Fall over Friday is not better news than a music festival

Accounts of a wasted generation, of lost youth and of innumerable souls falling into an alcohol fuelled hell. This is what I saw, no, not what I saw last weekend but what I saw in one of the UK papers online in December. It turns out Fall over Friday is the start of a binge weekend before Christmas and the paper in question was there to cover it in all its sordid details. Were there millions, hundreds of thousands, or many thousands of young people involved in unseemly behavior in the streets of Britain that day? The paper chose some pretty close-up photos to prove its point. In the end, the numbers were nearer the hundreds than the thousands.
On the other hand, last weekend in Holland I saw 550 young people from six countries spend a day making music, performing repertoire which had been painstakingly prepared and which was warmly received by those who listened in. I watched in admiration as expert judges coached and encouraged the young musicians and I enjoyed a final concert involving a saxophone quartet whose senior member was almost 80 years old.
So what did the paper have to say about this music festival held last weekend? Nothing, of course. Okay, fairdos, it took place across the North Sea, way off the UK press´s radar unless there is European football against Ajax.
Even so, we all know the press would not have covered this story. There is no story.  No drunks, no pills, no abuse, so it’s not worth the space.
Why are fine, outstanding events such as this no-go areas for the media? A few years ago I took some students to take part in the final concert of a European project we were partners of. On a snowy February morning in the City children from 6  local primary schools and one local secondary school were joined by a group from Iceland as well as my group from Madrid. The final product was the result of nearly 2 years of work. When I asked one of the organizers if she had notified the press she laughed and said she wouldn’t even waste her time writing an email. There was no story.
A couple of years before that I was part of a group of teachers who arranged for nearly 100 teenagers to travel half way across Spain to rehearse and perform, among other things, Dvorak’s New World Symphony. As in the UK, so in Spain: there was no story.
I wish I could say the Dutch press were different, but you will hunt in vain for any mention of last weekend´s festival there either. No story.
It´s not fair to pick on any particular paper, but when all is said and done, coverage of Fall over Friday gives some clues as to what makes a story. Without going into lurid details, suffice to say that the worse for wear partygoing teenagers paid less attention than they might have done to their hemlines, and wardrobe malfunctions gave photo editors plenty of scope. By contrast, as at all well organized music festivals, concert dress last weekend was dignified and all the young people involved spent the entire day showing and being shown the respect they deserved.
Very sorry that music can’t beat mayhem as a story, but I do look forward to the day when the press will recognize that Fall over Friday is not better news than a music festival.

AMIS Solo & Ensemble Festival in The Hague

Several children slept in the row in front of me during the closing ceremony and in the row behind an 11 year old boy explained to his friend that as the bow he ended up with did not fit in his violin case, obviously he had picked up someone else’s bow by mistake. I shudder to think how that could be resolved as the violin cases concerned were about to take wing for many distant cities.

550 young musicians took over the American School of The Hague on Saturday 19 January, filling the building with music from 9 till 5 for the   AMIS  International Solo & Ensemble Festival.   AMIS is the Association of Music in International Schools.

I was happy to accompany a group of my students who took part in several categories, including vocal ensemble, instrumental solo and piano and string duet. They joined more than 550 students from international schools in Belgium, Germany, Luxemburg,  Switzerland, Spain and the Netherlands at the 20th edition of this musical marathon.
After their performance each student or group received personalized feedback from one of the  19 expert judges, and in most cases these comments included very practical suggestions as to how to improve and provided much food for thought.

The Solo & Ensemble Festival also provides students with the opportunity to listen to their peers and to attend a master-class in their own speciality before the closing ceremony where certificates and medals are awarded.

I sat in on the sax and clarinet master class at the end of the day. This session had the added magic of a local prize winning saxophone quartet, Met Marteen, described later by  Jim Yarnell as the best sax quartet in Benelux. They played on their own and then invited all the students present to play along. In the closing ceremony they performed a lively, witty, jazzy contemporary piece.

I very much enjoyed some of the comments and coaching given by the judges, especially those of Anne Nissinen, piano, and Anne Laberge, flute and Darren Hain, violin. It was significant to me that all three had their instrument readily to hand and used it to demonstrate technique, illustrate their remarks and even play along with the students.

Anne Nissinen coached one student on the Turkish March sonata movement by Mozart, encouraging him to be more daring in his expressive range and to explore the use of the sustain pedal to give an added percussive tone where appropriate. This session worked out especially well as he had been in the room during the previous  student’s  performance and coaching session, and she then stayed during his performance, so the wise words were doubly worthwhile: both students seemed to appreciate the judge’s positive energy and musical inspiration.

 Anne Laberge asked two young flautists  to count the subdivisions of beats out loud in order to help them grasp a secure hold on a rhythm that sounded a bit dubious in a Telemann piece, “Like we used to do in the old fashioned way”. She demonstrated perfectly that whatever you call it, old fashioned or not, her method works and the students went home with a much clearer idea of the piece than they arrived with.

I watched with admiration as Darren Hain coached two different groups. This Australian born musician, now based in the Netherlands,  was really exceptional in his approach to the music, and caught the attention and fired the imagination of the 15 to 17 year old musicians. He asked the violinists to experiment with different ways of holding the bow, with bowing at different points on the string, and encouraged them to communicate more closely with each other, among other things. It was clear that some of the approaches he was suggesting were completely new to the students, and it was a delight to see how the young players blossomed at his expert guidance which he offered with such an encouraging manner.

Thanks to Jim Yarnell, host organizer, and his team for a great day at the American School of The Hague, with Michelle Yarnell deserving a special mention. Hope to be back next year, with more students.

Camerata Delft kick up a storm in Scheveningen

The Camerata Delft  is a superb ensemble of ten professional musicians based in the Netherlands. I heard them yesterday in a concert celebrating their fifth year of playing together: on this form they should be giving concerts for many more years to come.

I do not know any of the musicians personally but it is quite clear just from one concert that their individual technical facility is prodigious and they communicate with each other with or without a conductor with a deep and shared understanding of the music. I heard the Camerata Delft at the    Muzee Museum in Scheveningen   in The Hague, a museum which makes use of a 100 seat hall for classical concerts on Sunday mornings. The acoustic in the hall is ideal for chamber music and on this occasion the ensemble made the most of the intimate setting by placing their two singers and occasionally instrumentalists around the room.

