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Inspire Ambassador Sylvia Lim explores different approaches to musical notation

Notation

 Notation is just a way of communicating our ideas to people. While some types of notation might be more familiar (e.g. notes on staves, tablature, chord progressions), there are also many other kinds we can use! Knowing these different types might help us to find a good fit for our ideas, so that we can share our music well. Here are a few kinds of notation. They can also be combined:

 Words

Sometimes all you need are verbal instructions to bring your piece to life! Maya Khaldi’s Baklawa is based on a recipe from her grandmother’s cookbook. To explore the links between composing and cooking, she lists ingredients such as ‘2 cups of scattered interruptions’ and ‘10 layers of different pitch’, and then asks performers to play these ingredients in a particular order. Her performers choose what these ingredients sound like. Here, notation is not just a way of capturing ideas, but also a way of creating material together.

 In John Lely’s Second Symphony for 15 or more performers, he instructs each person to choose a single sound to repeat once every second. This is played along to a click-track, which is not synchronised with the other performers'. He also describes a process for how the piece will unfold. While the specific sounds might change with each performance, the reiterative texture and structure of the piece makes this work very distinctive and recognisable. 

 Graphics 

Some composers include graphic elements in their scores. For example, lines moving up and down have often been used to show how high or low a sound is. Graphics can also allow the composer to give performers more control over certain elements of the piece, so that each performance is unique. Gerry Brazell’s Flowchart Game for 5-6 players has a playful approach to notation. The score is written as a flowchart. Performers start together but take different routes to the end, depending on how they answer various questions in the score. The sounds they make are determined by which fragments they encounter on their route. 

 Geoffa Fells has drawn and painted her scores on pieces of clothing. In Dehumanisation for soprano and sweatshirt, the performer wears the score, which contains musical fragments and drawings of people. By punching the score, the soprano creates body percussion and overlaps the drawings with more visuals on their sleeve to create animation. Her notation is central to the piece, and is intended to be seen by the audience during the performance.

 Alternative approaches to using staves

There are also different ways to use staves. In Jürg Frey’s Fragile Balance for ensemble with piano, the score consists of very short fragments of material that are presented in four vertical columns. This vertical flow of reading helps the musicians to not synchronise their playing. This produces spontaneous, complex rhythms between the players, but the score looks very simple. 

 Some composers have also used timelines or time brackets to show when sounds start and stop. This is particularly useful when there is no overall beat in the music. 

 Here are only some types of notation, but there are plenty more to explore! Anything can be notation, if it helps us to communicate our ideas to people. One of the best ways to try out notation is to show performers, and ask what they think! 

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WORDS ON WORDS – MORGAN EDWARD OVERTON

I seem to have a thing for voices. Both the pieces I have written for the BBC proms scheme have been settings of poetry (Two Boys, the competition entry, was a setting of a Whitman poem, and I’m Making a Statement, the commission, was a short suite of the words of people living with dementia). It doesn’t stop with the Proms – the majority of the pieces I have written have in some way or another have spoken or sung elements, be it by choir, soloist, chamber ensemble or even entire orchestra. Setting text and writing for voices can be a surprisingly fiddly thing to do (and it is more difficult to do it effectively), but so far (in my education and wider listening) I’ve learnt a few things from various places which I thought may be useful to put down.

1.    The ironic undercut. While some will fervently argue that the most important (nay, I tell thee, the only!) reason to set text to music is to convey (forsooth, I continue, emphasise!) its meaning, I think that is a little too simple a viewpoint. While conveying and emphasising the meaning of a text is certainly a worthy reason, it can be occasionally limiting. Sometimes, it is more fun to reinvent a text. This can be as simple as reordering it (I will get to that later) but it can be achieved without changing or missing out one word of the text. Pairing text with music which seems to jar has the brilliant effect of mutating the meaning, or undercutting it completely. For example, take The Smiths, masters of the ironic undercut. In their considerably in-poor-taste Girlfriend in a Coma, the text of what is at worst a callous boyfriend visiting their comatose girlfriend in hospital is made all the worse by the jolly music, complete with sleigh bells, in the background, turning the emotionlessness of the text into downright offensive cruelty. And it’s great.

