Left-hand-only pianist Nicholas McCarthy to play Drake Music Scotland concert
Two events in Edinburgh next month will showcase Drake Music Scotland’s work with disabled musicians, writes David Kettle
“The conversation between classical music – well, for music in general – and disability is effectively still in its infancy.” Composer and conductor Ben Lunn is mulling over how and where musicians with disabilities might fit into our conventional frameworks for learning, composing, rehearsing, performing. “Currently a lot of arts organisations and musical institutions really want to do better by disabled people,” Lunn continues, “but they just don’t necessarily know how.”
They could do a lot worse than looking closely at the work of Edinburgh-based Drake Music Scotland (and, in fairness, many do). No other group has done more to address and resolve these issues, encouraging and facilitating music making – and, it has to be said, musical careers – for disabled people who might otherwise face obstacles and barriers. “We work with musicians at all levels of experience,” explains DMS’s artistic director Pete Sparkes. “In a sense, our purpose is to help them fulfil their ambitions.” It means a bewilderingly broad range of activities – from projects in special schools to one-on-one instrumental tuition, training for teachers to career guidance (led by Lunn, DMS’s associate composer, in a newly formed Disabled Artist Network). “Ultimately we want to make sure that disabled musicians have a place and a voice in our culture,” Sparkes continues.
Two Edinburgh events in June serve to showcase the breadth of DMS’s work. First is a solo recital from remarkable left-hand-only pianist Nicholas McCarthy in St Cecilia’s Hall. There’s already a firmly established repertoire for left-hand piano: Austrian-born pianist Paul Wittgenstein lost his right arm during the First World War, but was determined not to let that curtail his career, commissioning new music for left hand alone from Ravel, Prokofiev, Korngold, Britten and many other composers. “What’s really fascinating about the left-hand piano repertoire is that it’s a really curious demonstration of how one disability is tied to the history of classical music,” Lunn explains. He himself continued the tradition in writing the left-hand concerto History Needs… for McCarthy in 2023, and he’s been central to DMS’s commissioning of a new solo work for McCarthy from Aberdeen-based composer Joe Stollery. “I don’t want to give too much away,” Lunn smiles. “But Joe’s music always feels full of energy, and it’s great fun to watch. It’s going to be really devilish for Nicholas to play, but he’ll do a wonderful job.”
The second event is a collaboration between DMS’s Digital Orchestra and the Hebrides Ensemble at the Queen’s Hall, featuring music from no fewer than eight disabled composers from across the UK, and bringing together the Hebrides’s conventional acoustic instruments with the Digital Orchestra’s remarkable range of iPads and eye-tracking and movement-based instruments. Since so much of DMS’s work takes place away from the public gaze, it’s crucial, says Sparkes, to present this new work in a concert open to all. “It gives it the stage it deserves. And it’s very true that often a disabled person will get very limited opportunities to perform somewhere like the Queen’s Hall.”
It probably goes without saying that the Queen’s Hall experience will be conceived to be as accessible as possible to the broadest range of visitors. “Over the past five years or so, we’ve suddenly seen everyone doing their own versions of relaxed concerts,” says Lunn, “and with varying degrees of success. But the main reason behind doing relaxed concerts is to make sure you’re in a position where you’re in completely the right mood for the event.” That might mean more breaks than in other concerts, on-stage explanations, sensory toys, and being able to leave and return if desired. “This might be the first time some audience members have been to a concert like this, so it’s a case of not presuming everyone knows what they’re supposed to be doing,” says Sparkes. “More often than not, people are pleased to find out how things are going to work. It makes them feel welcome, which is what we want.” And that’s something many other music organisations could probably learn from.
Nicholas McCarthy piano recital: St Cecilia’s Hall, Edinburgh, 6 June, www.stcecilias.ed.ac.uk. Drake Music Scotland Digital Orchestra and Hebrides Ensemble: Making Waves, Queen’s Hall, Edinburgh, 13 June www.thequeenshall.net / http://drakemusicscotland.org/