The programme was billed as Music Old & New, with Baroque high on the list. When I turn up to a concert of Baroque music I fear I am going to have to listen to The Four Seasons or other such chestnuts yet again. Fortunately that was certainly not the case as the programme was  a really intelligent sequence around the theme of the Western wind, the sea and storms  of, on the one hand, 17 & 18 century composers, Telemann (Watermusic), Purcell (Tempest suite), Vivaldi (La Temepsta di mare), Rameau (Zephire suite) and Monteverdi (Zifiro Torna), and works by two living composers, van Deurzen (Uit de Brief) and Clark (Westron Wynde).

The playing throughout was excellent, and so was the ensemble, as I have said, and I should not forget to mention also the beautiful singing by Leonore Engelbrecht, soprano, and Hans van Dijk, tenor. The string players are Quirine van der Hoek, Machteld van Delft, Siebe Visser and Lotte Beukman, Elly van Munster, thorbo; Andrew Clark was conductor and harpsichordist, and the wind players are Douwe van der Meulen, oboe and Imre Rolleman, flute.

The voices featured in the two contemporary pieces. Patrick van Deurzan, b 1964, uses the theorbo  to accompany the soprano in his Uit de Brief. I enjoyed this piece for its use of 20^th century harmonies on a 17 century instrument.  I asked myself whether he wrote the piece for this ensemble and also my mind wandered slightly into imagining the same music played on a guitar: would there have been a touch more warmth in the sound?

Westron Wynde, conducted by the composer Andrew Clark, b 1956, stole my heart. The writing, for string quartet, oboe, flute and yes, theorbo and soprano and tenor, was exquisite and I was deeply moved, and I was not the only one in the hall I am sure. The text is taken from the 16 century, as far as I can understand, and the use of vocal sounds to conjure the whoosh of the wind to top and tail the piece, and the beautiful  use of the two voices, placed around the room to create an echo effect, was powerful. Those of us who attended Sunday’s concert were especially privileged: I understand this was the third concert by the ensemble in the same weekend, after performances in Delft and Rotterdam. So we were witnesses of that precious and unique point in a work's history where it is still absolutely fresh and new, yet is well enough known and performed to be a fully realized performance.

I will now search out more music by Andrew Clark: I want to hear more, and if I can hear his music played by Camerata Delft , so much the better.

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part seven

A song worth singing/ Lend a hand

x=independently organised TED event
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

December 2012: Lend a hand

I have made it a routine to open lessons with whole class starters, usually standing in a circle. One has been especially popular and with the Y9 classes it has developed almost a life of its own. With some tightening up it can work as a part of the large scale piece. A colleague´s absence means that I can borrow time from his lesson and put two classes together, moving out to the school’s beautiful open plan indoor plaza. We rehearse a clapping sequence with 40 students, starting with 4 players at the points of the compass, adding 4 more in between each time we go around the circle until everyone is taking part. We discuss how this could sound in the auditorium with double the number of students standing up and down the aisles and on the stairs. The idea seems to catch the students´ imagination. Yes, keep working on this.

December 2012: A song worth singing

The school Talent Show introduced me to some wonderful singers in the senior years. Their voices give rise to the idea for the 2 section of the extended piece. I meet them to describe my ideas for a bluesy, soulful vocal section which will start small and build to include a call & response section with the audience, singing in 2 parts.  

31 December 2012

New Year’s Eve: what progress have I made?

No partner yet for video link after contacting various possible partner schools. What to do? 

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part six

Interactive audio installation: music at the speed of light


x=independently organised TED event.
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

December 2012: Let´s interact

My colleague D spends a day researching prices and availability of hardware we need for the 200 hands piece and tells me of his former life in Melbourne where he worked on, among other things, an interactive video installation. Now we are really moving. I get onto google and find examples of audio installations: some are plain boring, some are interesting but do not involve the audience actively, and the best involve technology in an original way to enable the audience to become active participants in the art making process. My favourite is from an event in  Lima in 2010. This is my favourite example because it gives the member of the public a chance to interact with light and sound and create their own work of art in real time. For me, the use of coloured lights is especially effective.
The drawback is that each person seems to have only one go at the controls. I hope we will be able to mount an installation  where partcipants can try their hand several times so that they gain some expertise at the technique and can truly make their own art work, invloving intent, choice of sound sources and control of the medium.

Here is a really useful summary of 15 interactive audio installations from around the world.

This post was edited on 6 Jan2013

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part five

200 Hands: music from the past & the future

x=independently organised TED event
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

November 2012: the world comes to The Hague

Early November, my school hosts its annual Model United Nations bash. More than 700 students from schools in many countries present arguments for and against many proposals on the great issues of these days. 

My students perform Charpentier´s Te Deum at the Opening Ceremony. I am struck by their serenity and coolness under pressure and this convinces me to involve them in Tedx music in a significant way. I am also struck by the power of my school to draw delegates from far and wide. If this is how the school  hosts Model United Nations, the Tedx is going to be fantastic. Got to get my ideas clear. 

December 2012: Cards on the table

The big day: the Content planning meeting where I have to put forward detailed proposals to the organizing committee. I am glad to say all goes well and we seem to have a common understanding of the priorities for March: originality, creativity, communication and a purposeful use of technology. I am going to put my cards on the table and lay out what I hope to present in 3 months. How much of the detail of these ideas will make it through to see the light of day at Tedx?    

Here is a draft of three ideas. As I publish them in Jan 2013 I already know we have made changes, but the interest is in seeing how far the original ideas are finally brought to fruition. so here goes:

1. Live video link with a school at a remote location.

A prepared improvisation involving music students in The Hague and city x.

Previous experience of a similar activity between Madrid and London in 2004.

Status: awaiting reply from colleagues.

2. 200 hands

Audience participation and use of technology to create a unique and one off sound scape. Joint action between Music and Technology departments.

Mount light sensors on boards on the stage, connected to sound sources which will produce instrument or vocal sounds, dj beats or sound effects.

Lights are shone from behind the audience and as people raise and move their arms they activate the light sources causing sounds to be produced.

The audience will interact with the lights to create the sound scape. All audience members can participate and no previous experience is required.

3. New improvised composition for Tedx: 1,9,3,2 zero13

This composition is in 5 sections, each one taking elements of the date of the Tedx as a starting point.

Approximately  70 students can be involved including  curriculum classes and instrumental groups.