2.    Chopping and changing. Having said that you don’t have to reorder the text, it sometimes can be great fun. Mixing texts, or cutting them up, can provide greater variety and allow for some interesting alternative readings. Nico Muhly, in his Map of the World for voice and piano, combines three different texts: an excerpt of romantic poetry by Geoffrey Chaucer, John Weever’s recollection of his impression of Shakespeare’s family, and then Shakespeare’s own Sonnet 130 the well-known antithesis of traditional love poetry. Muhly’s combination of these three excerpts is quite funny – Chaucer extols his love’s virtues, Weever extols the beauty of Shakespeare’s family, and then Shakespeare slags off his own lover’s beauty and instead extols her personality. Another approach is taken by Joanna Bailie in her Artificial Environment 4, for tape and ensemble. Bailie recorded an introduction to the piece over sounds of traffic, explaining that in this ‘environment’, ‘sound seems to be operating to a different principle entirely’. This introduction (both traffic and text) is then chopped up, rearranged and so forth, with the instruments imitating the sounds playing behind them. The result is a brilliant but unnerving manipulation of the original material.

3.    It’s not just singers that can use text. There’s lots of different ways this can be applied. Joanna Bailie above proves that the composer themselves can be heard in the final composition. Steve Reich similarly uses pre-recorded text (albeit text he has recorded from other people) in many of his compositions (including his video-operas The Cave and Three Tales, the phase pieces Come Out and It’s Gonna Rain, and the string quartets WTC 9/11 and Different Trains) and often has musicians imitating the text. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King wasn’t originally written for a singer, but a South African actor called Roy Hart. The instrumentalists can also deliver text themselves – a version of Stephen Sondheim’s musical Into the Woods at the Menier Chocolate Factory in London was performed entirely by actor-musicians, who both accompanied and acted. Text doesn’t even have to be sung – you may have heard of a little genre called ‘rap’. And choirs don’t have to sing either – Carl Orff and Ernst Toch (among others) wrote bookfuls of ‘Spoken Choir’ music. And it is groovy.

4.    The text doesn’t have to mean much. Sometimes, text can be used more like instrumental technique – the sound of the words can be as important (if not more so) than what they actually mean. Bon Iver’s third studio album 22, A Million, finds a beautiful mix between the two, where the lyrics seem to have meaning, but are largely carried by the sound effects used within them. Michael Nyman’s Bird List is just that – a list of bird names, devoid of any other meaning. However, it can be taken further Claude Vivier, a composer sadly most well-known for predicting his own grisly murder, created his own language which he incorporates into many of his pieces, including Lonely Child and Journal, the ‘translation’ of which isn’t provided. Similarly, Enya and her lyrical collaborator Roma Ryan together devised a language called Loxian, which consists of nothing more than a transcription of syllables Enya sings off the cuff. Jazz scat singing is similarly off-the-cuff syllabic improvisation (Slim Gaillard’s Avocado Seed Soup Symphony is a particularly brilliant example of the humorous side of this), and in Björk’s song Venus as a Boy, she similarly breaks into a section of gibberish between two choruses. In Cathy Berberian’s Stripsody, the vocalist imitates sounds from television and radio. A lot of sounds.

5.    The voice can be as versatile an instrument as any other. Vocal extended techniques are too varied to list here. Peter Maxwell Davies’ Eight Songs for a Mad King is a pretty good place to start. If your voice can do it, chances are, someone else’s can as well.

6.    You can write your own text. Singer-songwriters working outside the ‘classical/art music’ scene know this all too well, but sometimes composers forget that there is nothing wrong with writing their own texts. Liturgical music is full of composer-writers throughout history (Thomas Campion and John Dowland are two notable English examples), but other genres have it too. Stockhausen and Wagner both wrote their own opera texts; Vivier wrote or collaborated on many of his texts as well. Even Mozart and Purcell wrote their own (admittedly incredibly rude) texts to use as the bases of rounds, grounds and canons. (Completely NSFW.)

7.    You don’t need text at all. Vocalise is a genre of music in which a singer sings a line to any sound. Rachmaninov wrote a very famous example of the genre, but many others exist; Glière wrote an entire concerto for coloratura soprano, and the soprano soloist in Glass’s 1000 Airplanes on the Roof similarly has no text to sing. And it is absolutely captivating.

