Smaller venues mean more music at Bermuda Festival
Date Posted: Thursday, December 13, 2007Author: Christen Pears
The Man Who Planted Trees is one of the performances suited to a smaller venue
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Just weeks before last year’s Bermuda Festival was due to get underway, the programme was thrown into chaos when CedarBridge Academy’s Ruth Seaton James Auditorium was closed due to problems with mould. With the venue still out of commission this year, festival organisers found themselves with a number of programming challenges.
“The auditorium seats 650 compared to 378 at City Hall. It also has a larger stage,” explains Artistic Director Karen Pollard.
“There isn’t really an alternative venue in terms of size. Without that stage we cannot do the spectacular things. What we really need is a purpose-built venue.”
Last year organisers were forced to cancel performances by the Mark Morris Dance Group because they couldn’t work in a smaller venue.
Karen says: “It’s very embarrassing not to meet the obligations you’ve made. It also put a real strain on the box office as online bookings were happening when we first heard about Ruth Seaton James. Of course it had a huge financial impact because everything went into a smaller venue where we couldn’t sell as many tickets.”
Great news for music lovers
There has been more time to prepare this year but the programme has been restricted by the continued unavailability of the Ruth Seaton James Auditorium. It’s had an interesting impact on the programme, placing more of an emphasis on music than in the last few years.
Karen says: “We have reverted a bit more to how the festival was in the past, which is great news for music lovers.”
A number of performances will take place in the Fairmont Southampton, including African diva Angelique Kidjo and the Grammy-award winning a capella group Take6. Also performing at the Fairmont will be pianist and comedian Zeidwig.
The festival gets underway with a gala performance at City Hall by Tango Fire, followed by guitarist Eliot Fisk, the baroque group Interpreti Veneziani, Parsons Dance, father and son clarinet and piano duo Stoltzman and Stoltzman and The Italian Saxophone Quartet.
The youngest artist in the festival will be 14-year-old pianist Benjamin Grosvenor, who came to public attention when he won the keyboard section of the BBC Young Musician of the Year Competition aged just 11.
Karen says: “We try to bring exciting, young artists to the festival like Benjamin Grosvenor because the fees are more in our price range than the big artists. We did that with Joshua Bell before his career really took of. It gives audiences the chance to see artists who are on the way up.”
Because of its size, Bermuda doesn’t have many venues and one of the challenges of organising the festival is matching performances to apporpriate locations. This year, for example, the Daylesford Theatre will host the puppet show The Man who Planted Trees. The show is well-suited to the intimate environment while chamber choir Tenebrae will be making the most of the acoustics in St John’s Church.
“We had planned to do Ragtime with the G&S, which is a major undertaking. They were very much hoping that the Ruth Seaton would be available and the fact that it isn’t means that we’ve had quite a problem programming. They need a couple of weeks for rehearsals in City Hall, which means it isn’t available for other performances.”
Planning ahead
Karen is already working on the programme for 2009 and 2010. Next year’s festival will have a real Bermudian flavour in celebration of the island’s 400th anniversary.
“That’s a challenge trying to juggle Bermudian performers with international artists, plus we still don’t know if the Ruth Seaton James will be available,” she explains.
As Artistic Director she travels widely throughout the year to watch performances and the team often receives show recommendations from the island’s arts enthusiasts. So what are they looking for in a performer?
“Of course we want to get performers when they’re hot,” she says but there are other factors too.
“Often we bring people back who have performed under some other guise like Federico Mondelci. He was hugely popular last year when he performed as a soloist with the Moscow Chamber Orchestra. This year he’s coming back as part of the Italian Saxophone Quartet.”
“Bermudian audiences love to establish a relationship with performers even if it’s just someone talking to them from the stage to tell them what to look out for in the piece they’re about to perform. It makes for a more educated way of listening and audiences here really appreciate it."
Karen says she’s always looking for new and exciting artists and something that hasn’t been done before. It’s also important to cater for a wide variety of tastes.
“We always try to make sure there’s something for every age group and personality. There’s always a surprise in every festival. You have an idea of what’s going to sell well but there’s always something that surprises you.”
One of the key factors isn’t to do with the artist’s on stage performance but with their behaviour off stage.
Karen says: “We have a lot of volunteers for the festival who act as hosts for the performers. Bermudian hospitality is famous and itt’s good to know an artist will respond to being looked after. If the artist just wants to lock himself in his room you know it’s not going to work.”
For more information visit www.bermudafestival.org