Each section involves different groups of performers until the last section where all join in. 

Rehearsals can be as straightforward as possible, starting from a clear lead sheet.

The starting point and outline is fixed for each section, and the choice of notes is left to the performers.

I edited this post on 6Jan2013

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part four

Kiss the sky to link across the world

x=independently organised TED event.
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

October 2012: Kiss the Comenius Sky

Half term and a short trip home. Searching through all those discs of concerts, music exchanges and workshops from more than 20 years of intercultural educational work in Madrid.  I watched the dvd of the final product of a 2007 Comenius Project    Music is our language   which brought together my students from Madrid with their contemporaries in Reykjavík, Iceland and Tower Hamlets in London. A moving final concert at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama in London takes the theme of Kiss the Sky. Children from local primary schools and the Comenius groups perform an extended piece in differentiated sections with Jimi Henrix’s rock guitar music as the central theme directed by Sigrun Saevarsdottir-Griffiths and Paul Griffiths.

An extended piece with a common thread is a great way to structure a large scale piece for Tedx. But what can we use as the central theme? 

October 2012: You in London & us in Madrid

In 2004 Sean Gregory, Director then of  Connect  at the Guildhall School of Music & Drama, accepted an invitation to come to Madrid to lead a project combining creativity, communication and technology, three great themes of our age. With the help of my school’s IT team we set up a live video link to create and perform a musical improvisation piece involving students in Madrid and students with Rob Thomas at the University of East  London at the same time thanks to a live video link. 

Watching it again I am struck by the sense of wonder and sheer joy we all experienced as we enjoyed, as performers or as audience, the sight and sound of young people making music together in spite of being more than 1,000 kilometres  apart. In 2004 the technology was expensive and clunky: in 2013 we can almost do this via a couple of iphones. Who can we link up with to do a live improvisation via video link at Tedx?   

I start to contact colleagues in Italy, China, Prague, Australia and UK. 

Who will accept the invitation? 

How will we manage a long distance link up?

How will we cope with 8 hour or more time differences?

I edited this post on 6Jan2013

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part three

Big numbers make big noises ... and good ones

x=independently organised TED event.
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

October 2012: 140 young musicians playing Pirates

A Year 11 student who plays in a local youth orchestra is going through the hoops to arrange for my school to host a joint concert of her youth orchestra and a visiting school orchestra from   Germany    Yes I would very much like to spend my Saturday evening at school and is there anything I can do to help, say I when invited to attend. It´s a great concert and the highlight is a performance of both groups, some 140 players, performing an excellent arrangement of Zimmer´s music for Pirates of the Carribbean.
Two things strike me: the amount of space available when the school stage is opened to its full extent: usually I see it in reduced form. The space is really decent and offers a myriad of possibilities. The second thing is the sheer exhilaration of seeing/hearing 140 performers playing together.

This concert takes me back to my own experiences as a young player. Some of the most memorable concerts were the ones where large numbers were involved. There was a concert at the Cheltenham Festival where a new work commissioned for the occasion involved several orchestras, I think four.
Then there were annual Christmas concerts, organised by the Liverpool Music Service, at the Central Hall. These concerts involved children from numerous schools and also several youth ensembles and the highlight for me was always the combined grand finale which raised the roof.

Yes, the excitement of taking part in a large scale group is very special.
Must see if we can find a way of including a mass performance at Tedx.


I edited this post on 6Jan2013

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher's diary part two

Old music can be a new language: Spanish folk songs

x=independently organised TED event
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

September 2012: An open canvas or a blank page

True to her word, my colleague introduced me to L and Y who are the inspiration behind the Tedx event at my school and yes it turns out they are very interested in original ideas for the big day.

The theme is Spark Your Talent, and the date 19 March 2013. No turning back now!

October 2012: Students to count on

An invitation from the Spanish Centre in The Hague to perform Spanish music at their Open Day takes up time and energy. I get to know some senior students and find them to be excellent musicians, serious about rehearsing and performing to a high standard and ready to take on new musical experiences which challenge them. Perfect candidates for the core group for Tedx music.

A fascinating insight while rehearsing the music for this concert. It’s Spanish music from the Renaissance, no problem, and a handful of Spanish folks as arranged by the poet Federico García Lorca, yes problem. I have become so accustomed to my Spanish students playing these intoxicating rhythms without any problem. Suddenly, when I say to my students here in The Hague: just play as if you were dancing with Miss Lola I am met with blank stares and I realize these rhythms are not so simple after all. The lesson learnt is that musical figures which are natural and easy in one setting are not so easy in another one.

Anyway, between us we managed it all very well and it was a very happy, multicultural occasion. Students from 5 nations played traditional Spanish music for the first time in their lives and listened as fellow students read Spanish poetry.

I edited this post on 6Jan2013

Planning a Tedx event, a music teacher´s diary: part one

GPS creates a GPx?

x=independently organised TED event
January 2013: a reflection on progress so far
How did my involvement in a Tedx event start?
How did I structure my first ideas?
How much of those first ideas will see the light of Tedx day?
Read on......

September 2012: GPx?

Driving through the countryside in Holland on a Sunday afternoon shortly after joining the faculty at my new school. Several Arts colleagues together on our way to a birthday party. When I say driving I should say being a passenger as I am car-less in The Hague and enjoying the wonders of safe cycling.
Turn left after 50 metres says my friend’s GPS; approach the roundabout with care; turn right after the third tree.
After listening to this for a while I thought out  how it would be fun to use a GPS style set of instructions as a live arts piece, directing member of the audience to make this or that response depending on whether they chose to turn in one direction or another: aleatory art with audience participation.
The late afternoon party started worryingly with cake and coffee: had we got here late and missed the meal we were expecting?
I had the good fortune to sit and talk to a colleague´s partner, an artist who works in and through video installations, among other art forms. We talked about the issues arising from working in new media: the difficulty in of building up a body of work, the momentary nature of the art form and the matters of property, ownership and copyright of works which are by nature collaborative products and about the importance of the audience interacting with the artist.
Thankfully it turned out the Dutch way is to feed you with coffee and cake as a welcoming act and to follow this shortly with a full scale meal. On this occasion it was delicious and plentiful so we were in no hurry to go and in the mood to carry on talking.
 My colleague joined us and I half jokingly put into words the idea I had in the car of GPS-ing an audience into participation. She said that was exactly the kind of thing that would fit into the school’s forthcoming Tedx event.

