s a very important part of this – to recreate the social aspects of those courses. There are obviously orchestras in the different major colleges: Trinity, UCD, DIT, CSM, but they are, of necessity, quite insular. So really we’re trying to make this project as socially beneficial as possible by making it as inclusive as we can across the whole country.
So a free residential course, with great social aspects while giving participants a fulfilling musical experience. Where’s the catch?! No but really, even musicians can’t survive on socialising. Where will Esker source its funding? So, we have to get some funding going. Mainly we’re hoping to source this from our fundit campaign. If you search “Esker Festival Orchestra Fundit” it’ll be right there, and we have social media pages, but we want it to be as grassroots as possible. We’re looking for €8,000, which is kind of in the middle range for Fundit. It’s only up until the 5th June, but support has been positive so far so we’re hopeful, though if we don’t reach our target we get nothing. I’m really hopeful that we’ll get it because it’s not just there to benefit the players involved, the people who come to the concerts, but also the Irish cultural community as a whole. The community is very vibrant for theatre and literary works, and trad/rock/pop of course, but the classical and jazz world is lacking. We’re trying to use the pop/rock festival model as a base in terms of sourcing funding, but I don’t want it to, well, become cheapened by gimmicks or overexposure to social media. It’s not just another festival. For those involved in classical music, it’s one of the most engaging, inspiring and living things we are a part of. So I want to make sure that’s the focus: The music.
And what music might that be, have you any ideas yet? The programme is already chosen actually. A real rising star of the Irish music world, Aoife NíBhriain, plays violin/fiddle and will be performing the Sibelius Violin Concerto. There’s also the Irish composition premiere, and the other piece will be Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony, which is one of his pieces that doesn’t get played often enough, even though it broke every mould at the time and is great fun to play. The festival itself is happening from August 24th to 28th. So four full days of rehearsals and then the concert on the 28th. The concert will be in the Galway Cathedral, which we think will be very cool.
While there are a number of initiatives and opportunities in the country for composers to work with chamber groups, it’s rare for a young composer to have an orchestral work performed in concert. How will that work? The age group again that we’ve set is 18-30. The people we are looking for are the people we feel will benefit the most from the project. I think if someone is already a successful composer to a certain degree and has had their music performed by loads of people, even if they’re really good (which they probably would be), it might be better for the project and the individuals if we give a chance to somebody who maybe is good enough, but hasn’t had that chance. Once the submission is selected, it’ll be open for the composer to come along for the duration of the course to take part in the rehearsal process.
Musically what I think is going to be important is that it’s going to be played by musicians. I think composers often forget that what they’re writing will be performed by people; not computers! At the end of the day, it’s the musicians who decide who gets to come back. I’d really like if this could grow into a launching pad for musicians and composers.
What else would you like to see happen in the orchestra’s future? I’d really like to see it stay grassroots, not involving many state or corporate funding organisations, I mean if they want to give us loads of money I’m fine with that, but we’re not going to become the Coca-Cola Orchestra or anything. I’d say over the next two or three years it’ll stay as it is now, but we need to have this year’s concert to show what we can do. Right now we only have our very awkward committee video, trying to sell this from scratch (watch the awkwardness here). Part of the reason it’s called the Esker Festival Orchestra is that we’d like to see it expand eventually into a full classical festival like Schleswig-Holstein Musik Festival, with lots of different musical elements.
So now that we’re all mad to give Esker all our piggy-bank savings and frantically trying to learn viola (!), how do we get involved?!
The Fundit page tells performers how to apply, and the composer application link can be found on our Facebook page. I’d love it if people could spread this by word of mouth, get eachother involved, email eskerfestivalorchestra@gmail.com to tell a little about yourself, what you would bring to the project and what you would get from it. As soon as we can we’ll put lists together. The composition deadline is July 25th, and there is no performer deadline as yet.