VoxCarnyx

Far from having ideas above its station, a Scots amateur string orchestra is riding the high ground with a rail-themed world premiere, musical director Bill Jones tells KEN WALTON 

Bill Jones takes great satisfaction in telling his old Edinburgh University compadre, Kathryn McDowell, that he’s the incumbent maestro of the LSO. Which he is; just not the same globally-recognised LSO that the ennobled McDowell directs. 

Whereas Dame Kathryn has steered the eminent fortunes of the London Symphony Orchestra as managing director for many years, counting Sir Simon Rattle among her notable signings, Jones, a retired prep school headmaster with a music degree and serious form as a singer and jazz musician (recently at the Cumnock Tryst), is the motivating power behind the Linlithgow String Orchestra. “Kathryn, who’s a great friend, didn’t seem particularly put out when I told her I conduct the real LSO,” he quips.

Right now, West Lothian’s own LSO is riding on a high. Set up as a community orchestra in May 2016 by local amateur enthusiasts, its 10th Anniversary Season is now underway, which the LSO’s committee reckoned might be the perfect moment to facilitate a piece specially written for the occasion. The result is Engine Shed by Edinburgh-based composer, harpist and pianist Deborah Shaw, described as “a creator of beguiling songs and compelling soundscapes”. As a performer she works under the offbeat soubriquet Aurora Engine. 

Railway trains, then, would appear to be a prominent theme here: fortuitously so, as the project – supported by Making Music’s UK-wide Adopt a Music Creator scheme – has also attracted sponsorship for the premiere from LNER as part of Railway 200, its celebration of two centuries of the modern railway. 

The world premiere of Engine Shed takes place on Sunday 9 November at St Michael’s Parish Church, Linlithgow, alongside other railway-themed performances of Edward White’s 1950s’ BBC Children’s Favourites theme tune Puffin’ Billy, Flanders and Swann’s lament to a branch line closure Slow Train (arranged and sung by Jones), even a bit of Dvorak. “He was mad about railways and apparently knew the Prague train timetable off by heart,” Jones explains as justification for including the famous Czech composer.

What it all amounts to, he insists, is a programme that the LSO’s amateur players have really warmed to, whether revelling in the tuneful comfort zone of lighter classics, or confronted by the more modernist challenges of Shaw’s sonic landscape. “What was so good about this project was that Deborah came in at the beginning of the year and got to know us,” Jones explains. “I was keen she should attend some rehearsals, see what we were like and just talk to the players and get to know them.

“She must have had the idea for a railway theme early on,” he adds. “Deborah’s nuts on trains which I suppose isn’t surprising given she grew up in Shildon, County Durham, where [Stephenson’s] Locomotive No 1 started its journey two hundred years ago. Whatever inspired her, it was a smart move, given the significance of the railway in shaping Linlithgow’s prosperity and the great local stories attached to that association.”

Known for her imaginative sonic creations, Shaw incorporates in her score archival recordings of “Twizell”, the UK’s oldest working steam engine by Robert Stephenson now cared for by Gateshead’s Tanfield Railway, the orchestral cues indicated by authentic LNER guards whistles and traditional railway hand signals. Yet her thoughts are also directed towards wider universal concerns. “It’s much more than a celebration of trains,” she writes. “I wanted my work to shine a light on the underrepresented voices in both rail and music, from women and marginalised workers to African American railroad traditions.” 

Making Music’s Adopt a Music Creator scheme also brought Shaw into contact with an allocated mentor, in this case the multi-award winning Scottish composer and harpist Ailie Robertson. “Ailie came along to one or two rehearsals, then via Zoom we were all able to keep track on progress, checking deadlines and reviewing practical issues. But the liaison was principally between Deborah and Ailie,” says Jones.

In the end, he’s just delighted that, besides the challenge of tackling unfamiliar techniques, there are plenty good tunes to keep his players happy, including “a great Scots reel”. “It was a strange experience for us to be attempting a brand new piece, but I just said to them, ‘nobody but us knows what this actually sounds like and when you perform things like this there’s a lot of kidology involved. Just do it with a straight face!’”

Nonetheless, the whole process of seeing Engine Shed come to fruition has been an inspiring one for the 10-year-old orchestra which, itself, represents only part of Jones’ wider immersion in the town’s busy musical life. 

After retiring in 2020 from his headmaster’s post in Kent, he and his violinist wife Hilary (the orchestra’s leader) moved up to Linlithgow where his first local initiation, in the wake of Covid, was to take on the musical directorship of St Michael’s Church, not as organist, but responsible for the church choir and working with wider community music groups. “I knew the church from having recorded Robert Carver’s masses there years ago as a singer with Cappella Nova”, he recalls. 

“Eventually I was also invited to take on the string orchestra, reminding them that I was a trombonist, not a string player. That’s been such a wonderful learning experience for me. My thing with an amateur orchestra is, if we’re not smiling when we’re playing then we’re doing something wrong. I’m not one for raising my voice with players; they’re actually very busy people with their own reasons for giving up their time, whether they view it as wonderful therapy, an opportunity to play nice music, or even just a bit of social interaction. Doing this kind of community music-making has become a real passion.”

Engine Shed by Deborah Shaw is premiered by Linlithgow String Orchestra at St Michael’s Parish Church on Sunday 9 November at 7pm. Admission is free, bookable at www.linlithgowstringorchestra.uk