In essence, the joy of working with voice is that it is one of the easiest things to experiment with. The huge variety of sounds a human voice can make is possibly unrivalled in music, and therefore allows a composer huge scope in which to work. Most importantly, as with almost any artistic endeavour, the composer should write what they want in the way they want. It may not always work, but any experiences which prove less than entirely successful will allow for future refinement. Always keep listening, and always keep writing!

Listen to his winning piece here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p045h7sx 

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Be at the #BowieProm tomorrow http://bbc.in/1RMc9WP

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Following the success of the first ever Gospel Prom in 2013, a selection of handpicked singers from leading gospel groups come together to form an elite gospel ‘superchoir’ at the Royal Albert Hall. A late-night celebration featuring original material alongside traditional gospel classics and arrangements – plus a sprinkling of esteemed special guests. http://bbc.in/1WPzFUq

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Get playing with a masterclass from @JRhodesPianist. #BBCGetPlaying http://bbc.in/25BGzyl

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To make sure you don’t miss out on getting tickets to this years Proms check our booking dates:

Season Ticket & Weekend Promming Passes booking opens Thursday 5 May at 9.00am.

BBC Ten Pieces (Proms 10 & 12) and CBeebies Proms (Proms 56 & 58) booking opens Friday 6 May at 9.00am.

General Booking opens Saturday 7 May at 9.00am.

For more information visit the BBC Proms website at http://bbc.in/1PKEXbN

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More than one Prom you'd like to attend this summer?

Use the Proms Planner, accessible via bbc.co.uk/proms, to create your personal Proms Plan! Once completed, this is ready for you to submit as soon as general booking opens at 9.00 am on 7 May.

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Hear from a BBC Proms young composer: Tammas Slater

’Compose as much as you can, study all genres of music and write what you want to hear’: important words from Tammas Slater, winner of the BBC Proms Inspire Competition Junior category in 2015.

Tammas is a 15-year-old composer from West Yorkshire. He has been composing since the age of five and has had pieces workshopped or performed by the BBC Singers, members of the Aurora Orchestra and the Chetham’s Lower School Choir.

In 2015, Tammas was selected from hundreds of entrants as one of the winners in the Junior category of the BBC Proms Inspire Competition. His winning piece - ‘Mechanical Passion’, two short pieces based on Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ - was performed by soprano Miriam Allan and Aurora Orchestra and conducted by Nicholas Collon in the 2015 Proms season. You can hear his composition performed by the orchestra here. Tammas tells us: ‘Having my piece performed at the Proms was very exciting, and I enjoyed particularly working with the Aurora Orchestra in rehearsal, who were incredibly receptive to my musical demands!’.

Click here to listen back to Tammas and Judith Weir on BBC Radio 3′s In Tune, where they discuss the BBC Proms Inspire scheme and what it’s like to be a young composer today.

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Hear from a BBC Proms young composer: Anna Disley-Simpson

Anna Disley-Simpson, a BBC Proms Inspire Competition 2014 winner, tells us about her journey so far as a composer. Click here to hear Anna’s interview and winning piece ‘Underneath’ on Radio 3′s In Tune.

Now in its eighteenth year, the BBC Proms Inspire scheme provides you with a friendly environment to share ideas, meet like-minded composers and develop your musical creativity, while working alongside some of the UK’s top composers and musicians. If you are 12-18 years old and want to make your own music, join the BBC Proms Inspire scheme to receive a range of exclusive offers and opportunities all year round.

-When did you begin composing?

I used to make up small pieces and songs when I was very little and had just started to read music, and proceeded to compose more seriously when I was about 14 years old.

-How have you developed as a composer since you joined the Inspire scheme?

The Inspire scheme has undoubtedly given me more confidence to be bolder and to not always stick to my comfort zone. Working so closely with professional musicians and hearing my music performed in such an amazing capacity has definitely driven me to start forging a career path primarily as a composer.

-What was the inspiration behind your winning piece ‘Underneath’ and your following BBC Proms commission 'Chrysalis'?

The idea for ‘Underneath’ came from a friend of mine who had a fear of being in the sea. Writing the words myself meant that it was a relatively fluent process reflecting the meaning of the text through the music. I treated it more as a pop song than an intricate chamber work, and the result was a very rhythmic, punchy basis for the piece. The aim was to convey a clear contrast between the friend's anxiety and agitation and the comforting words of encouragement through two main motivic ideas. I decided to explore more unusual sounds that the voice could make through the use of graphic score and a percussive vocal line for beat boxer.

