'The bigger and wackier the piece, the better'

It's a first: as 500 French and British students from two prestigious music schools join forces for tonight's Prom, Christopher Wood examines the changing roles required of today's young players

For a long time a byword for diversity, the Proms have surprisingly never featured a conservatoire orchestra. It is an omission that will be rectified tonight, when as part of the Proms' celebration of youth this year, orchestras from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Paris Conservatoire join forces to perform Berlioz's monumental Requiem ( Grande messe des morts) under the baton of Sir Colin Davis.

For a long time a byword for diversity, the Proms have surprisingly never featured a conservatoire orchestra. It is an omission that will be rectified tonight, when as part of the Proms' celebration of youth this year, orchestras from the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and the Paris Conservatoire join forces to perform Berlioz's monumental Requiem ( Grande messe des morts) under the baton of Sir Colin Davis.

The Guildhall's principal, Ian Horsburgh is rather excited. "This is a first," he says. "The European Union Youth Orchestra and the National Youth Orchestra have an honourable history at the Proms, but this is the first time a music college has been asked."

He explains the genesis of the idea. "Colin Davis, who has a regular association with the Guildhall - he comes at least three times a year to work with the orchestra and coach chamber music - is doing a Berlioz cycle with the LSO, but not including the Requiem. So he asked if we would be foolish enough to do this mammoth piece in the Proms. Our view has always been that the bigger and the wackier the piece and the more impossible the task, the better."

They don't come bigger and wackier than Berlioz's Requiem. The orchestra will have some 150 players, with five tubas, 16 timpani and four brass bands distributed around the Royal Albert Hall. Then there is the chorus, 460 in total, with 100 from Paris, 100 from the Philharmonia Chorus and the remainder from the Guildhall. Participation among the Guildhall students is almost total: even pianists are being dragooned into the chorus.

Horsburgh adamantly opposes any suggestion that the piece may be too demanding for a first Prom outing. "Absolutely not," he says. "The Guildhall has a reputation for being a high-risk player. If you don't take risks, you don't achieve things. Three years ago we gave a performance of Beethoven's Missa Solemnis in the Barbican using all our forces - so we've shown we can do it. And Colin Davis enjoys a challenge, he loves working with young musicians."

For the musicians, many of whom will go on to join the ranks of professional orchestral players after graduation, playing in the Proms is excellent training. "The spirit of the Proms, the energy and the excitement of playing in any large, famous concert hall - it's an experience young musicians get enormous benefit from," says Horsburgh. As they do also from visits to the Guildhall by conductors such as Simon Rattle, Andrew Davis and Kurt Masur. "Even if they come in just for a few hours to take a rehearsal, they can communicate a broader vision of what can be achieved."

The players themselves agree. Steven Moss, a clarinettist who has previously played in the Royal Albert Hall with the National Youth Orchestra and hopes to make a career of orchestral playing, says he "learnt a lot from the experience. It's nerve-racking, but a great thrill."

Training up the orchestral players of the future is still a major part of what the Guildhall does, but Ian Horsburgh points out that changes to the world of work have not left music untouched. "The role of the professional musician is changing dramatically," he says. "Increasingly, musicians will be playing in orchestras but will also have to diversify, with chamber playing and community work. Our job is to train and educate musicians to develop their skills in as broad a way as possible. It's an ever more difficult struggle for professional orchestras to keep their heads above water. Players may get 60 per cent of their work that way, but 40 per cent will be up to them."

Andrew Bain, playing timpani in the Proms concert and pursuing a split course in jazz drumming and classical percussion, is evidence that students have taken on board the new musical climate. "I want to keep both jazz and classical going as long as possible," he says. "My ideal would be on Friday night to play in the Philharmonia and on Saturday to be doing a jazz gig." Steven Moss, too, is keeping his options open. Although his goal is to be an orchestral player, he already has extensive experience as a teacher and regularly plays chamber music with a string quartet at college.

Bain and Moss are success stories as far as British music education goes, but Horsburgh points out that changes over the last decades have not necessarily been for the good.

"In the days when I worked at the Inner London Education Authority there was totally free tuition and provision of an instrument for all kids in the inner London area," he recalls. "And summer courses, too. That system has gone. What comes in its place is one that desperately needs funding from external sources in order to survive. Within schools there isn't the same range of opportunities. It is a lot harder for people to fight through the system without parental support."

The Guildhall is increasingly forced to find the quality of student it needs overseas: non-British students currently account for 40 per cent of the total. "We have never had to seek out people from abroad because they can pay high fees," claims Horsburgh. "As soon as you're into that market you risk demoting quality. Over the last years students from overseas have wanted to come here. I'm proud of that. As a result, the quality of what we're able to do here has risen exponentially. The audition level has risen, so that we don't have to take anyone in whom we don't have full confidence. We can now be absolutely certain that our students can undertake high-profile responsibility - like the Proms."