Ted who? I asked. No not really, of course I know of Ted Talks and have admired and enjoyed Ken Robinson’s entertaining musings, among others. So I said fine, count me in.  

I edited this post on 6Jan2013

Going Dutch with Max Bruch: the Moszkowski Ensemble in The Hague

The Three Pieces Op 83 is quite something at 12 noon on a Sunday: all those throbbing  chords and broken chords flying up and down the piano to the viola´s  heart-rending melodies and the violin´s  passionate counter melodies! Maybe you are like me and have heard only a tiny part of this Romantic composer’s output. It´s a shame, his work deserves more attention. It was a pleasure to hear the Three Pieces so beautifully played and they followed naturally after the Sonata in F for Violin & Piano Op 57 by Dvorak.
This concert marks the last of a short series at the Muzee in Scheveningen in The Hague. The old school building has been lovingly converted into a museum, and as I noted in a review  of The Hague String Quartet concert, the acoustic in the recital room is excellent.

The Moszowski Ensemble are  Heleen Kuiper – violin, Paul Eggen – violin & viola, and Menno Boogaard – piano. On this occasion they were joined by a group of Heleen Kuiper´s students from the city.  The surprise entrance by the young violinists, playing Shostakovitch´s Prelude as they processed into the hall, was followed by the Vivaldi double Concerto Op 3 no 8 in A minor. The older players were clearly of an  advanced standard and soon they will be trying the solo parts for themselves, while the younger players were given the less challenging movements. It was all very sweet and well prepared and all the attendant parents were clearly delighted.

I was confused and surprised when Hellen Kuiper announced the encore piece. Actually, I spend quite a lot of my time confused here in Holland because my grasp of Dutch is pretty limited or pretty awful. But, yes, I had heard correctly and they played one of Piazzola´s gems. Now here is a funny thing: I admire the Argentinian maestro very much, as I have written before  . But music is very much about context and this work did not stand up well in such direct and immediate comparison to the Bruch pieces. The similarity in instrumentation made the power of Bruch’s music all the more obvious, and left the sugary sweet cleverness of Piazzola bare for all to see, or hear. There is no question that the Moszkowski Ensemble playing was perfectly up to the task these three musicians from The Hague can play anything set before them: it was the music itself that paled by comparison.

I remember Alan Hacker, the recently deceased clarinettist and conductor,  used to encourage his students to avoid including tune-ettes and to go for what he called real music when preparing a programme. I think this  is just what he would have had in mind. See Norman Lebrecht   for a powerful obituary.

So, the star of this show was certainly Bruch for me. Thank you to the Moszowski Ensemble, their young players and the Muzee in Scheveningen for a really enjoyable Sunday morning.

German Youth Orchestra perform with The Hague’s VHJO Youth Orchestra

3 November 2012: 140 young musicians playing Pirates in The Hague

One of my Year 11 students plays in a local youth orchestra and she is going through the hoops to arrange for my school  to host a joint concert of her youth orchestra and a visiting school orchestra from Germany. Yes I would very much like to spend my Saturday evening at school and is there anything I can do to help, say I when invited to attend......
In the end the concert did take place, and it was a joy to hear the local young musicians from the Vereniging Hofstads Jeugd Orkest of The Hague and their guests from the Orchester  der Friedrich-von Bodelschwingh -Schulen Bethel. The host group is part of a musical association with a history which dates back to 1923 and they played a well rehearsed set of light music with great enthusiasm. They are a boisterous group who enjoy their music with an informal approach. The German visitors were more formal in their attitude and they played a selection of orchestra pieces and chamber music to feature their woodwind and string sections.
It was clear that this is a mature group in every sense, and I was able to talk to the school´s Headteacher who confirmed that the orchestra was founded over 20 years ago. The teacher responsible for the orchestra’s  growth is still at the school and unfortunately was not able to take part in this trip. I was impressed by the way a number of students played their solo parts with skill and musicality and by the 14 year old student who shared the duties of conductor.
 It was a very enjoyable concert and the highlight was a performance by both groups, some 140 players, of an excellent arrangement of Zimmer´s music for Pirates of the Caribbean. The prodigious percussion section included rattling chains to set the tone, together with a boy singer intoning a pirate song. We all shared a sense of sheer exhilaration of seeing and hearing 140 performers playing together: young musicians from two countries inspired to raise their game by a well written and well arranged piece which is part of their shared experience.
The concert organizers have posted a  a video on youtube of  the combined orchestras.
Thank you to our students  for your all your efforts to make this event happen, and thanks to the teachers and players of both orchestras for the music.

The Hague String Quartet

The Hague String Quartet began their concert on 4 November with a work by Haydn and as I listened I wondered about the woman whose portrait sat in the display cabinet at my side. She was a near contemporary of Haydn, though living far from him.
The room settings at the concert venue, the Muzee Scheveningen in the coastal district of The Hague, show by the number of instruments on view that music played a large part in the lives of the 18th century locals. After all, the silverwear and other jewellery on display also show that this was a prosperous neighbourhood, where fishermen’s families were soon to become accustomed to seeing visitors stroll along the beach in their fine clothes, and the paintings by Isaac Israel (1865-1934) bear witness to this.

What would the portrait woman have made of this quartet, opus 76 number 2? Would she have marveled with me at the beauty of the opening Allegro with Haydn’s characteristic uneven phrases and exquisite melodic lines? Would she have found the variations of the second movement charming and joyful, and would she have heard the Finale fly by in a flash, as I did?  All that’s a maybe. I am sure she would not have made the same reflection I did about the Minuet: this movement has a powerful and dark ring to it, with canon devices between violins on the one hand and viola and cello on the other. The sombre character is a far cry from the Minuet of the dance suite and is as much a transformation of dance movement to concert inspiration as are the waltzes of Chopin.
The Hague String Quartet are Paul Eggen and Heleen Kuiper, violins, Ron Ephrat, viola and Monique Heidema, cello. They are all well established local professional musicians who have played together for many years and this was clear in their fine ensemble playing and common understanding of the music.

