The Really Terrible Orchestra

Last updated

The Really Terrible Orchestra (RTO) is a British amateur orchestra, founded in 1995 by the Edinburgh-based businessman Peter Stevenson and the author Alexander McCall Smith. The inspiration for Stevenson and McCall Smith was the enjoyment that their children were having with their school orchestras. They decided to look for a local amateur orchestra with which they could enjoy playing music for the fun of it. [1] They could not find such an orchestra, and formed the RTO as a result, with Richard Neville Towle as its conductor.

Contents

McCall Smith has expressed the low quality of the orchestra's playing very directly: [2]

The name was carefully chosen: what it said was what you would get.

Aside from their yearly concerts at the Edinburgh Fringe, the orchestra also features in the novel The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. In the foyer of the Canongate Kirk, an Edinburgh church and their regular venue, the orchestra sells CDs of their performances.

In 2005 a documentary film about the RTO, The Really Terrible Orchestra, directed by Edward Brooke-Hitching, was selected for the 60th International Edinburgh Film Festival in 2006. It won the Baillie Gifford Award for best short Scottish documentary.

The RTO made their London debut on 3 November 2007 at the Cadogan Hall, London, in a sold-out concert. [3] [4]

On 1 April 2009, the RTO travelled to the United States and played at the New York Town Hall on its first (one-date) overseas tour. [5]

The orchestra ventured onto Continental Europe for the first time on 16 April 2011. They played two concerts at Utrecht's Academiegebouw as part of the City2Cities Utrecht International Literature Days. The proceedings were dignified by Dutch poets J. Bernlef and Anna Enquist. [6]

See also

Related Research Articles

Bernard Herrmann American composer

Bernard Herrmann was an American composer and conductor best known for his work in composing for films. As a conductor, he championed the music of lesser-known composers. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest film composers.

<i>Anna Christie</i> 1921 play written by Eugene ONeill

Anna Christie is a play in four acts by Eugene O'Neill. It made its Broadway debut at the Vanderbilt Theatre on November 2, 1921. O'Neill received the 1922 Pulitzer Prize for Drama for this work. According to historian Paul Avrich the original of Anna Christie was Christine Ell, an anarchist cook in Greenwich Village, who was the lover of Edward Mylius the English radical who libeled the British king George V.

Zubin Mehta Indian conductor

Zubin Mehta is an Indian conductor of Western and Eastern classical music. He is music director emeritus of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra (IPO) and conductor emeritus of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

Alexander McCall Smith British/Zimbabwean writer and academic

Alexander "Sandy" McCall Smith, CBE, FRSE, is a British writer, raised in Southern Rhodesia and formerly Professor of Medical Law at the University of Edinburgh. He became a respected expert on medical law and bioethics and served on related British and international committees. He has since become known as a fiction writer, with sales in English exceeding 40 million by 2010 and translations into 46 languages. He is known as the creator of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency series. "McCall" forms part of his surname.

Valery Gergiev Russian conductor and opera company director

Valery Abisalovich Gergiev is a Russian conductor and opera company director. He is general director and artistic director of the Mariinsky Theatre, chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic and artistic director of the White Nights Festival in St. Petersburg.

Sir Alexander Drummond Gibson was a Scottish conductor and opera intendant. He was also well known for his service to the BBC and his achievements during his reign as the longest serving principal conductor of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra in which the orchestra was awarded its Royal Patronage

Anoushka Shankar British musician (born 1981)

Anoushka Shankar is a British-Indian-American sitar player, producer, film composer and activist. She was the youngest and first female to receive a British House of Commons Shield; she has had 7 Grammy Awards nominations and was the first Indian musician to perform live and to serve as presenter at the ceremony. She performs across multiple genres and styles - classical and contemporary, acoustic and electronic.

Usher Hall

The Usher Hall is a concert hall in Edinburgh, Scotland. It has hosted concerts and events since its construction in 1914 and can hold approximately 2,200 people in its recently restored auditorium, which is well loved by performers due to its acoustics. The Hall is flanked by The Royal Lyceum Theatre on the right and The Traverse Theatre on the left. Historic Environment Scotland has registered the Hall with Category A listed building status.

Flight of the Conchords New Zealand musical comedy duo

Flight of the Conchords is a New Zealand comedy duo composed of musicians Bret McKenzie and Jemaine Clement. Beginning as a popular New Zealand live comedy act in the early 2000s, the duo's comedy and music became the basis of the self-titled BBC radio series (2004) and then the HBO American television series (2007–2009).

