Mentors, old music and new music: host and composer Ryan Wigglesworth | Classical music

RYan Wigglesworth cuts a confident figure walking into the Royal Academy of Music in London. He has been a professor here since 2019 – managing his work with his role as the executive director of BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestraguest hosting around the world, regular rehearsals as a pianist, and a busy schedule as a singer. Oh, and he’s also the father of three “noisy” young children, whose lack of sleep caused him to go out and grab his coffee this morning.

He sits at the head of a long table in the Academy’s oak boardroom, staring at home. Was it almost over?

Wigglesworth, 46, is against the idea. “I wasn’t confident as a child,” he quickly corrects. I was very nervous and shy. Maybe that helped; I was always coordinating with the furniture, so that no one noticed that I was there.

But he stood out enough at the nursery school – “A strange, musical boy” – that the teacher noticed and he was sent to the Sheffield Cathedral Choir where the butcher’s son, the only boy from the “wrong side of the city”, was introduced to a new world.

“You’re like a badger in that situation; you quickly learn to adapt. I was lucky that Graham Matthews – the cathedral’s music director – took me under his wing when he saw how much fun I was having,” he says.

Matthews’s intervention opened great doors: Charterhouse, student clubs at Oxford, Guildhall, Cambridge. But Wigglesworth’s real education was always traditional, first with his father’s LPs – “He subscribed to this Great Composers magazine, the kind that came with leather folders, and with recordings” – then through the radio and the music of Sheffield Central Library – “That was really my happy place – the whole treasure…”

Accordingly, at the age of 12, Wigglesworth came to Aldeburgh.

“I read Humphrey Carpenter’s biography of Benjamin Britten, then pestered my parents until they agreed to make the trip there. The relationship only grew when Wigglesworth met the composer (and, friend and mentor) Oliver Knussen.

“I heard about it Third Symphony on the radio. It knocked me for six – songs I never thought existed. So I sat down and tried to think about what he did. Then I wrote him a long letter. Six weeks later, a brilliant reply arrived, full of good advice, much like what Britten had received as a young composer. “

He describes them as “the central musical relationship of my life”, his teenage years spent rehearsing at the Snape Maltings concert hall, where Knussen was artistic director for over a decade, putting it all together.

“You don’t just learn the art of practice,” he explains. “You feel the goal being ripped, see the nuts and bolts. I used to do the same thing with Proms; Before the defense matures, you can only start practicing. I saw some amazing musicians.”

It was the last part of a musical education, often accidental, which Wigglesworth explains, began “as soon as I could read music”. He was always writing. The old records (“Not the best I was playing at that time!”) gradually began to look, which led to his success at the university. “I just started doing ensembles because no one seemed interested in doing my music.”

Wigglesworth is back (no sneaking this time) in Aldeburgh this week, helping to improve the festival’s appeal as an artist. He says, “It’s an opportunity to not have to wear all my hats at once, to think deeply about programs. It’s a wonderful, very difficult skill – thinking about one piece, combined with another, can create something new.”

The central part of his season – and the first thought of Wigglesworth when he called – is Debussy’s own opera, terrible, mysterious, 1902 Pelléas et Mélisande, performed by the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra, the group of musicians he leads from 2022. “I don’t know of many musicians who like it.” “It involves different aspects, like crystal gazing, because there are many things going on at the same time.

The game reunites him with Rory Kinnear, who created his own opera-directing debut is the first play of Wigglesworth’s The Winter’s Tale in 2017 and the lead character of the episode. He said: “His habit from an early age was to create a slow-motion approach that only magnified what was happening in the theater.

Another familiar face will be soprano Sophie Bevan, AKA Mrs Wigglesworth, as the mysterious Mélisande. A rural family in Oxfordshire and their young family have recently been followed by soap opera stories as they battle this mysterious hero.

“I mean, where the hell are they from?” says Wigglesworth. “Has he escaped from Bluebeard’s Castle? His opening line – ‘Don’t touch me!’ – they are always done as if they are afraid, but if you do what Debussy writes directly it is very tested, for sure. He says: don’t try to enter my country. “

There will be Wigglesworth music, too, at the festival which includes his 2019 concert piano (produced by Steven Osborne), a cycle of George Herbert’s music chosen by Bevan – “I want to write more for him. There are very few musicians who can communicate directly with the audience without histrionics, without a filter “- and the first viola concerto written for longtime collaborator Lawrence Power.

“I think all songwriters hope that with every new song we’re doing something different, but I’m definitely doing it with this one.” It’s broader, less complex than anything else I’ve written before — the kind of treasure that I hope will blossom and bloom.”

For a musician whose well-crafted music is familiar with the past, often in conversation with history, Wigglesworth’s beginnings are surprisingly human. “I can’t write anything,” he admits, “unless there is a certain personality that I am creating.”

Is it frustrating to be a songwriter in a world where classical music – especially new music – is so suspect? He sighs without starting. “In the 20th century we have developed the idea that composing is a separate business, separate from music making and life.” This means that new music is pigeonholed: something that sits there, doesn’t fit in with the rest, so as a member of the audience it feels like you’re driving your way to the island.

“Currently, there are many problems that classical music is facing, and it is interesting that we give up our art, to change things, but this must be fought against everything.

It’s a big concern for Wigglesworth, sharing two roles as songwriter and performer. “There is never enough time for fiction,” he admits. “And the older I get the more time I need.” The studio next to the house provides a hiding place for him to write, where days often start with him playing Bach “before flying between the piano and the desk, praying that something will appear”.

From 2022, the amount has changed. At the age of 43, Wigglesworth took on his first conducting role with an ensemble: principal conductor of the Glasgow-based BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra. It was an exciting opportunity, he says, a stable relationship that he didn’t expect as idle, but whose tides are changing now he’s enjoying.

He said: “That relationship is interesting and difficult to end.”

Wigglesworth marvels at the kind of shamleon – “I find it amazing that he can switch instantly from a beautiful Mozart to a wet score” – which will front two Proms this summer. The orchestra’s 90th birthday has resulted in an unusual program: the works of Rachmaninov, Bartók and Varèse were all premiered in 1936, each “amazing”. It’s a snapshot of a time of abundance and a boldly recognizable voice, a reminder of the vibrancy of the past.

Later in the season will be the world premiere of an orchestral piece by Brett Dean, The World’s Wife, set to the poems of Carol Ann Duffy. It was made up of Wigglesworth eclecticism by Judith Weir’s Moon and Star (“A master knocker and ear opener – a magical way to open a programme”) and Elgar’s Symphony No 1 – the first work the orchestra performed after Covid and another Wigglesworth favorite.

“I’ve been keen in Scotland to make sure we have a lot of music that we do. It’s very important that we get back to music that we can’t get tired of. That’s how we live. Elgar has such a wide variety of colours, shades that go over the surface of the music – I just love it.”

A new generation – of concertgoers and musicians – is essential to the future of classical music. Could Ryan Wigglesworth born today be a singer? Are networks and resources still available? Wigglesworth thinks not. He is traveling alone with his own children. “We need to deal with the business of music education, stop relying on or waiting for government support. The support is not coming. Politics is very temporary and this needs to be made possible and its importance recognized. I really want this to be a priority in the coming years.

“My children go to a wonderful music school on Saturday mornings in High Wycombe – set up by a group of parents who were sick of there being no music lessons in schools. It’s self-supporting, it doesn’t cost a lot of money, and what you get is amazing. There has to be a way to increase the role model. Have that interest?