In her spoken introduction to the Debussy quartet opus 10 which completed the programme, Heleen  Kuiper  commented that the French master showed the influence of many styles in his work, including music hall. I heard echoes of Smetana’s Ma Vlast and a foretaste of his own La Mer in the first movement, was bedazzled by the moto perpetuo of the second movement and was enthralled by the beauty of the last two movements, which  were indeed doucement expressif and avec passion respectively.
This concert is one of a series at the Muzee Scheveningen, which has a resonant acoustic entirely suited to chamber music and today’s audience obviously enjoyed the concert, as I did. I am sure our silent witness from centuries past enjoyed the music too as she listened from her portrait’s frame.

Traditional marching bands in Denia, Spain

This evening more than 20 bands from surrounding towns will accompany "filas" or groups of local people dressed to commemorate historical battles in Denia in Spain's Alicante province.
Here's one of the first groups:

Barenboim’s Madrid concert cancelled

For the last 8 years Daniel Barenboim has conducted  the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra in an open air concert in Madrid’s  Plaza Mayor, free of charge for the audience. This year Madrid was booked in as one of the venues for the European tour of this orchestra, which was founded by Barenboim and the Palestinian writer Edward Said in 1999. Then, in May it was announced that the Mayor Ana Botella was cancelling this concert and a number of high profile arts events as part of the budget cuts.

In the end there was a concert in the Plaza mayor earlier this month and the replacement orchestra was the Orquesta de la Comunidad de Madrid  (ORCAM) , conducted by José Ramón Encinar. The cancellation surfaced as a news item this week because it was raised at the  press conference  in Madrid for the tour, which kicks off in Seville and includes a series of Proms concerts. Norman Lebrecht   made a mention of the cancellation via Twitter @NLebrecht.

At the press conference Barenboim insisted there had been no discussion about the cancellation of the concert and that he had not been given the opportunity to suggest alternatives to reduce the cost to allow the concert to go ahead. He described the way the way the matter was dealt with as “Neither intelligent nor elegant”.
I think there is no need here to describe the severe problems facing the economy in Spain, but you might be interested to know more about the orchestras which are based in Madrid. In addition to the ORCAM referred to above, Madrid residents can enjoyed an annual series of concerts by the Orquesta Nacional de España and chorus  (OCNE) , the state television's Orquesta de la RTVE and chorus, whose previous principal conductor was  Adrian Leaper , and the house orchestra at the  Teatro Real  opera house, the Orquesta Sinfónica de Madrid  (OSM) . Don’t forget the Banda Sinfónica de Madrid , a symphonic wind band which performs a lovely free summer series on Sunday lunchtimes at the bandstand in the amazing Retiro park before moving indoors for their Winter concerts.
All of these ensembles are made up of full time professional musicians and all of them except the OSM are civil servants employed either by the city, the Madrid regional government, or the national government. They have contracts for life and all other benefits associated with a civil service post. The OSM players are employed through a subcontract arrangement, but even so most of their salaries are paid from public funds.

Four symphony orchestras, two choruses and a symphonic wind band are competing for an audience in a city with a  population  of 3.237.937 and where the Madrid Region  has a population of 6.387.824. Of course, when I use the word compete it is misleading: these ensembles do not really compete for an audience because they do not depend on ticket sales for their survival, they simply rely on government funding. I am not going to do the maths here but  when my grandfather used to talk of people who lived a champagne lifestyle on a beer income he might have been talking about classical music provision in Madrid.

Daniel Barenboim’s concert will have been missed, but there are very pressing needs here in Madrid and using a local orchestra instead of his touring one has not exactly brought the city to a halt. The Plaza Mayor was just as as full  to hear the ORCAM conducted by José Ramón Encinar as it would have been to hear the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra conducted by Barenboim. Among the clatter of plates and glasses with tapas and cerveza, and the waiters in the bars around the seats in the square calling out their orders, some people might not even have noticed the difference.
(This post was amended to include a correction about the RTVE on 21/7/2012)

Tap Show Project: Teatro Alfil in Madrid

Last week I went to see a show called Nobody is who they seem to be Nadie es quien parece ser  at the  Teatro Alfil here in Madrid. The theatre is one of the most long standing and best  known venues on the city’s very active alternative scene, and has recently removed part of the rows of seats to make way for a cabaret style table and chair arrangement, which makes it a perfect setting for this kind of show.
This is the first full length show to be produced by the Tap Show Project.

Tap Show Project’s  original feature is that it is a dance group which specializes in tap. The show, according to the company director Lucas Tadeo, is aimed at catching the imagination of children and opening their eyes to the world of tap. According to John O’Brien, the show’s choreographer, it’s a great example of the best  family entertainment, where parents take their children along and then find themselves enjoying it as much as or more than their children.   
There are lots of familiar elements as the evening goes on, a mad genius type writer looking for inspiration, who turns out to be the pianist, comedy routines  and a large helping of audience participation.  John O´Brien, Lucas Tadeo, Roberto Bonacini, Angélica Arévalo Moya and Ainara Prieto are the expert and always entertaining dancers who make this show stand out from the rest. Their routines vary from ensemble pieces to solos and include competitive dueling which is part of the tap tradition.
The music is a mix of original tunes by the pianist Augustín López, and  well know Broadway melodies. I expect that as the show develops there will be less dialogue to leave room for a couple more dance numbers, and that technology might be included in the moments where it would enhance the show, such as in the body percussion number, where some simple  midi sound pads would make all the difference.
My favourite moments of the night? Definitely the dueling between Lucas Tadeo and John O’Brien,   and John O’Brien’s amazing solo number, showing off his brilliance as a tap specialist of long experience by bringing so many styles and so many changes of mood into one extended solo.

For a review of the show in Spanish it's worth taking a look at the blog called Blog de Musicales by Norman Marsá:  http://blogdemusicales.wordpress.com/2012/07/03/tap-show-project-un-espectaculo-de-claque-para-ver-en-familia/


I wrote a few lines in an earlier post about  the  Madrid Tap Fest here: http://www.interculturaldialogueandeducation.org/2011/05/madrid-tap-fest-may-2011.html 


Thanks Tap Show Project for a fun evening out, and good luck with the remaining shows coming up at the Alfil.

Intercultural dialogue in action in Liverpool: small steps to a Big Society

Bridges across cultures at Frontline faith group, Liverpool: the power of bringing everyone to the table.



Frontline faith group is based in the Wavertree district of Liverpool, England. Frontline was featured recently  in the Guardian and I was pleasantly surprised at the writer´s positive account of the group’s work. Over the years the Guardian has been routinely skeptical and occasionally mocking of all things faith driven. The most striking feature of the article and the accompanying video is the huge input from rank and file group members, individual persons making their voluntary contribution in a very unglamorous and unrewarding setting. 


