Hallé Orchestra

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The Hallé Orchestra is Britain's oldest professional orchestra, and is based in Manchester. It was founded in 1858 by pianist Charles Hallé, and for a long time gave its concerts in the Free Trade Hall. In 1996, the orchestra moved into a new concert hall, the Bridgewater Hall, with improved facilities and acoustics.

Over the course of 27 years, from 1943 to 1970, the conductor who brought the Hallé to national prominence was Sir John Barbirolli. Together, they made many recordings, including the first recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams' Symphony No. 8, of which they also gave the first performance. Other notable premieres by the orchestra included:

During Barbirolli's tenure, one of the most notable orchestra members was concertmaster Martin Milner, who served in that capacity from 1958 to 1987. Barbirolli regarded Milner as his "right-hand man" and once wrote in appreciation to him: "You are the finest leader I have ever had in my fairly long career."[4]

Kent Nagano was Principal Conductor of the orchestra from 1992 to 1999. During his tenure, Nagano received criticism for his expensive and ambitious programming, as well as his conducting fees.[5] However, poor financial management at the orchestra separately contributed to the fiscal troubles of the orchestra.[6] The orchestra faced major financial problems during the late 1990's, including a £1.3 million deficit in 1998,[7] to the point where the existence of the orchestra was threatened with loss of funding from the Arts Council and ultimately bankruptcy.[8]

Furthermore, during 1997, there was an 8-month period when the orchestra had no executive director. However, Leslie Robinson then served for two years as chief executive after that period. Robinson began to implement changes to the orchestra to start to bring under control the orchestra's financial troubles. These included public fund-raising, which netted £2 million, cutting the number of people on the orchestra board in half, and reducing the number of musicians in the orchestra from 98 to 80.

Since 1999, the orchestra's chief executive is John Summers[9], and he continued Robinson's fiscal practices to restore greater financial security to the orchestra. In addition, one of the orchestra's new ideas was to try to find alternative stage dress to the traditional "penguin suits", but this idea did not come to fruition.[10] The orchestra has also begun to issue new CD recordings under its own label.[11]

In September 2000, Mark Elder, CBE, took up the appointment of the orchestra's Music Director, having been appointed to the post in 1999.[12] His concerts with the orchestra have received consistently positive reviews, and he is generally regarded as having restored the orchestra to high critical and musical standards.[13] [14] [15] In 2004, Elder signed a contract to extend his tenure from 2005 to 2008, with an optional two-year extension at the end of that time.[16] A later report indicated that Elder would be with the orchestra at least until 2010.[17]

In March 2006, the orchestra was forced to cancel a planned tour to the United States in the 2006-2007 orchestra season, because of administrative and cost difficulties with obtaining visas for the musicians, which was a result of the tougher visa restriction regulations intended to combat potential terrorist attacks.[18] [19]

The orchestra recently appointed its first-ever guest conductor, Cristian Mandeal. The current leader of the orchestra is Lyn Fletcher. The orchestra's current head of artistic planning is Geoffrey Owen.

Contents

[edit] Hallé Choir

The Hallé Choir was founded alongside the Orchestra in 1858 by Sir Charles Hallé. The Choir gives around twenty concerts a year with the Hallé at The Bridgewater Hall and other venues across the UK. Appearing with many international conductors and soloists in concert and recordings, the Choir performs an exciting and varied repertoire of major choral and operatic works. James Burton was appointed Choral Director in April 2002.

The Choir's activities include individual vocal coaching, sectional and full choir rehearsals as well as social events.

The Hallé Choir has received outstanding critical acclaim for many performances with Mark Elder, including a memorable Verdi centenary programme at the BBC Proms and performances of Haydn's The Creation, Bach's St. John Passion and Janácek's Glagolitic Mass. The Hallé's CD label features the Choir on three of its releases: 'English Rhapsody', 'Hallé Christmas Classics' and 'Elgar: A Self-Portrait'.

[edit] Principal Conductors

[edit] References

  1. ^ Pauline Fairclough, Review of the Hallé Orchestra with conductor Thierry Fischer. The Guardian, 22 April 2002.
  2. ^ Anne Inglis and Anthea Sharma, Obituary for Christopher Bunting. The Guardian, 5 August 2005.
  3. ^ William Mival, Obituary for Anthony Milner. The Guardian, 1 October 2002.
  4. ^ Clive Smart, Obituary for Martin Milner. The Guardian, 27 June 2000.
  5. ^ John Ezard, "Nagano passes on Halle baton". The Guardian, 25 May 1999.
  6. ^ Stephen Moss, "Say Hallé, wave goodbye". The Guardian, 28 May 1999.
  7. ^ Philip Smith, "Enterprise network: Hallé tunes up its finances". The Times, 29 June 2003.
  8. ^ Richard Morrison, "A city reborn". The Times, 14 January 2004.
  9. ^ "In perfect harmony". The Times, 24 March 2004.
  10. ^ David Ward, "Halle keeps penguin suits for new season". The Guardian, 16 May 2003.
  11. ^ David Ward, "Hallé opts to record on own label". The Guardian, 20 May 2002.
  12. ^ Fiachra Gibbons, "Miracle man to stir Halle giant". The Guardian, 7 June 1999.
  13. ^ Brian Hunt, "An orchestra raised from the dead". Telegraph, 15 November 2001.
  14. ^ Anthony Holden, "Elder flowers in Manchester". The Observer, 6 March 2005.
  15. ^ Richard Morrison, "Orchestras: these are the champions". The Times, 1 September 2006.
  16. ^ David Ward, "I'm staying with Hallé, says conductor". The Guardian, 19 July 2004.
  17. ^ Hugh Canning, "Opera: Armed for action". The Times, 16 October 2005.
  18. ^ David Ward, "Trouble and cost of visas halts Hallé's US tour". The Guardian, 30 March 2006.
  19. ^ "Visa hurdle forces Hallé to cancel US tour". BBC Music Magazine, 5 April 2006 (online report).

[edit] External links

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