Coincidental chat

I do like a coincidence. Especially one involving friends and strangers. I should perhaps warn you now that this is something of a self-indulgent blog post. So, a couple of Saturdays ago I was in London for a concert by the Orchestra of St Paul’s (OSP). This classy chamber orchestra played Bartok, Beethoven, Lipatti and Mozart, in a concert in LSO St Luke’s. If you’ve never been there, then go. A peaceful, musical oasis on Old Street, it’s a gorgeous former church in which the modern concert hall fittings are juxtaposed with the old bare brick walls. You can see the trees through the large windows. But I digress. I was there for OSP, out of both musical curiosity and friendship. I know the orchestra’s principal cellist, Morwenna Del Mar, and the conductor and OSP founder Ben Palmer. Personal ties aside, this classy chamber orchestra is definitely worth a listen.* One of the several young ensembles around at the moment – the Aurora Orchestra and Spira Mirabilis are just two others in the limelight – OSP’s calling card is playing with ‘pure tone’, that is no vibrato, on modern instruments. No surprise then that the orchestra’s patron is the man who pioneered this practice, Sir Roger Norrington. And there was an intriguing item on the programme that night: the UK premiere of the Concertino in the Classical Style by Dinu Lippati. It turned out to be a rather fun suite-like work with touches of dreamy Bach and playful Haydn, all played with sparkle by pianist Alexandra Dariescu.

Cut to the following weekend. Victoria Park, Hackney. It’s Field Day, an alternative festival packed with hipsters. The line-up included Metronomy, Sleigh Bells and Beirut. As the sun came out, people lounged in front of the main stage, drinking beer and cider. Quite a different crowd from last Saturday. You can probably see where this is going, although perhaps not the surreal twists. Off we go. In the queue for the toilets with my friend Orla, a Prince-William-mask-wearing man asked if I would be his Princess. Hmm. Well, no, I said, smiling. But then we got chatting – it was a long queue – and it turned out he was French, with a wacky sense of humour: ‘I’m Clement, like the weather; you’re Orla, like the Mexican wave; and you’re Rebecca, like the Mexican wave as well.’ Readers, you might have possibly guessed from this blog, that I have a soft spot for all things French. But that’s not the coincidence. Nor is the ‘surely-not moment’ the fact that it turned out one of his French friends worked for the same Bristol-based animation company that Orla used to work for. No, the real coincidence was odder than that. We went over to chat to his friends in French/Franglais/English. ‘What do you do?’, Alexandre and Yann asked me. ‘I’m a classical music journalist.’ ‘Wow. [I might have imagined that bit.] Actually, we went to a really good concert last week…’

Thank you for indulgence. 

* It seems to me a good rule of thumb not to review concerts given by your friends – even if you keep your professional distance, how does the reader know that you have? Is that glowing review genuine? Or have you gone the other way and become overly-critical in the name of even-handedness? And that’s before considering your friendship and the effects a review could have on that. Acknowledging this, and given that this is a personal blog and not a professional review, let me just say, honest, guv, this orchestra, its conductor and principal cellist are definitely names to watch.