For my piece, 'Chrysalis', I took a lot of inspiration from the core words given in our brief for the commission; 'freedom', 'nature', and 'memory'. I decided to try and evoke what it might feel like to be placed into the body of a caterpillar on its journey from spinning into a cocoon to emerging as a butterfly.

-What was your most memorable moment as a BBC Proms young composer?

Being broadcast on BBC Radio 3 back in August straight after The Rite of Spring at the Proms was definitely a daunting and memorable one. However, it was amazing being able to reflect on that previous 12 months since winning the competition and noticing how I'd developed as a musician over that time. 

-What are your next steps going to be as a composer?

To get a degree! I'm now in my first year studying composition at the Royal Northern College of Music which so far has included lots of great musical projects, e.g. I'm currently working on a piece for members of Manchester Camerata. Alongside music college, I've also been offered a place at Manchester venue Band on the Wall to take part in a series of 10 workshops on vocal techniques/writing for the voice using electronics. This summer, I along with some fellow music students hope to embark on some musical projects abroad thanks to the Erasmus scheme.   

-What would be your advice to other young composers today? 

Be flexible. Make friends with musicians. Have an online presence. Create something that you, yourself, are really proud of, regardless of what others claim you 'should' be doing.

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BBC Proms: What’s it all about?

The season launch of the BBC Proms 2015 is fast approaching - in just 1 week, on 23 April, we will let the world know which world-class musical stars will be performing great and new classical works in the Proms this summer! 

But what are the Proms all about? For all who have never experienced the BBC Proms before, here is an insight into the sort of events we will be putting on as part of the BBC Proms 2015.

Each year the Proms presents the best of classical music to a wide audience. As well as the thousands of seats in the Royal Albert Hall, part of the audience has always stood in the central ‘promenade’ arena, which gives the Proms concerts their notable informal and welcoming atmosphere. The concerts have always mixed the great classical works with what Henry Wood, founder-conductor of the Proms, called his ‘novelties’ – in other words, rare works and premieres.

The BBC Proms aren’t just about classical music; contemporary artists also perform with past Proms dedicated to electric, popular, urban and folk music. This year will be no exception! Since 1998, the Proms have been making a regular commitment to mini-audience members with regular family Proms taking place, the first being a Blue Peter Prom and others including Dr Who and CBeebies themed concerts.

Want to learn more about the music? The main Proms concerts are accompanied by a string of Proms Extra events giving you insights and intros to the world of classical music and beyond. The events range from introductions to the works of famous composers, to analysis of classical music’s effect on the wider cultural sphere, and include lots of participatory workshops and events for all ages and abilities.

If you can’t attend a concert in person, fear not, as all the concerts are broadcast live on BBC Radio 3 and many will be broadcast on BBC TV. Alternatively, you can listen and watch again via our website, bbc.co.uk/proms.

The 2015 BBC Proms season will be announced on Thursday 23 April at 2pm on our website. Keep an eye out for this year’s highlights! This year's season runs from 17 July - 12 September 2014.

For more information, visit bbc.co.uk/proms

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Printing the Proms Guide!

Earlier this week our Proms designers took a trip to the printers to sign off the shiny new Proms Official Guide 2015! 

The designers have been working very hard over the last few months creating the Proms Guide - gathering information on the all Proms concerts and events (repertoire, performers, time, location, ticket and broadcast information), commissioning brand-new articles on featured composers, finding stunning images, and putting in all the information you could want to know about how to attend the Proms. Plus they have made a free season calendar insert so you can see all the summer concerts at a glance!

You’ll be able to get your hands on your copy of the Official Proms Guide after the 2015 season launches on 23 April. Pre-order your copy bit.ly/1KLDdMU

Take a peek at our Guide being printed :

The 2015 BBC Proms season will be announced on Thursday 23 April at 2pm. Keep an eye on our website for this year’s highlights. This year's season runs from 17 July - 12 September 2015.

For more information, please visit our website bbc.co.uk/proms

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BBC Proms Inspire Interviews young composer Grace Mason

Find out more about Grace Mason, who attended the Birmingham Inspire Lab in 2012 and went on to become one of the winners of the 2013 BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition. As part of her prize, Grace had her piece ‘Convergence’ performed by the Aurora Orchestra and broadcast on BBC Radio 3. Following this she was commissioned by the BBC to write a new piece for members of the BBC Symphony Orchestra which was performed in a concert on 23 November and will be broadcast on Radio 3 Hear and Now in 2015.

