VoxCarnyx

Bridgewater Hall, Manchester

What difference does a conductor make to an orchestra? There are few better opportunities to explore that question than at a major conducting competition, which partly explains a rare VoxCarnyx excursion to Manchester last week for the triennial Siemens-Hallé International Conductors Competition. 

There was also a tenuous Caledonian link. Among the international field of eight who had made it to the semifinals were Claudia Fuller, a former violinist with brief shop floor orchestral experience within the RSNO, and Oliver Cope, a former postgraduate student at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland where he won the Hugh S Roberton prize for orchestral conducting. Would either, or both, make it through to last Tuesday’s grand final at the Hallé Orchestra’s Manchester home, the Bridgewater Hall?

In the event, Fuller was the only British contender to do so, pitted against Swiss-born Nina Haug and Finnish-American Aku Sorensen. Each was tasked with a performance of Bernstein’s rip-roaring Candide Overture, coupled with a symphonic work of their own choosing. After a lengthy but fascinating process Fuller came third, Sorensen emerging as the outright winner, nudging Haug into second place.

What does such success mean for Sorensen? He now becomes assistant conductor of the Hallé where, over the next three years, he will benefit from mentorship by the orchestra’s new principal conductor and artistic advisor Kahchun Wong, conduct five public concerts annually, serve as music director of the Hallé Youth Orchestra, and experience first hand the day-to-day planning and administrative operation of a major orchestra.

It’s a doorway to a promising future. Previous incumbents have included Scots conductor Rory Macdonald, frequent RSNO guest conductor Jonathan Heyward, and the newly appointed principal guest conductor of the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, Delyana Lazarova. 

While winning is clearly a significant leg-up for any budding maestro, it’s important too to remember that the Hallé will have had a vested interest in the outcome, which may have weighted the decision.  They’d surely be looking for a sufficiently seasoned self-starter capable of hitting the ground running, someone with enough hardened self-belief to earn instant respect from no-nonsense professional orchestral players, someone guaranteed to demonstrate leadership and recognise the specific needs of a Youth Orchestra. 

Reflecting that, the five-strong Siemens-Hallé jury included three of the orchestra’s key personnel: Kahchun Wong, chief executive David Butcher and artistic planning director Anna Hirst. They were joined by artistic director of the Siemens Arts Programme Dr Stephan Frucht and Dresden Philharmonic intendant Frauke Roth. Announcing their ultimate decision, Wong made it clear that the jury’s preference resonated with that of the orchestra. It chimed, too, with the audience vote, a secret ballot conducted online and revealed only after the event. No argument there; the outcome was unanimous. Sorensen won fair and square.

There was no denying the visible confidence he exuded, no doubt ingrained through his studies at Helsinki’s Sibelius Academy under Sakari Oramo, and his invaluable experience with some of Finland’s fine orchestras. He played safe with his symphonic option, a Brahms’ Third Symphony that charted a predictable, somewhat cliched course of sturdy tempi and heavily weathered dynamics, but hosted a brusque and engaging energy. Neither this, nor his Bernstein overture, offered the most deeply imaginative performances of the night, or the most tonally refined, but his animated stage presence clearly struck a triumphant chord.

As for Fuller, she also demonstrated a raw exuberance in her approach to the Bernstein, the downside being a lack of characterful response from the woodwind – untypical bland in execution – and unchecked dominance from the brass. She set her sights high with Rachmaninov’s Symphonic Dances, but never really captured its poetic, expressive charm. Genuine connection with the orchestra seemed sporadic.

Compare that to Nina Haug’s compelling Bernstein, hers being a more internalised physical energy that instantly transformed the Hallé’s response. Here the rhythmic bite was visceral, excitingly focussed, yet incisively controlled. There was a resonant bloom now from the woodwind, Haug’s overall pacing and dynamic control of dynamics well judged, often electrifyingly. She followed that with Sibelius’ Fifth Symphony, for the most part a performance brimming with thoughtful nuance, though erring towards the elegiac in favour of full-on Nordic grit. For that reason she came over as perhaps the most interesting prospect among the finalists, a musician of exceptional potential, if not quite the finished article. 

What we, the audience, didn’t witness were the competitors’ interactions with the orchestra in rehearsal, or their strengths and weaknesses in earlier rounds. That will have played a part in the final decision.

Ken Walton

(Photos: Alex Burns)