Recently, I reached a point when I could look back on half a lifetime as an active member of the London Symphony Chorus.  As such, I have enjoyed the extraordinary privilege of performing alongside many leading professionals whilst still being an amateur, enjoying my love of music whilst pursuing my career.  Today I take time to bring both interests together in order to ask:  what have I learnt about leadership as a member of the London Symphony Chorus?

In case you read Janice Caplan’s article last week, I preface this article by highlighting differences between the concert hall maestro and line managers in more traditional workplaces.  On a day-to-day basis, for example, it is our “voice reps” who ensure that we have enough singers for each concert and who will soon notice if attendance is poor.  Our music director, on the other hand, is attentive to the quality of our singing.  The re-audition is our only one-to-one though, as well as re-auditioning chorus members every three years, a good music director will attend to an individual’s contribution on an ongoing basis.

Conductors have a variety of relationships with us.  Some of them will work with us on a regular basis over a number of years whilst others will be rare partners in making music.  Some have inspired us to new heights in our music making whilst others have left such a poor impression that the queue to sing under their baton is perilously short.

Amongst the leadership qualities I notice conductors often show a life-time commitment to music-making.  Leonard Benstein, for example, died just weeks after we recorded his own work, Candide, in December 1989.  Sir Colin Davis, now in his 80s, conducted my parents many years before I first sang under his baton.

Some conductors are driven by a vision and, like musical entrepreneurs, spend many years in pursuit of their vision.  Whilst hindsight makes a career look easy, the truth is it takes hard graft, persistence and a tolerance of uncertainty to succeed.  Davis’ Wikipedia entrance references the “freelance wilderness” he himself described, beginning in 1949.  It’s only with hindsight that he’s become known as a great champion of the now much-loved music of Berlioz.  In a similar way, Richard Hickox worked hard to develop his reputation as a champion of British music, slowly earning the license to conduct and record works that were barely known and rarely performed.  The persistence of both men has afforded opportunities to me to sing an extraordinary breadth of music.

At the level at which we sing, conductors relentlessly pursue high standards as well as interpreting the music.  In his pursuit of musical perfection Hickox never finished a rehearsal early, for example, and Davis is consistent in urging us to sing slightly ahead of the beat and in encouraging us not to “chew” our vowels.  In rehearsal, such conductors show extraordinary attention to detail.  Still, the moment comes when it’s time to let go of refining the details and engage with the spirit of a piece.  In my early years with the Chorus, when Hickox was our music director, I appreciated his pep talk ahead of a concert, which helped me to step onto the platform with a strong sense of connection with the music.

The best conductors are themselves fine musicians and in this sense they lead by example.  If they’re not, it soon shows:  when one conductor repeatedly berated the chorus in rehearsal we were quick to notice that the error was his and slow to forgive him for his behaviour towards us.  The relationship between a conductor and musicians can be tricky and this is often a function of his (or her) world view and personal confidence.  Solti famously never worked with amateur musicians, for example, so that when we were scheduled to sing with him in 1997 we sang alongside professional singers.  In rehearsal his assistant conductor repeatedly asked to hear the ‘professionals’ and then the ‘amateurs’.  This was not a move which earned our respect even though we were thrilled to have the opportunity to sing with him (an opportunity thwarted by his death just days before the concert).

There are other ways in which conductors lead by example.  The conductor is, for example, the visual centre-point for the audience as well as for all the musicians.  If (s)he slips, there’s nowhere to hide.  What’s more the conductor is the chief interpreter of the score, and every performance carries his personal stamp:  no critic expects to write “great performance – except for the conductor”.  I vividly remember a performance of Beethoven’s 9^th Symphony, conducted by Daniel Barenboim at London’s Royal Festival Hall.  It’s rare for me to be carried away by a performance of Beethoven’s 9^th – it is too frequently performed and uncomfortably and persistently high in the voice.  Barenboim stood on the podium and barely moved a muscle in a performance that had everyone involved completely spellbound.  His was the courage to do something that is rarely (if ever) done and to risk the extremes of success and failure.  More recently, Martyn Brabbins showed a different kind of courage when he conducted Havergal Brian’s rarely performed Gothic Symphony, conducting 800 singers and 120 orchestral players as well as soloists.

Some of the conductors whose leadership I have most enjoyed have inspired me with their love and generosity.  It has always been a pleasure to sing under the baton of Antonio Pappano.  I always think ‘ice cream seller’ when I work with Pappano.  At the same time, more than any other conductor, he radiates a quality I can only describe as love – for the music he conducts and for the people he works with.  I feel safe in his care as well as inspired to perform from a place of deep connection with the music.  How can I do anything other than give of my best?

As it happens, Pappano was Barenboim’s assistant at the Bayreuth Festival some years ago:  leadership in the world of music includes nurturing the next generation.  I remember watching one quietly understated act of sponsorship some years ago, when the chorus was rehearsing Mahler’s 8^th Symphony alongside the National Youth Orchestra under the baton of Sir Simon Rattle.  Part way through the rehearsal Rattle signalled to the young timpanist to take his place on his podium so that he could walk back into the hall and listen to the assembled forces.  I remember thinking that this was no accident – that this was as much about sponsoring this young man in the role of conductor as it was about any need to test the balance of sound from chorus and orchestra.  (And yes, I was delighted to watch the young man concerned, Robin Ticciati, make his debut conducting the London Symphony Orchestra at the Barbican).

So, vision, commitment, pursuing high standards, leading by example, love and generosity – these are some of the qualities it has been my privilege to observe amongst conductors.  What qualities do you observe – and appreciate – amongst leaders inside and outside the world of work?