If you’re an aspiring young composer, come along to one of our free Inspire Labs, which take place in Birmingham, London, Salford, Bangor and Glasgow, and look out for next year’s Inspire Young Composers’ Competition which launches in January 2015.

-When did you begin composing?

I started composing when I was around 14 years old.

-How have you developed as a composer since you joined the Inspire Scheme?

I first got involved with the Inspire scheme by attending an Inspire Composer Lab in Birmingham and then entered the competition the year after. Since being involved in the scheme, I've become more aware of the new music being written today by professionals and other young composers alike that you meet whilst being a part of it; I think this is both really important and exciting as a way to learn and develop as a composer.

-What was the inspiration behind your winning piece Convergence?

'Convergence' was inspired by the poem 'The Convergence of the Twain' by Thomas Hardy. It was written for soprano voice, violin and 'cello and was designed to challenge the role of the voice in an ensemble both musically, through roles and extended techniques, and literally, via stage positions, and set the first stanza of the text, which describes the collision of the ship and the iceberg in the events of the titanic.

-What has been the most memorable moment as an Inspire young composer?

The entire experience has been exciting and highly important to me, but hearing 'Convergence' played by members of the Aurora orchestra at the proms was a tremendous highlight, in addition to hearing my music broadcast on BBC Radio 3 for the first time afterwards; it's a moment I'll never forget! 

-What are your next steps going to be as a composer?

After winning I joined the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain as a composer for the following year, and now I am currently studying composition at the Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester.

-What would be your advice to other young composers today?

To explore lots of new music, be passionate about what you write and don't give up!

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BBC Proms Inspire Interviews Young Composer Matthew Jackson

BBC Proms Inspire Interviews young composer Matthew Jackson

Booking has now opened for the 2014 – 2015 BBC Proms Inspire season! We thought this would be a great opportunity to ask 16 year old Inspire alumnus Matthew Jackson to share his experience of the Inspire scheme and his insights as a composer.

Matthew was a Winner of the 2014 BBC Proms Inspire Young Composers’ Competition and Highly Commended in 2013. He plays oboe and piano in several orchestras and ensembles, and has participated in a variety of musical activities, including conducting and jazz piano lessons at the South West Music School.

You can listen to Matthew’s winning piece ‘Mirror Mirror’ here.

-When did you begin composing?

Around the age of 10 - I was bought a manuscript pad for Christmas and haven’t looked back since!

-How have you developed as a composer since you joined the Inspire Scheme?

Since joining the Inspire Scheme in 2011, I have had the chance to take part in many workshops and Inspire days, not to mention the wonderful time I’ve had working on my winning composition. The scheme has really helped me explore different ways of composing and has added a depth to my compositions that they would not have achieved without it.

-What was the inspiration behind your winning piece Mirror Mirror?

Mirror Mirror is a piece that was originally written as a song for the evil queen in Snow White. I soon developed it into a piece for small orchestra, using themes and motifs from the original song.

-What has been the most memorable moment as an Inspire young composer?

Definitely hearing my piece played live for the first time. There is nothing like seeing something you’ve created come to life like that.

-What are your next steps going to be as a composer?

Since winning the Inspire competition I have been commissioned to write a miniature ballet in my local area which is a very exciting project I am thoroughly enjoying. On a more personal level, I would like to write more pieces that have a chance of being performed – ever since I heard Mirror Mirror played as a result of being part of the Inspire scheme I have realised that composition needs to be performed!

-What would be your advice to other young composers today?

Write as much as you can! The more you write, the better you get at it and the more you grow to love it. It really doesn’t matter what you write, just keep going!

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A Day in the Life of the BBC Proms Team - Elinor

Elinor, Concerts Department Assistant

Hi! I’m Elinor, the Concerts Department Assistant at the Proms this year – I joined in April and needless to say, it’s been a total whirlwind ever since! 

If you’ve been a diligent follower of the BBC Proms Tumblr account, you may well have seen little snippets of what my role entails… Like the day over 16,000 performer passes landed on my desk to be individually processed; or there was the morning that I took a taxi with Sir Henry Wood’s bust from the Royal Academy of Music to the Royal Albert Hall. Sadly, he’s not a great conversationalist…

I am also an Event Manager for our numerous Proms Plus events which take place daily in the Elgar Room at the Royal Albert Hall and Royal College of Music and as an insight into one of these, I thought I’d share with you ‘a day in my life.’

