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The LMO is pleased to announce the appointment of Robert Guy as Assistant Conductor to Mark Heron for the 2009-2010 Season. Robert has conducted a wide range of repertoire and worked with a variety of age groups. While a student at the University of Manchester he was appointed conductor to the University Sinfonietta, with whom he conducted a diverse range of works from Beethoven’s Symphony No 1 to Stravinsky’s Firebird. He also conducted the Vaganza Ensemble in a range of contemporary music, most notably working with the highly esteemed composer John McCabe, conducting Rainforest I as part of the composer’s 70^th Birthday celebrations. Since starting his Masters at the RNCM he has conducted the RNCM String Collective at Piccadilly. He is also conductor of the Pro Corda Intermediate and Senior String Orchestras based at Leiston Abbey in Suffolk.  In addition to his studies he teaches for Trafford Music Service and conducts Trafford Junior Strings and other ensembles as part of the Trafford Youth Orchestras.

Robert has received conducting tuition from Mark Heron, Mark Shanahan, Tim Reynish and Clark Rundell. He graduated from the University of Manchester with MusB (Honours) in July 2009. His principal instrument is viola and he is currently studying for a Masters Degree in Performance with Dr. Louise Lansdown at the RNCM. He also receives tuition from Mark Knight and Annette Isserlis. He is violist with the Medlock String Quartet who formed in September at the RNCM and in November they won the Weil Prize for Chamber Music. The Medlock has received tuition from Levon Chilingirian, Gabor Takács-Nagy and Pavel Fisher. Robert is currently receives funding from the Ryan Davies Memorial Fund and the John Matthews Educational Charity which generously support his studies.

Future engagements include conducting dates with the Cambrian Philharmonic Orchestra as a part of Wrexham Arts Festival in June 2010 and studying with Peter Stark at the Royal College of Music in April.

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At the Annual General Meeting of the LMO on 10th September, Anne Davidson Lund was elected to succeed Vyvyan Howard as Chairman of the orchestra. Anne has been a member of the LMO's bass section since 1983 and has served on the Committee since 2000.

Anne’s North West musical roots are deep: her late mother, Jean (Pilling), was Head of Music at Quarry Bank; her late father, George, was twice President of the Liverpool Organists’ Association.  The Royal School of Church Music was a strong theme in family life.

So, it’s perhaps not surprising that Anne started playing the piano at the age of three (and still does play, although the Grade VIII has lapsed).  A flirtation with the violin was abandoned after a first date with the double bass, with which Anne has been having a love affair since she was twelve.  Anne took her Licentiate of Trinity College London externally while at university.  Her bass, Lorenzo, is an 1880s French instrument.

Anne sings (alto) too.  The high point of her chamber choir experience to date was a stint with the Chapter House Choir at York Minster when she lived across the Pennines.

A languages graduate from Durham, Anne has had a widely-based and varied career in business and education and continues to work freelance in this country and abroad.  As well as her activities with the LMO, Anne has been Director of Policy Research at the National Centre for Languages (CILT).  Her research field - intercultural competence: how people from different cultural and language backgrounds communicate effectively - was the topic of her Doctorate, conferred in 1999.

And for those of you who’ve spotted the connection….  Anne met her husband David (see below) in the Merseyside Youth Orchestra!

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We are delighted to congratulate LMO violinist John Huthnance on being awarded the MBE in the Queen's New Year's Honours List. John's award is for services to Marine Science. His profile, reproduced below, appeared in the Spring 2006 issue of Vivace, the LMO's news letter.

John was born in Reading where the primary school started a scheme to teach violin.  However, having acquired the violin, the family promptly moved to Staffordshire where he was lucky to have private lessons with the same teacher until leaving school.  The Staffordshire County Schools orchestra took him to Norway and to Czechoslovakia, where his faltering German was employed in negotiating entry for one of the party with a faulty visa.

Highlights of playing in the Cambridge University Musical Society orchestra, under David Willcocks, were a performance of Berlioz' Requiem in Ely Cathedral, playing under the baton of Benjamin Britten at the Aldeburgh Festival and performing Mahler's Symphony of a Thousand at the Albert Hall.

As a mathematician-turned-physical-oceanographer (researching tides, waves, circulation, how the deep ocean and shelf seas affect each other), John's work has taken him with his violin to Australia and twice to the USA.  He played an arrangement of Pictures at an Exhibition for string quartet at a wedding on Cape Cod - where else?  With the University of California (San Diego) orchestra he played music by Ginastera in the Jai-Lai stadium just over the border in Mexico - to a wildly enthusiastic audience.

Soon after coming to Liverpool as a Post-Doctoral Research Fellow in the University, John was introduced to LMO (by Barbara Baden), joining in January 1975 and missing only a handful of concerts since then. His valuable support of the orchestra, especially with concert stage management, is much appreciated by us all.  Soon afterwards he also joined the Renaissance Music Group (RMG), in which he still sings bass when not cajoled higher by the need to "man" the three or more male voice parts frequently written in that era (strictly pre-Bach). 

