Monday
My weeks vary immensely due to the different musical hats I wear – as the lead violinist in Manchester Collective I spend about 12 weeks of the year traversing around the country, or further afield, playing concerts, sharing the music I love and connecting with audiences worldwide. As Artistic Director of the Collective I am responsible for developing projects that meet our mission of reshaping the future of classical music through radical artistic work.
Today I am rehearsing for Manchester Collective’s Sirocco tour across the US with cellist Abel Selaocoe and his band, Chesaba. Sirocco is a celebration of the warmth and diversity of musical traditions from across the world and of music’s power to unify us all. Having worked together for many years the rehearsals for this project are a little more
relaxed around the edges and we tend to learn a lot by ear and experiment.
Today I have been working on Purcell with the group, trying to see whether adding percussion and electric bass can add a flavour that enhances the music. I have to trust my instinct as to whether I like what we find as the last thing I’d want to do is for it to be tokenistic. As always, there are plenty of ideas floating around the room but if we try things a few times and they don’t feel right, we won’t do it – we never do it just for the sake of it.
Tuesday
Today we start our epic travel over to Canada – our first stop on the tour is Kingston, Ontario. I have an early start to Manchester Airport and then a layover in London before
the long-haul flight to Canada. From the outside it may seem that travel days are relaxing and that it’s nice to just sit around but the reality of airports is not that! My travel hacks are bringing healthy snacks, lots of water and my little bag of essential oils –this time I have lemon, orange, frankincense and peppermint.
We arrive in Canada and it’s a three-hour drive to Kingston. We pile into two large hire cars with all our luggage and the vibe varies between friendly chatter and music sharing, to quiet and restful as we take in our new surroundings. We check into our hotel and then a group of us head out to find some dinner. We order delicious sounding food and most of us have cocktails of some sort – tonight it seems to be Negroni’s all round!
Wednesday
With a free day to acclimatise, I find a nice place for brunch and settle myself down to catch up on some planning for the Collective’s next project, Rothko Chapel – a live audio-visual concert experience in London and Manchester plus a tour of Europe in May that will reimagine Mark Rothko’s immense canvases through sound and light. I sometimes feel the tension between having to exist in the present as a performer and existing in the future as I plan big projects – I’ve found it’s not possible to switch immediately between the two as they use very different parts of the brain.
Currently I am designing the light installation for the project and trying to imagine the staging and where the musicians will stand to bring the music alive in the most visceral way. I’ve been listening to Morton Feldman’s Rothko Chapel a lot, trying to allow my brain to not be too engaged when listening but to let the feeling in my body guide me. For me it’s about leaving the space for the ideas to reveal themselves rather than overthinking – my body tells me when it’s the right thing, not my brain!
Thursday
Today is the first gig of the tour! I try to avoid meetings on show days, but today I need to have a production meeting regarding Rothko Chapel. We spend an intense hour-and-a-half talking about lighting, sound tech, staging and anything else associated with this show. It’s an ambitious project and we are putting it together very quickly so a lot of preparation has to be done, otherwise it just wouldn’t be possible. I feel brain fatigue from all the decision making, so I decide to rest and take it slowly following the meeting to try and refocus myself for the evening.
I find from the moment I wake up on show days, I’m aware that in the evening I have to be on stage, in front of people, being my best and most open self. I often have butterflies all day until the moment I walk on stage. Honestly, I don’t always feel like having to present myself but once I get on stage that all changes and things flow.
Friday
Following a hugely successful first night, we set off towards our second stop – Montreal. At the same time a snowstorm is heading in and we arrive at a city covered in snow, with two hours to spare before our soundcheck. We have another incredible gig. The crowd are so vibrant and obviously happy to be there – the amount of energy you receive from the audience as a performer can make a huge difference as it really spurs you on to take more risks. There’s a standing ovation and even people dancing at the front and in the aisles!
Saturday
It’s not long before we’re at the end of the first leg of the tour – we’ve done five cities in five days between Canada and the USA, including Longwood Gardens, Kennett Square, Pennsylvania – a huge glasshouse in a botanical garden, which reminded me of Kew Gardens in London. We were playing surrounded by luscious plants and running water which made us feel immediately refreshed. It was a perfect way to end a gruelling five days in a row and ended up being one of the best shows of the whole tour.
Sunday
Finally some proper rest time as we travel to Vancouver and have a couple of days off. It takes us the same time to get across North America as it did for us to get here from the UK, a reminder of how vast this continent is. We have three more shows on this tour and then my sister and I will rent a campervan and go and explore California – a few days off-grid before we go back to Manchester and dive into the next project!