Among the many other actions which have taken place at Frontline is the drama workshop and discussion group, Circles, which aims to build bridges between women from different cultures.

Photo of Charlotte Sawyer by Paul  Briggs

Over a spell of two months, Charlotte Sawyer, a member of Frontline and at the time final year degree student at  Liverpool Hope University , put her faith into practice by arranging for a small group of women representing different community, ethnic and religious groups in the city to get together to learn more about each other and to break down barriers.


‘We started with discussion groups held at a woman’s house, using the Circles of Peace Method by  Initiatives of Change  which is so easy to use. We follow  programme discussing personal change leading to change in our communities from reaching out to people who are different to us, sharing our story, forgiveness and integrity, 


The women who join in do not have to be members of Frontline to take part, in fact, given the variety of religions represented, it is amazing that they all agree to meet in a place of worship. That is one of the achievements of Frontline.


There is no charge for those taking part. As Charlotte said to me when I spoke to her: “Frontline allows use of the building at no cost, and we give our time plus tea and biscuits as part of our commitment to Frontline.” 
The women are all adults, and some bring their tiny children to the discussion groups. The group is actually a spin off from a larger scale action organized at Frontline with funding from the European Union, which involves a monthly meal invitation to approximately two hundred women, also drawn from different faith backgrounds. 


In both cases, the actions seek to build bridges between sections of the community who do not normally interact. They are simple to arrange and demonstrably effective: there is no question that these women meet and share their experiences and learn more about other women who live in the same neighbourhood. The work that Charlotte and her friends are doing recognises that while society is made up of identifiable segments which can be defined, counted and traced statistically, these segments are made of individual persons. Understanding and integration does not happen through segments, it happens through individuals, through personal interaction and communication.  


British Prime Minister David Cameron  launched  his Big Society concept for the nation shortly after his election and he decided the setting for this significant announcement should be the Liverpool Hope University, recognising the contribution  that this university is making to its local community, made up as it is of a combination of faith based academic institutions.   


The  Big Society Network  in UK exists to "Support and develop talent, innovation and enterprise to deliver social impact. ….(to) unleash the social energy that exists in the UK to help build a better, healthier society."


Charlotte Sawyer has now graduated from university and is working on a number of projects through Initatives of Change, where she has recently been appointed a member of the  International Support Team 
Describing the team’s role, Charlotte Sawyer writes:“Young people have energy, enthusiasm and, at times, unlimited aspirations. However, in order to lead we must learn from the mistakes and wisdom of people before us to have a comprehensive understanding of how to tackle the problems of this world.”

One opportunity to develop this understanding will be a conference in Switzerland in July 2012 which seeks to tackle issues of multiculturalism in Europe,  Learning to live in a multicultural world, when      diaspora communities and those from Europe will gather across generation and cultures to work together on issues such as a lack of integration in Europe and individual responsibility. 

The problems are numerous but so are the opportunities for positive change. Treating people as individuals rather than as a unit of a statistical segment, and creating opportunities for persons to understand each other are components to build a better, healthier society, whether you like the Big Society label or not. 

It is all to do with the power of bringing everyone to the table. 

A blog post of Tweets: can smartphones solve poverty?

In his recent book The Shallows, Nicholas Carr describes how “cell-phone novels” have become popular in Japan.

His comment gave me the idea of creating a blog post out of Tweets.

 

It all started at the end of last month when I read that a renowned economist said that poverty will be brought to an end by the widespread ownership of smartphones. The point is sound but it seemed to me that while we watch the value of Apple reach the equivalent of the GDP of Europe a lot persons will go on suffering.

Here’s the translation below for those who need it:

Reply from JMM: Well at least you know the route

TJ: Agreed, but how to convince everyone else?

JMM: You don't convince me

TJ: If I can't convince a fine man like yourself, there is no hope

JMM: Yes there is, we keep on searching

 Meanwhile JMMelo marked the original tweet as a favourite

TJ: The technology exists, what's missing is the will on the part of decision makers

 UMS: Excellent that this debate has arisen. I also think the technology exists. The challenge is enormous, but it's possible

TJ: If only as well as being true it were easy to solve. If only there were a spirit of sacrifice to eliminate poverty

JMMelo:I believe that willingness will arise from understanding how unjust and unequal is the socioeconomic system which tolerates poverty

JMM: If you take a look, there are thousands of gestures of empathy between persons every day

JMM writes very interesting and his  blog Corto y Cambio  is translated in a number of languages.
Thanks for technical suggestion about this post are due to:

Ruben Yessayan new Debussy recording

Ruben Yessayan, the Madrid based pianist and composer, has just released his second cd, a selection of Debussy's music including the first book of Preludes and Children's Corner.

 
Mr Yessayan brings to this music his vast experience as a solo and ensemble performer who has specialised in music of the 20th century.

As a graduate student at the Manhattan School of Music in New York he studied piano with Nina Svetlanova and chamber music with Isidore Cohen.  It was during this time that he performed as principal pianist with the Claremont Ensemble. I remember hearing him perform with this group in a piano trio in an evening of Bartok music when I visited the Manhattan School of Music in 2004. His technical virtuosity combined with a rich and deep understanding of the music make his playing a joy to hear.

 At the same time he worked as apprentice conductor of the New York Youth Symphony Orchestra under the guidance of Mischa Santora. Later Mr Yessayan returned to Europe, where he has developed a career as soloist and teacher.

He is also Artistic Director of the  International Music Festival  "Villa de Medinaceli", a post he has held since 2007.

This new cd is available online via Amazon, Spotify and iTunes, as his his earlier cd, with music by Khachaturian, Mozart, Albeniz, Cage and Igoa.

International Art Camp in Mozambique, Africa

I have just received the up to date information about this year’s Tambo International Art Camp which will take place in Mozambique, organised by the Tambo Tambulani Cultural Association.

The setting is magical, in Pemba, Mozambique, and the cost is exceptionally reasonable, at only $120 including food and camping. The array of music, theatre and dance on offer is huge.

The most attractive feature of this Art Camp is that it incorporates a festival of local artists who are participating near their own home setting and performing for their local audience. Campers who travel from other places are experiencing a genuine festival of local culture, not a contrived hash served up for tourists.