Neither LMO or RMG was interrupted by his move in 1977 to the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Institute of Oceanographic Sciences, Bidston (on Wirral), which was subsequently re-named the Proudman Oceangraphic Laboratory, which in 2004 moved back to a site on the University of Liverpool precinct.  Perhaps the strongest claim to fame in all this time with NERC was a 1988 interview for the Radio 4 Today programme.  When it was broadcast, John missed it, being at sea "suffering for his science".

In what little spare time remains after science and music, John enjoys hill walking and membership of the Merseyside National Trust Environmental Volunteers - doing outdoor conservation work (birch, bracken and rhododendron clearance and such-like).

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Pacific Road

Pacific Road Arts Centre is to be taken over by Merseytravel and is, we are told, to remain a performance venue. What this will mean for the LMO is not yet clear but we are keeping our fingers crossed that we will be able to return as usual in 2010-11. Our concerts in February and March will, of course, be at Pacific Road as planned.

There is no longer a box office actually at Pacific Road - it has been transferred to the Floral Pavilion Theatre on the Marine Parade in New Brighton. However, you can book your seats by phone - 0151 666 0000 - or on line www.pacificroad.co.uk . Although it is generally possible to buy tickets at the door on the night, some concerts sell out so it's best to book in advance.

The final concert of the 2009-2010 season will be an Opera Gala evening performed at the Floral Pavilion Theatre in New Brighton, with music from Puccini, Verdi, Wagner, Mozart and more - most featured in episodes of the Inspector Morse television series. The Floral Pavilion Theatre box office is also - 0151 666 0000 - and its web address is www.floralpavilion.com .

John Newhill

We are saddened to record the death of John Newhill, one of the LMO's longest serving members. John was a familiar figure to all who have supported the LMO over the years. He first joined the LMO in 1961 and held the post of Principal Clarinettist from then until the end of last season -  a truly amazing achievement. John was elected to Life Membership of the LMO at its AGM in September in recognition of his outstanding contribution over so many years.

John became ill in the autumn and died on 26th January. The LMO would like to express its appreciation for all that John did for the Orchestra and to extend its condolences to Jean and his family.

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Profile of David Lund - double bass

Born in Toxteth, Liverpool, David attended the Liverpool Institute High School and later Liverpool University.  He is a keen supporter of Liverpool FC.  No surprise to find him playing for the Liverpool Mozart Orchestra, then.

David started playing the bass at school at the age of 13 on what was (he now realises with regret) a very nice, though sadly neglected, instrument strung with gut and stuffed with coat hangers!  Undaunted, he joined the Merseyside Youth Orchestra and after a courtship period rivalled only by the giant tortoises of the Galapagos, eventually converted his desk partner, Anne, to life partner.  He claims that the fact that this made fixing the bass section easier for the rest of his life was no more than a happy coincidence.

After deciding that music offered the more precarious option as a career, David became a lawyer.  He now specialises in insurance law at DWF, one of the UK's largest firms where he has been for the last 20 years ("If I'd plumped for embezzlement I'd have been out by now").  Unhappily, he finds himself working in Manchester where as a member of SWIM (Scousers Working in Manchester) he suffers daily the slings and arrows of the many Manchester United fans by whom he is surrounded. 

As well as playing for the LMO, of which he has been a member for about 25 years, and for various ensembles in and around Manchester and Cheshire, David is also principal bass with the Stockport Symphony Orchestra and hopes to expand his musical activities yet further this year, having decided to scale back his commitment to work in favour of more leisure. 

David plays an English bass made around 1810 by J.F. Lott Snr (a "Grandfather Lott") and, beset by the obligatory mid-life crisis, drives a Jaguar XK sports car into which it will not fit.  This mild eccentricity is complemented by two Great Dane rescue dogs, Oscar and Molly, who have established control of his Cheshire home and are now steadily eating their way through it.

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Pre-concert talks

This season sees the continuation of Mark's pre-concert talks at which he will talk about aspects of the concert programme and may take the opportunity to interview soloists or other individuals associated with the work of the LMO. There is no additional charge for attending these sessions and we hope very much you will come along, get yourself a pre-concert drink and listen to what he has to say.

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New e-mail address? Moving home?

If you are one of our many supporters who receive concert promotions by e-mail and have changed your address – please let us know so that our e-mailing list can be updated. Each time an e-mail shot goes out, a couple of addresses are rejected and there is generally very little that can be done to remedy the situation. Likewise, if you are about to change your postal address, or if for any reason you would prefer not to receive postal mail shots from the LMO in future, do please let us know so that appropriate arrangements can be made.

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