Allan Withington’s Conductor Summer School

Band has broken up for the summer, but that doesn’t mean letting your musical skills gather dust for two months – quite the reverse because there are several destinations across the World at which you can holiday and hone those skills for the imminent big contest season with top tutors and conductors. Conducting student and photography ace, Ian Clowes, reports from Allan Withington’s Conductor Summer School

Where can you, as a fairly ‘green’ conducting novice, get the chance to rehearse a Championship Section European band, a top-flight Dutch fanfare band, complete with ranks of flugels and saxophones, as well as a ten-piece ensemble in the space of a few days? At Allan Withington’s Conductor Summer School in the pretty Dutch town of Leeuwarden, Friesland, in the very north of The Netherlands.

And as daunting as it may seem at first, by the end of the week even this novice soon found himself blooming into a conductor of confidence and, dare I say it, artistic substance! The reason for the transformation is down to…

Read this article in full, featured in July/August 2017’s BBW, by subscribing to BBW Digital. Alternatively, subscribe to the printed magazine delivered by post: £40 (UK); £68 (Europe); £81 (Rest of the World)

Photo: Courtesy Goldy Solutions