Can the man from New Jersey teach Scots a new tune?

Published on Monday 20 June 2005 02:09

WHEN the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra announced plans for its 2005-06 season recently, the big news - besides the appointment of former Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) chief conductor Neeme Jarvi as its new music director - was a gift of $3 million (£1.6 million) from the Newark-based Prudential Foundation.

It's from such a culture that Simon Woods, outgoing chief executive of the New Jersey orchestra, comes to Glasgow to head up the RSNO. He takes the reins properly in just over a month, but has slipped across the Atlantic for a quick two- week visit - to help launch the orchestra's new season tomorrow, to see what the currently-running RSNO Proms are all about and, more importantly, to meet the movers and shakers of the Scottish arts world - especially those who control the artistic coffers.

It's probably a coincidence that he also finds himself in situ on the very week that the much-talked-about Culture Commission unveils its initial findings, but that should be a useful exercise in introducing him to how the arts figure - or might soon figure - in Scottish life.

There can be little doubt that Woods has been sought to bring something of the American way to running the RSNO. Like just about every other arts organisation in the country, Scotland's oldest orchestra has to scrape for a meagre crust, hugely dependent on public funding. A fresh approach, which taps more vigorously and creatively on private-sector philanthropy, could be just what the doctor ordered.

Woods, 41, is British born and educated, and spent nearly ten years as a record producer for EMI Classics. He is sufficiently experienced this side of the pond to know that it's not just a case of doing it here as it's done over there.

"You can't jump to conclusions," he warns. "These are two very different cultures. The most significant difference between orchestras in the US and the UK is where the funding comes from. For many years, there's been a resistance by individuals in the UK to support organisations beyond the price of a ticket. But philanthropy can be a rewarding thing - that's a message I hope to gently introduce in Scotland. Things are changing, and I think people are now realising that if they want world-class acts, they can actually play a role through entrepreneurial transactions that really give them a stake in the organisation they are giving to."

Woods is a Cambridge music graduate who later studied conducting at London's Guildhall School of Music. He has spent the past eight years working his way up the orchestral management ladder in America: first at the Philadelphia Orchestra, where he rose to the position of artistic planning and operations director, before heading to New Jersey in March. Last year he became president and chief executive officer of the Newark orchestra.

Why leave a top job so soon to come over to Scotland? It's the "national" tag that drew him to the post. "I'm particularly attracted to the prospect of running a national company that engenders national pride," he explains. "That simply doesn't exist in the US, where orchestras are more generally centred in towns or cities. The idea of running an orchestra that can be an ambassador for Scotland really appeals."

As, presumably, does the prospect of working with an artistic team that is almost as fresh to the task as Woods. 2005-06 season's programme will be the first to have direct input from the RSNO's charismatic new music director, Stphane Denve. Programme details have been closely guarded, although a quick glance at the already-published details for Dundee's Caird Hall confirm that the season's opening concert - duplicated in Edinburgh and Glasgow - will be a blockbuster featuring Beethoven's Choral Symphony, Ravel's Daphnis et Chlo No 2 and a new RSNO commission from the 35-year-old French composer Guillaume Connesson. There's expectation, too, of a complete concert performance of Debussy's operatic masterpiece, Pellas et Mlisande later in the season. Denve's French influence, it would seem, has not been suppressed.

Woods says he holds the highest regard for Denve, so how does he see the partnership evolving? "My role is to help the orchestra and its conductors make the greatest possible music," he says. "But equally, I feel as passionate as Stphane about engaging with our communities. The big agenda is: how do we help audiences get the richest possible musical experience, and how do we help them encounter it more?"

He will, of course, feed his own thoughts into the artistic planning: "I'm a big advocate of new music, but it needs to be backed up with real commitment, by talking to the audiences and giving them a window into the music." His is an approach that echoes the stated views of both Denve and principal guest conductor Garry Walker. That's certainly a new mindset for the RSNO, which was severely criticised in March for the appalling disdain with which it performed Via Sacra by Glasgow-born James Dillon - that caused the composer to leave the hall in total frustration. If Woods' programming in New Jersey is anything to go by, the balance of the repertoire will be broad-based - which is, again, Denve's favoured approach.

"I see the orchestra as a curator of an extraordinary art form," Woods says. It's a view illustrated by the season he has left for his old orchestra, as the repertoire there is comprehensive - from Corelli to Coleman, Parry to Shostakovich, Mozart to Enesco, as well as plenty of evergreen Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler. Any influence he chooses to bring to bear on RSNO programming will not, of course, become apparent until the season after next. But it will, he insists, be led by Denve.

As you'd expect from a former record producer, commercial recording and broadcast opportunities are high on Woods' agenda. "If all we play are concerts, then we're not getting the orchestra to a large enough group of people," he says. Woods is savvy enough on the subject to realise the future is not necessarily with the traditional CD. "We have to look very carefully at where the industry is going, and connect with the contemporary ways of delivering recorded music. The iPod has totally changed the industry. Downloading is a critical part of the future."

Meanwhile, for him it's down to more mundane matters, such as simply getting his feet under the table, and familiarising himself with an arts infrastructure, that in Scotland is in a state of flux, both politically and strategically. That will be Woods' priority during this brief visit, and when he gets the key to his office on 1 August. "My goal in the initial stages," he says, "is to do more listening than talking." Wise man.