Saturday 6th September

I’ve just woken up totally buzzing – last night was incredible… Paloma Faith set fire to the Royal Albert Hall stage with Sir Simon Rattle at the helm of the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra as the ‘support act’ earlier in the evening. I get up humming Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances and am out of the house in 40 mins.

One of my favourite parts of the day is my commute (yes, really!) …I catch the Central line to Lancaster Gate and take a leisurely stroll through Hyde Park towards the magnificent Royal Albert Hall, I will never tire of that walk, it’s my 15 minutes of peace and preparation for the day.

My event is in the Elgar room tonight and two Radio 3 Studio Managers are already busy setting up the stage ready for our sound check by the time I arrive. I settle down with a cup of tea to plan how the event is going to come together.

Barely 30 minutes pass before I get a call – one of the Studio Managers has managed to get himself stuck between floors in a lift (and fears for his life!) – while I’m calling the RAH staff to try and free him I’m wondering how exactly I’m going to explain to the Producer that the broadcast won’t be going ahead due to the SM being ‘otherwise engaged’… However all is well, I have my full complement of SM’s back with me within the hour. Soon after, the contributors turn up; a Greek/Modern Jazz fusion band who go by the name of Valia Calda and George the Poet.  Everyone’s happy after the sound check and we’re out by 4pm - the Elgar Room is also a working restaurant before each concert.

I now have a few hours to catch up with emails, grab some dinner and catch a quick glimpse of Berlin Phil’s St Matthew Passion before getting changed into my black dress, grab a radio, headset and clipboard (crucial BBC event management gear apparently…!) and head back up to my venue for the evening.  By 10:45pm the room is packed, the lights dimmed and the wine is flowing – we’re ready. I hand the show over to the ever capable hands of Radio 3 presenter, Georgia Mann-Smith and a very enjoyable 45 minutes later it’s all over!

Now to de-rig the room, thank the contributors and encourage the hangers-on of the audience to continue their evening’s entertainment elsewhere! By 12:30am I’m done and a little sad – that was the last of the late Proms Plus events – ‘The Last Night of the Proms Plus Lates’ if you like!

I head home relieved at the prospect of a day off tomorrow – and my plans? Back to the Royal Albert Hall to watch the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra of course!

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A Day in the Life of the BBC Proms Team - Anthony

Anthony Lynch, Tours Manager, Royal Albert Hall

Hello everybody I’m Anthony and I’m the Tours manager at Royal Albert Hall. I’ve worked at the Hall for a little over a year now and so this is my second Proms season. I wasn’t particularly familiar with the Proms when I came to the Hall but now I’m a total convert and this season has been another excellent one so far. On a day to day basis at the Hall I am responsible for providing individuals and groups with tours of the building telling the story of the construction, the astonishing types of events that have been held here and the history of how the Royal Albert Hall came to be. I do this through the many talented Tour Guides who work here and who can convey the story of The Hall much better than I can. (My timing is terrible, I always over run). This year I’m particularly excited as we are also running a History of the Proms Tour which tells the Story of the Proms from its inception in 1895 through to the present day. We talk about Robert J Newman, Henry Wood, Malcolm Sargent, The Queen’s Hall (original home of the Proms) and tell some anecdotes about the weird and wonderful things that that have inevitably happened in the last 120 unbroken years of the Proms and Promming. It’s been a real treat getting to do the research to put together this tour; the BBC Proms archive as well as the amazing RAH Archives department have been invaluable in helping us piece the whole story together. Additionally one of our Tour Guides here is a chap called Richard and he is, thankfully, a boffin extraordinaire who appears to contain all the world’s information inside his mind like a human internet, which has made it possible to unearth some of the lovely little stories that characterise the Tour. As well as running the tours department I also get to be the Duty Manager of the Hall for 2 or 3 shows a month which means I am responsible for the safety and wellbeing of the concert goers. This year I’ve been lucky enough to work for some really excellent Proms. Perhaps the standout was Daniel Barenboim with the West Eastern Divan Orchestra. Not only did they do the concert, there were about 4 encores, a speech from the man himself and then they finished with an Argentinean Tango. If that’s not the definition of an amazing concert then I have no idea what would be. If I can find the time then I’m also hoping to try a little Mahler as an actual Prommer. Start big I say.

