Guest Blog: Playing the ‘Cello with Uzbekistan’s State Conservatoire’

Last week the orchestra of the Tashkent Conservatoire performed an evening of British music, sponsored by mining company Rio Tinto. My colleague Lottie Waller joined the orchestra for the occasion, and blogs below about her experience.

On 22 May I played the ‘cello in the student orchestra of Uzbekistan’s State Conservatoire, with around 75 of Uzbekistan’s most talented student musicians, at a concert of British music in Tashkent. The concert was organised by the British Embassy in partnership with the Conservatoire, and the British/Uzbek Friendship Society, and sponsored by Rio Tinto. The programme was British music, from Henry Wood’s increasingly frenetic hornpipe, to Handel, via Elgar to Benjamin Britten and My Fair Lady. I joined when the students had already been rehearsing for some months, and had to learn quickly. The pressure felt more intense thanks to the students’ all too frequent assumption that I was a newly arrived ‘mature’ student, and thus as capable on the ‘cello as they on their respective instruments…if only.

The rehearsals were tough – one weekend we practised for nearly twelve hours. But they were also the best bit of the whole experience for me. The students were friendly, showing me their canteen, translating when the conductor switched language from Russian into Uzbek, and patiently guiding me through trickier passages in the music. The conductors, too, treated me as another student, although I was usually spared their severest criticism. One moment, however, did send me hurtling back into my teenage years: caught indulging ill-advisedly in a joke with a fellow (male) cellist, we were singled out for special, dubious praise – an eyebrow raised, pointing his baton imperiously, the conductor asked ‘Международные связи?’ [building international relations?]

It was both surreal and fascinating to experience classic British music in the Uzbek setting and through the eyes of Uzbek students, many of whom told me they had never heard the repertoire before. Predictably, my efforts to explain the plot of My Fair Lady – I even sang a small part of “I could have danced all night” – fell flat. I decided not to attempt Rule Britannia. At other moments in rehearsal, in the sticky heat of the Conservatoire basement, I felt music’s power to transport us to a different place and time. The lead oboist’s beautiful solo in the Fantasia on British sea songs carried me straight to green fields and hedges, cricket and breezy coastal days.

There was some nervousness – not least on my part – on the day of the concert. But the atmosphere in the hall was superb, and we soon relaxed into the music. For the start of the sea songs, the lights in the auditorium were dimmed, and the trumpets, horns and drummers dotted around the hall – the audience craning their necks left and right like at a tennis game to try to pick out the sounds. This ambitious approach necessitated a quick sprint for the trumpeter to get back to the stage for his next cue, and its success was the result of endless practice.

Most of my new friends intend to become professional musicians or teachers and I have no doubt that they have the talent and commitment to succeed. It is easy to see why they play so well, from their attention to detail, to the emphasis on timekeeping, to the intensity of the rehearsals. We worked with five conductors, amongst them Vladimir Neymer, one of Uzbekistan’s most venerated conductors, and Edward Yudenitch, one of the youngest in the world. You can see pictures of Vladimir, Edward and the concert on the Embassy’s facebook page.

British culture is not especially well known in Uzbekistan, and it is through our social media pages and events like these that we are trying to change this. It seemed to me that the audience and the students enjoyed what they heard and played. Certainly, there is value in exporting the magic of the Proms, of sharing our great film music legacy and of course promoting the works of our world famous composers. Perhaps this is what ‘soft power’ is about. But – to me – the real power on the night came from the students, making the music their own and relevant for 21st century Uzbekistan. It was an honour to play with them, and I will never forget it.