The rise of orchestral collaborations

Earlier this year, the Royal Northern Sinfonia played a very special gig with US musician Ben Folds at Colston Hall, and this month they return to Bristol – to provide classical accompaniment for Bella Union artist John Grant.

Both artists have classical elements to their music, intricate keys and powerful vocals, but it’s in these collaborations that it truly shines. Teaming up with orchestras is not a new thing for more mainstream musicians. Last month, Neil Young released a version of his song ‘Who’s Gonna Stand Up’ with a 92-piece orchestra, and bands across all genres of music have dabbled with orchestral arrangements over the years.

Todd Wills, Head of Programme at Colston Hall, said: “Audiences want a bit more these days – either want to see artists in interesting spaces or in interesting formats or situations. Offering the orchestral experience is something a little different. Even though the hall is in quite a state, it still has some of the best acoustics in the UK for orchestral music. Cost is an issue; it’s never cheap doing anything with an orchestra and putting them on the road is very costly.”

“That said, earlier in the year, we worked with Ben Folds and the Royal Northern Sinfonia, which was hugely successful. It’s the first time I’ve seen anybody encourage a classical ensemble to improvise – you could see the fear in the eyes of the orchestra when he encouraged that.”

So, while it’s almost always well received, it rarely becomes more than a one off or handful of dates, due to the sheer cost involved of putting on such a show. Todd said: “We quite often do projects which wouldn’t necessarily find a home with a commercial promoter – either they’re too obscure or too expensive, and we always try to get funding. It’s the same with the Paloma Faith big band gig we did last year, without Arts Council funding tickets have to be £65+.”

The John Grant gig (Nov 25) came about thanks to the Music Beyond Mainstream consortium of UK venues. Todd said: “We get together regularly and talk about projects which we’d like to do in the future. We talked about John Grant some time ago, before his profile was as big as it was now. Pairing him with Royal Northern Sinfonia seemed to be the obvious thing to do. We commissioned him to write four new tunes for this tour.”

It’s not just a meeting of musical minds, there’s a growing trend of events in which a live orchestra plays the score to popular films. Colston Hall’s already dipped its toe into this pool. Todd said: “We did Psycho Live back in April and its popularity (we sold 1,200 tickets) took us by surprise. It was £25 ticket and beforehand there were lots of people said why would I pay £25 to see Psycho? But the post show feedback was amazing. There was lots of tweeting saying I only ever want to see films with a live orchestra – you are engaged much more with the soundtrack. Having the orchestra there really focusses your mind.”  

He added: “We’re working with that same orchestra to do another Hitchcock film, Vertigo, and the premiere of George Lucas’ underground sci-fi film, THX1138, which Asian Dub Foundation created a soundtrack for, to play over the existing soundtrack.” Watch this space.