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A Day in the Life of the BBC Proms Team - Amy

Amy and her hero, Jessye Norman.

Amy Gibb, Assistant Producer, Proms Extra 

Friday is show time for us on Proms Extra. “BOOM” as our Series Producer would say. Our weekly 45min chat show presented by Katie Derham broadcasts on Saturday nights throughout the season. Each week is a mammoth, manic, magic effort by our production team to get the show on the road.

My job as Assistant Producer is to help shape and create the editorial content for each week’s show. I book guests, direct short films, and develop story and script ideas across the series.

I am the one that rings agents and entices guests to come on the show. I am the stressed out one wearing a headset, clipboard in hand, rushing around trying to find a lost contributor (“last seen outside the loo wearing rollers”). Likewise, I am the one that delivers the terrifying news… “the contributor has just popped to the hospital this morning, but they assure me it’s nothing serious and they’ll definitely make it by this afternoon”.

Fridays at the Royal Albert Hall are a tense and exciting part of the job, the bit where weeks of planning and hard work pays off.

Here’s the gist:

0730 I start my day with a swim in the Serpentine, a short hop and skip away from the Royal Albert Hall. No, this is not a normal occurrence. Our fearless Researcher has thrown the gauntlet down – I knew it was a mistake, the moment I dipped my toe in the icy water. I take the plunge. It’s not pretty.

Swim over. I am alive and feeling somewhat more awake. Coffee and egg butty from the makeshift café by the trucks (courtesy of John and Jenny at the broadcast trucks outside Door 11). I’m ready to start the day.

0930 I’m sat within our TV production office, the beating heart of our TV operation. It’s a windowless box at the bottom of the Royal Albert Hall, right next to “underwear alley” as we like to call it. It’s the place where all the orchestral musicians change before gigs. Think boxers, think double bass cases, accompanied by the beautiful sounds of orchestral players noodling before going on stage. Officially my favourite sound in the world.

1130 There is a gentle buzz of excitement. We have three international stars booked to appear on the show, plus a world renowned soloist who is performing at the end of the show. They are due to arrive in 3 hours time and we have to be ready for them. All scripts need to be factually accurate – umlauts and accents for all on screen astons - no mean feat when we are showcasing orchestras and artist from all around the world. The usual questions are thrown my way – what is the correct pronunciation for the Zürcher Sing-Akademie? How many times has the symphony been performed at the Proms – are you sure it’s 102? What is the exact measurement of Sir Henry Wood’s original baton?

1430 Cars arrive to deliver guests to the door. Comms and clipboard at the ready. It is a military operation. It is my job to appear calm and tranquil, when inside I am secretly panicking. If I spread the panic, then it will spread to the rest of the team and also to the guests. Think calm. Think calm. Think calm.

1600 Our beautiful studio at the top of the Royal College of Music is a hothouse of nerves and adrenaline. The guests have been made up and briefed to within an inch of their lives. The floor of the studio has been polished and primed. The guests are laughing with Katie – there’s nothing that I can do now except hope that the wonderful things that the guests have told me in pre-interviews comes to light within the show.

1730 The show has happened. I was routing for one of the guests to share a very sweet anecdote involving an ice-cream van. He has. The guests leave the studio, wiping their brows. They are invigorated but also tired after their stint on air. Funny stories have emerged, surprising moments of pathos, great clips played in – especially a lovely bit of archive that we spent ages digging out and spooling through from I&A.

1800 Final Astons and credits have been scrutinised. The series producer prepares for a busy edit – the show ran over by 10mins because the chat was so good! Within 24hours the show will appear on BBC Two.

1900 Home-time. It’s now all about next week’s show. Has the final guest confirmed? If not, why not?! Have we got the next VT nailed? Any chance you can do some filming at the weekend?

Magic.

[bbcpromsteam]

Tonight at the BBC Proms

Pet Shop Boys will premiere their new work 'A Man from the Future', inspired by the life of Alan Turing, in tonight's #PSBprom which begins at 10.15pm.  If you haven't yet got tickets, remember that up to 1,400 standing tickets will be available to purchase from the Royal Albert Hall tonight, priced at just £5.http://bbc.in/1limt6x