I assume you mean the Rehearsal Orchestra www.rehearsal-orchestra.org It is a thoroughly excellent group, and will give you a standard of orchestral playing that is as good as anything you will experience before becoming a regular professional youself. A large proportion of professionals in the UK have been through the RO at one time or another. Simon Rattle was a percussionist there one year, when he was about 14.
At the residential course at Edinburgh there are four 90-minute rehearsal sessions each day, then you have the evenings free to go out and see concerts at the Festival or Fringe, or just enjoy yourself at the pub nearby. A symphony will usually get rehearsed for two sessions, a shorter piece for one session, under conditions which closely approximate to what you will be expected to deal with in the profession. There is an "open rehearsal" or informal concert at the end of the week where a couple of the pieces rehearsed during the week are played through before an audience of friends. Usually, the sections rotate so that everyone gets a chance to play first chair for a couple of pieces during the week. If you are interested in becoming an orchestral professional and want to get experience of having to learn music under near-professional conditions and timescales, I would strongly recommend going. If you are a good amateur (at least UK Grade 8 standard) and want to completely immerse yourself in music for a week, then it also great for that, especially as there are a huge number of concerts going on in Edinburgh during the Festival. The orchestra is mostly a mixture of college students and good amateurs, with a few advanced school-age students and a few young professionals as well. The conductors are professionals and the string principals are all very experienced pros. If you buy Denis Vigay (principal cello) a drink you can get him to regale you with stories of Dennis Brain and Alan Civil and others! Beware, if you are a student and you think you know it all, you are quite likely to find yourself sitting next to an amateur who can play you off your chair! Several of the amateurs there could easily have been professional musicians had their lives taken a different turn. The weekend courses they run mostly in London are also very good - for instance rehearsing Mahler 6 in a weekend and then doing an informal performance. Regards Jonathan West _______________________________________________ post: [email protected] unsubscribe or set options at http://music2.memphis.edu/mailman/options/horn/archive%40jab.org
