Interesting point about Goldie--I've often thought of conducting as an extreme case of multi-tasking!
Effortlessly proving the point is Goldie, who, excepting an awkward altercation with Mozart last week, has cruised up through the ranks of Maestro. Hardly surprising. He is a music producer and DJ. He juggles rhythms for a living. And he does it live, interweaving tunes seamlessly to work a club crowd into a frenzy. He is already a conductor, which is why he will probably win the competition.
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Ah well. Goldie didn't make it. The winner was Sue Perkins and I voted for her. Twice, just to make sure. Sue had a head start in that she learned the piano in her youth and I thought that she managed to combine a reasonable level of technical competence with a degree of interpretive ability. Interestingly, the finalists didn't include the standard option for a conductor: a white man. Good for them, I say.
Sue's prize was to conduct three pieces at the outdoor concert that takes place in Hyde Park near the Royal Albert Hall as past of the Last Night of the Proms celebrations. There was a special Maestro programme featuring these performances just before the TV broadcast of the main event in the hall started. She did well.
The Last Night of the Proms is probably the only classical music concert that many people here in the UK are aware of and it looks as if it was a masterstroke for the BBC to use the populist format of Strictly Come Dancing (the original, and better, version of Dancing with The Stars)to draw people in by asking the question: Why do they have a man out the front waving his arms? As the head Maestro judge and conductor of this year's Last Night Sir Roger Norrington said, the programme went a long way to demystify 'classical' music and show that it can be for anyone.
I must say bravo to the BBC Concert Orchestra, the BBC's 'light music' band, who suffered the tyros' efforts with great good humour.
Here's an article about the show from a Guardian blog. http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/charlottehigginsblog/2008/sep/10/classicalmusicandopera
Here's a clip of staging points in Sue's journey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mdReqDQh2o
Many thanks, Roger, for your perceptive reports!
Now, if I can only get time to watch all the clips!
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