The feeling I get from reading all the available materials and following the organisation's web site is one of real celebration and I am reminded of the fascinating and moving experience of Gillian Howell, the Australian education practitioner who spent several months in Timor l’Este: her most worthwhile moments ere spent working alongside local musicians  who kindly welcomed her into their own musical and cultural celebrations.

You can see from the detailed information about  last year's camp that the week includes many different activities and many different music and dance styles.

Here is some information about Pemba from the Mozambique tourism office 

“Formerly known as Porto Amelia, Pemba in Mozambique is the beautiful gateway to the Quirimbas Archipelago and Quirimbas National Park. The Niassa National Reserve can also be reached via Pemba. This city in Mozambique has a delightfully relaxed feel although this is changing as tourism projects take off. Visitors to Pemba can see lovely Portuguese colonial architecture and strong Arab influences, also magnificent views over the bay from the city heights.
The capital of Cabo Delgado Province, Mozambique, has all modern amenities including an airport, shops, banks, patisseries, cafes and restaurants as well as bars. There is also a massive market where just about anything can be bought. The old part of Pemba also has traditional markets to explore which is the place to go for beautiful arts and crafts (especially work by the Makonde people which is renowned) and handmade silverware.
Pemba Bay forms a huge harbour and stunning coral reefs lie close to shore providing wonderful diving and snorkelling adventures. The surrounding landscape of bay is characterised by forests of Baobab trees growing down to the shoreline. The most popular beaches are Wimbe and Farol for accommodation and restaurants. Dhow safaris are a popular way to sail around the bay and beyond. There are great beaches further north of Pemba or visitors can hop on a flight to visit the Quirimbas Islands.”

While your mind is on Africa, I’d like to tell you about a   beautiful choir of children   from Madagascar who visited Europe recently.

Thanks to Michael at Tambo for taking the trouble to send me the 2012 International Art Camp  information. I do not have any personal experience of this festival and I pass on this information in good faith.

The Polyglots, The Beatles and a Spanish Monster

How many times have you done some work and found that the experience of meeting the people you worked with was worth much more than the fee you were paid?

This was my experience a couple of years ago in Madrid. First there was a call from a music producer asking for help to arrange for her to audition my students. Easy, just sent a message out and dozens of wannabes turned up to sing. Finally one of my pupils was selected and earned a handsome reward for her part in the recording. Then I was asked if I would call in at the studio and listen through the adult and children´s recordings to check on the English pronunciation. All good, easy and fun to do, a bit of cash and a change from routine and a chance to meet some wonderful musicians and actors.

Then I was asked to look over some lyrics for the next stage in the recordings. This meant that, after meeting so many talented and courteous people I also got to meet the big boss, and this was a real pleasure. The boss is none other than Oscar Gómez, a “Monstruo” in music recording in Spain. Sr Gómez has written songs for top entertainers over thirty years which have become part of the cultural landscape in Spain and Spanish speaking countries.

This was supposed to be “a couple of quick chats” but turned into numerous visits and each session was like a Spanish inquisition, though Sr Gómez would perish at the thought of being associated with that part of his country’s history. Whenever I suggested a word change he put me through an interrogation to justify my requested change. After all, he had chosen every word of every line with great care, his English was really good and he had been writing hit songs forever.

It´s hard to argue your case for changing a word when all you have is a feeling that it´s not quite right: it doesn’t have to be a matter of grammar, just a sense of up to date use of the language in the end. His attention to detail and his perfectionism are clearly part of his success story, and sometimes he even let me convince him I was right.

One day we were about to start and Sr Gómez wanted me to wait and asked if I had heard the recently issued Love album of The Beatles remixes. He played the opening track Because through the studio speakers and out came this amazing acapella sound of The Beatles in close harmony, which had existed for nearly 40 years but had so far been unheard in that form. He was transfixed, lost in admiration for The Beatles, for their music and for the production quality that made this miracle a reality. These are among the characteristics of truly great professionals, aren’t they? It’s their ability to recognize the achievements of other practitioners in their field, and their capacity to be impressed by something new even when you would think they have seen and heard it all.

All this brought about the cd and video featuring some loveable characters, lovingly created and expertly realized by a team of slightly mad but extremely professional actors and musicians: they are…..
The Polyglots ......
Big-O a big-hearted flirty rapper, Patata a fun mischief maker, Karim shy, timid and absent minded, Violeta a bad tempered dancer, Tati miss perfect, a true romantic and poetess and Correcto a likeable true blue Brit teacher.

Two boys and two girls, together with a ferret and a penguin, make up The Polyglot team, singing their cool songs designed to make learning English that bit more fun.
It was a great pleasure to see this project come to life. Most of all I enjoyed meeting these amazingly creative people, especially Oscar Gómez, a Spanish monster in the best sense of the word.

The musicians who sank with the Titanic

One of the many touching scenes in Titanic is the moment when the musicians decide to go on playing. There they are in their formal suits, instruments at the ready, and their future is already clear, there seems to be no hope for their survival as their place in the queue for a seat in a lifeboat is very near the back. Who would forgive them for going off for a smoke, or going to look for a stiff drink in the unattended bar? Who would be left to reprimand them for not finishing their set, and what little chance was there that they would be alive long enough to be reprimanded anyway?
 

Yet, given the choice which faced all the persons aboard the stricken ship, they opted for courage instead of cowardice, for honour instead of skullduggery, and their actions earned them a place of pride in …… the story or in history?
 

One of the difficulties of James Cameron´s film is that it mixes fact and fiction, hard truth and fairy tale. So I was very touched to come across a plaque honouring these musicians, and confirming that the scene played out in the movie chimed with reality.
 

The last time I visited the Philharmonic Hall in Liverpool, England, was in 2008 and the large wooden plaque is on display for all to see just inside the beautiful art deco style building. The names of the musicians are listed, with a brief note of tribute to their heroism and their musicianship. I was curious about this plaque because I was fortunate to hear many concerts at the hall given by the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra (RLPO) in the ‘70’s and I could not understand how I had not noticed it. Our guide explained that it had been hung in the band room in the months after the Titanic sank, and for many years orchestra players touched it on their way onto the stage as a good luck charm. When the building was renovated recently, the impact of the movie had been so great that the orchestra members thought there would be sufficient interest among concert goers to see this very original memorial to some very special musicians.

