VOCES8's Barney Smith: The Live from London Festival is going to be "like attending 10 different parties"
The Live from London Festival runs from 1 August to 3 October and features some of the finest vocal groups from across the world
The Live from London Festival runs from 1 August to 3 October and features some of the finest vocal groups from across the world. We spoke to the musical director and Live from London producer Barney Smith about the project.
Get your tickets for the 'Live from London' concert series. Ticket purchases include access to TEN live broadcasts each Saturday night from 1 August 2020 until 3rd October.
Tell us about the Live from London Festival
From the 1 August we are running a new online festival called Live from London. 10 concerts across 10 Saturdays from 1 August to 3rd October.
VOCES8 are hosting the festival in the beautiful Wren Church in the City of London – the Voces8 Centre. They’ll be performing two concerts. Plus there’s also The Swingles, I Fagiolini, The Sixteen, Gesualdo Six, Chanticleer, Academy of Ancient Music. Ten amazing concerts. You must check them out.
Why did you decide to set up Live from London?
We actually set up a consortium of vocal groups because we were concerned that we needed to get back to making live choral performance in order to champion to the choral community. We felt we ought to get together as the leading vocal ensembles and take a lead. We have been having regular conversations during the lockdown period, which is where the idea was born. It’s fair to say that if it wasn’t for lockdown then we wouldn’t have had the line-up of artists on roster. Every cloud has a silver lining.
Tell us why you think choral music has been such a powerful unifier during the pandemic
As an art form it has an opportunity to communicate incredibly directly with the listener. We’re all programmed from the moment we’re in the womb to respond to the sound, the tone and quality of the human voice. When someone sings to you, the emotive response is much deeper than any other instrument. It’s literally human to human and I think that’s an incredibly powerful thing.
Give us a sense of what we can expect from this range of groups
The groups in this festival are unique in their own ways. One of the major differences between all of us is the repertoire. A VOCES8 concert will switch between different genres. The Swingles are very much down the jazz, pop route as they’re amplified and combine electronics. When you then compare that to I Fagiolini who will sing Monteverdi with a theorbo and a harpsichord, I think each of the groups has their own personality. You’re going to meet 10 different people, like attending 10 different parties.
There’s been a lot of debate during this period of time about the importance of monetising digital content. What are your thoughts on that?
The piper must be paid. Before the lockdown occurred, we could sing concerts live in the flesh. Now if people want to experience live music there’s only one way of getting it and there’s one way for us, as performers, to earn money from it. I personally think streaming is an amazing thing. It allows us to perpetuate our brand. We can get hundreds of thousands of streams on Spotify. In that way the shop window has become a lot larger. That main drawback is that we make a pittance from streaming. We used to say ‘well that’s OK because 500,000 people are listening on streaming and they’ll come and see us live’. But of course, if we can’t do the live thing, we have to do things a bit differently. I think it’s been a good opportunity to address the debate and help the audience understand it from the musician’s perspective.
So this is a bold move, you think?
We would only want to do something that would take us in a new direction and in a direction that is helpful for the global music community. In that way I do think it’s bold. I think it’s a good opportunity to be doing it, because there is a significant amount of empathy from the public to performers.
What change do you think this period of time will bring about for classical music?
We talk a lot about the 21st century musician. A big thing that has changed in the past 30 years has been that performers also need to be educators. I think something this period of time is going to bring around for everybody is that you learn about broadcasting, because it’s a necessity. For us personally we’ve been on this journey for the past five years – we’ve been developing those skills for the past five years. There’s no way I could put on an online festival if I hadn’t got that experience. I do think we will see the industry take a significant step forward in this area because of the pandemic. I think it’s going to make classical music a whole lot more approachable.
It feels as though it’s also made classical music more visible too?
If you consider it from both angles... musicians would normally be out playing concerts, so they have this pent-up energy inside them that wants to get out. On the flipside, there’s a lot more people sitting in front of a computer screen with time to burn. I think there’s a lot more music out there being created and being consumed and that’s wonderful.