Today’s ICHS concert has an internationally acclaimed patron
Published:Sunday | November 6, 2022 | 9:42 AMMichael Reckord - Sunday Gleaner Writer
The Immaculate Conception High School (ICHS) Symphony Orchestra has had a most amazing run of good fortune.
A month or so ago, guiding the members musically as she took part in their rehearsals for their next concert, was one of the world’s most celebrated musicians — Dr Shirley Thompson.
Not only that. She later gave them a long talk on the importance of continuously striving for excellence in all their endeavours. Specifically, she told those wanting to become successful professional musicians that they had to keep interested in “everything” happening in the world around them.
The internationally acclaimed composer, artistic director, conductor, academic, violinist, and film-maker, consented to be the patron of the upcoming concert. It, or rather they – for there are two shows – will be staged this afternoon at the Karl Hendrickson Auditorium, Jamaica College.
Under the baton of its founder-director, Steven Woodham, the orchestra will first perform at 1 p.m. and then at 5. The twin objectives are to provide pleasure and to raise funds.
I met Dr Thompson in September 2016 when she came to Jamaica for the staging of her opera Sacred Mountain: Incidents in the Life of Queen Nanny of the Maroons by the Edna Manley College at its School of Music. The opera had premiered the year before at the Tête à Tête Opera Festival. Founded in 1997, the Tête à Tête is a charity-based arts company and the producer of Britain’s largest festival of new opera.
The School of Music production was mounted after a week of rehearsals with students and faculty and also with Abigail Kelly, one of the UK’s top sopranos, portraying Queen Nanny. Kelly’s parents, like Dr Thompson’s, are Jamaican. School of Music head Roger Williams and several lecturers formed the orchestra. School of Dance head Kerry-Ann Henry choreographed the movement, and School of Drama head Pierre Lemaire assisted with the staging.
Misunderstanding something that was said during the post-production discussion with the audience, I called the 45-minute-long opera “unfinished” in my Gleaner review and felt constrained to apologise profusely when I telephoned her at her home in London last month for an interview. Forgiven, I was told about her current extremely busy schedule and about her love and admiration for Jamaica, which she called “a jewel”.
“I respect the culture … which we need to take seriously, or it will be appropriated,” she added.
That love and admiration were echoed repeatedly in her talk with the ICHS music students. Surely, along with their music, Dr Thompson’s pep talk will be ringing in the ears of the performers today.
She gave the girls – and me, in our email correspondence and telephone conversation – much information that is not contained in the pages-long biography I consulted. There are probably even longer ones, but the one I got does not mention that The University of the West Indies conferred on her an honorary DLitt degree in 2018 or that one of Jamaica’s most outstanding musicians, Edmund Reid, was one of her university lecturers.
Nor does it mention that she was named Influencer of the Year for 2022 at a recent Black British Business Awards ceremony. The annual awards celebrate the outstanding achievements of black business owners and professionals in the United Kingdom.
Still, the biography is impressive. The first paragraph informs the reader that her music is “performed and screened worldwide” and continues:
“A visionary artist and cultural activist, Thompson is the first woman in Europe to have composed and conducted a symphony within the last 40 years. New Nation Rising: a 21st Century Symphony performed and recorded by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra, is an epic musical story celebrating London’s thousand-year history and one in which the RPO is accompanied by two choirs, solo singers, a rapper and dhoi drummers, a total of nearly 200 performers. This extraordinary work was originally commissioned for the Queen’s Golden Jubilee in 2002, and the concept was latterly assumed as a framework for the 2012 Olympics Opening Ceremony. She has also composed extensively for TV, film, theatre, dance and opera productions.”
It should surprise no one that several equally laudatory pages are sandwiched between the biography’s beginning and end. Dr Thompson’s work is truly phenomenal.