  Photo credit:

At the same time, placing the plaque on public display was a way of reminding all visitors of the RLPO’s great history. According to the orchestra's web page, 

"The Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra is the UK’s oldest surviving professional symphony orchestra and the second oldest concert-giving organisation in the UK. The origins of the Orchestra’s concert series date back to the formation of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Society, which administers it, by a group of Liverpool music lovers in 1840. Liverpool Philharmonic has remained at the heart of Liverpool’s cultural life ever since."

Like many arts institutions in the UK, the RLPO is extremely aware of its changing role in society, and it is among the most adventurous orchestras in its programming and in special projects. I have written with admiration about the orchestra's  commitment to promoting social inclusion  under the direction of Peter Garden  as Executive Director (Learning & Engagement).  The orchestra was so active when Liverpool was European City of Culture in 2008, it was said that the RLPO provided the soundtrack to the year’s events.  

Among the many music groups active in Liverpool is the Phoenix Concert Orchestra    

There is a footnote not told in the movie: the notes on the plaque go on to explain that it was the custom for musicians to hire their suits when they went to work on the ships. Apparently the tailor from whom these brave men had hired their suits sent a bill demanding payment from their families in the days following the disaster. There was such a huge outcry in the local press that the tailor was forced to withdraw his demand for payment and forgive the debt. 

How to be more creative

For anyone who wants to be a more creative person, one of the most important tasks is to define what creativity means for you. 

Over the last decades there have been a number of characteristics associated with the term, and some of them have moved away from a concept which was widely accepted from the days of the storm and thunder of the Romantic poets and composers and which held up past the “Sputnik moment” of the late 1950’s. It’s reassuring that in recent years, at last, someone has come to redefine creativity in line with that early and valid meaning. Skip to the end if you can’t wait to know who I am thinking of.

For many generations, creativity was a term associated with someone whose work was novel and groundbreaking in its originality, and which was appreciated as being of unquestionable quality, and which was widely understood as being of value in its field. A composer such as Beethoven, a painter like Goya and a poet like Blake would be paradigms of this concept of creative persons.

I suppose it was in the 1970’s that terms became confused and the concept of novelty took precedence over everything else. The idea of being original, which had previously implied a recognizable standard of quality, was diluted and what was left was the idea of something simply different, novel. Artists of all kinds and fashion designers were applauded simply because they produced something  that had not been done, seen or heard before: never mind that nobody would ever want to see, hear or do it again. Newness was everything, quality was passé. 

In the 1980’s the word creative became associated especially with the advertising industry, and the creatives were the talented persons who used their imagination to persuade the rest of us to buy, buy and buy. It mattered little whether the images they used and the story they told were verosimil: their skill was in convincing a relatively gullible public to part with their cash. Their worth to their employers and their salary had nothing to do with the quality of their output by any artistic measure, it only mattered whether the campaigns they invented caused an increase in sales. In fact, some advertising campaigns were so entertaining and striking that the product was lost, buried by some much humour, glamour or glitzy location filming, and after all the money was spent all that remained in the public perception was the famous face, joke or beach, not the product itself.   

In the 90’s a more sinister connotation attached itself to creativity. Soon after we in Britain had got over a senior government figure admitting he had been “economical with the truth”, we learnt that company leaders in the USA has encouraged their accountants to be creative in their accounting. This was all very well until the moment of truth arrived. As huge companies like Enron collapsed in a heap of worthless paper that was a mild presage of the financial crisis of 2008, thousands of customers, suppliers and investors were less than appreciative of company workers who had let their creativity run wild.

After the dotcom bubble burst, when I was working in a large organization, the staff handbook included descriptions of competencies which were to be developed and encouraged in the organization. One of these was creativity, which did not surprise me. What did cause me to look twice was the definition of creativity, which was the capacity to build relationships and partnerships with external partners. I was more than happy to play my part in building relationships and was delighted that one of my personal interests, which is establishing partnerships, was valued by the organization. It was just that creativity as a label that never quite seemed to fit.

At last it has been a great relief to hear Professor Ken Robinson   the education guru who has become best known through TED talks, who has reestablished the earlier characteristics associated with creativity. Ken Robinson is a passionate and convincing advocate of identifying, promoting and developing creativity in schools and beyond. His conviction is that our current methods of schooling are contrary to the flowering of creativity in our students, and he has argued tirelessly that nurturing creativity is important firstly for the well being of our personal selves and secondly because only creatively thinking persons will be able to find the solutions which are increasingly necessary for the well being of our civilization and the plant we inhabit.

Ken Robinson has no hang ups when it comes to defining creativity. If you have time, go direct to the source and follow his lucid and entertaining explanations first hand. If you only have time for a sentence, here is his definition of creativity taken from one of his presentations:

"Creativity is the process of having original ideas that have value."

Does that sound familiar?

If you want to be a more creative person, that’s what you should be aspiring to.   

How to run the best advertising campaign

You could call this How to run the best advertising campaign or Madrid subway poster: a ticket to nowhere

Here’s a photo from the recent campaign by the subway company in Madrid, Spain. 

It’s a great idea as it aims to show very simply and clearly what good value you are getting for your ticket when you ride the subway in Madrid by comparing the charges on subways around the world. The timing was important because the campaign ran just as the company were implementing a pretty drastic hike in the price of fares.

Unfortunately, the campaign generated so much negative feedback that the posters were hastily taken down, that’s to say the ones that had not been ripped up by angry commuters who felt the company were trying to play them for fools.

At first sight, the argument seems to be clear: the price of a ticket on the Madrid subway is lower than in many other cities and there are the figures to prove it.

But they don’t.

In the first place, some subway users felt that some of the figures used were inaccurate because they do not compare similar journeys, as they knew from their holidays abroad.

In the second place, and more importantly, the figures do not take into account the relative wage levels in the different cities quoted. This was really most angered the Madrileños, who suffer some of the lowest wages in Europe. Apart from the huge number of young, qualified adults  who are becarios, working full time hours in exchange for a grant, there are thousands working for a minimum wage of less than 1,000 euros a month. How can you compare ticket prices for those persons with ticket prices in London where salaries are generally much higher?

So, a great poster, great idea and perfect timing. Just a shame the company didn’t think about who their customers are before printing the ads. This was a ticket to nowhere and the light at the end of the tunnel was a glare of bad publicity.

  On second thoughts, maybe you should call this How to ruin the best advertising campaign.