The Sunday Philosophy Club is a series of novels by the author Alexander McCall Smith. It is also the name of the first novel in the series, and an informal talking group founded by the main character Isabel Dalhousie. The series is set in Edinburgh.

Nicola Benedetti Scottish classical violinist

Nicola Joy Nadia Benedetti is a Scottish-Italian classical solo violinist. Her ability was recognised when she was a child, including the award of BBC Young Musician of the Year when she was 16 and also many other awards. She works with orchestras in Europe and America as well as Alexei Grynyuk, her regular pianist. Since 2012 she has played the Gariel Stradivarius violin.

<i>The Sunday Philosophy Club</i>

The Sunday Philosophy Club is the first of the Sunday Philosophy Club series of novels by Alexander McCall Smith, set in Edinburgh, Scotland, and featuring the protagonist Isabel Dalhousie. It was first published in 2004.

Blythe Duff is a Scottish actress best known for her role as Jackie Reid in the ITV television series drama, Taggart.

Alexander Frey Musical artist

Alexander Frey is an American symphony orchestra conductor, virtuoso organist, pianist, harpsichordist and composer. Frey is in great demand as one of the world's most versatile conductors, and enjoys success in the concert hall and opera house, and in the music of Broadway and Hollywood. Leonard Bernstein referred to him as "a wonderful spirit".

Coram Boy is a play written by Helen Edmundson with music composed by Adrian Sutton, based on the 2000 children's novel of the same name by Jamila Gavin, an epic adventure that concerns the theme of child cruelty. The play is called a "play with music", rather than a musical.

The Three Mesquiteers is the umbrella title for a Republic Pictures series of 51 American Western B-movies released between 1936 and 1943, including eight films starring a trio of stars including John Wayne. The series was based on a series of Western novels by William Colt MacDonald, which began with The Law of 45's in 1933.

Sean Mathias British actor

Sean Gerard Mathias is a Welsh actor, director, and writer. He is known for directing the film Bent and for directing highly acclaimed theatre productions in London, New York City, Cape Town, Los Angeles and Sydney.

Kensington Symphony Orchestra

Founded in 1956, London's Kensington Symphony Orchestra is one of the best known non-professional orchestras in Britain. It regularly attracts the best non-professional players from around London for its concerts at St John's, Smith Square and other venues in London. Like many non-professional British orchestras it finances its concerts not only through ticket sales, charitable donations and corporate support, but through its playing members who pay subscription fees.

Classical music in Scotland

Classical music in Scotland is all art music in the Western European classical tradition, between its introduction in the eighteenth century until the present day. The development of a distinct tradition of art music in Scotland was limited by the impact of the Scottish Reformation on ecclesiastical music from the sixteenth century. Concerts, largely composed of "Scottish airs", developed in the seventeenth century and classical instruments were introduced to the country. Music in Edinburgh prospered through the patronage of figures including the merchant Sir John Clerk of Penicuik. The Italian style of classical music was probably first brought to Scotland by the cellist and composer Lorenzo Bocchi, who travelled to Scotland in the 1720s. The Musical Society of Edinburgh was incorporated in 1728. Several Italian musicians were active in the capital in this period and there are several known Scottish composers in the classical style, including Thomas Erskine, 6th Earl of Kellie, the first Scot known to have produced a symphony.

Edward Brooke-Hitching is an English author, and a writer and researcher for the BBC panel show QI, as a member of the team known as the "QI Elves". He is the son of the rare book dealer Franklin Brooke-Hitching and a descendant of the printer and bibliographer William Blades, who wrote the history of book preservation The Enemies of Books.

References

  1. Michael White (26 August 2007). "Lousy Is the Best They Can Ever Be". The New York Times. Retrieved 3 November 2007.
  2. Alexander McCall Smith (1 November 2007). "Terrible Orchestra?". The Telegraph. Archived from the original on 2 November 2007. Retrieved 4 November 2007.
  3. Matthew Westphal (2 November 2007). "Really Terrible Orchestra Sells Out London Debut Concert". Playbill Arts. Retrieved 3 November 2007.
  4. Patricia Cleveland-Peck (4 November 2007). "Musical no-hopers strike chord". The Independent. Archived from the original on 5 November 2007. Retrieved 17 November 2007.
  5. Deborah Hoffman (3 April 2009). "Alexander McCall Smith and His 'Tuneless Wonders'". The New York Times. Retrieved 27 May 2009.
  6. "Really Terrible Orchestra, with J. Bernlef and Anna Enquist". City2Cities. 2011. Retrieved 7 July 2011.