Early next month celebrated conductor Martyn Brabbins will be going through all nine of Beethoven's symphonies in one sitting to raise money for his children's school. Sam Bond speaks to the Ruscombe-based conductor about the musical marathon and his journey from humble roots to international accolade....

SITTING at home in Ruscombe conductor Martyn Brabbins does not look much like a widely-respected conductor.

He is informally dressed with no sign of a crisp white shirt or tails and there's not a baton in sight.

I'm guessing that if I could only read the concert posters that adorn his hallway his cover would be blown but unfortunately my Russian's not up to the job.

After just a few minutes of conversation, however, I'm convinced he is the real thing and might well be able to shed some light on a few of those irksome questions you never get a chance to ask.

What, for example, makes a good conductor? "It's a mystery to everybody," he concedes. "Even professional musicians don't know what makes a good conductor. "There are obvious things a conductor must be able to do like keep time, though many can't."

"You have to be able to move your hand clearly and correctly in a way that conveys the music and you need to be able to physically show what you want rather than put it into words.

"You also have to have an in depth knowledge of the orchestra. "You don't have to be able to play every instrument but you need an instinctive knowledge of their characters and have to get inside the scores.

"I spend far more time studying scores than I do actually standing up conducting, it's not as glamorous as people imagine.

"They think you just swan around and wave your arms about but you have to put in hours and hours of study before a performance."

Thrill

Despite the hard work Martyn said he had never lost the thrill of the performance and it was an exhilarating feeling trying to add something of yourself to the works of the great composers and managing to make them feel fresh.

"It's the best job in the world," he said. "I'm quite happy to admit that, I'm very lucky."

Growing up in a council house in the Midlands and playing the euphonium in the local brass band, Martyn's childhood was not typical for a professional conductor but he had his heart set on the career from an early age.

"It was something I'd always wanted to do, even as a child, but there's such incredible competition and I didn't come from the right background," he said. "It's usually public school, Cambridge educated types with the right contacts and full of self confidence."

Nevertheless, he persevered, learning to play a more prestigious orchestral instrument, the trombone, to secure a place on a music degree at university.

After graduating Martyn spent two years earning his keep as a musician. "When I left university I was composing and playing as a freelance trombone player, teaching and gigging around, all those things you do to try to cobble together a living as a musician," he said.

"I was also doing bits and pieces of conducting, including for the brass band I had played in as a boy. "That side of things became more and more important to me and people said, actually, you're not bad at this, why don't you do it seriously."

Which is exactly what he did in 1986, packing his bags for Russia to study under legendary conductor Ilya Musin at the Leningrad State Conservatoire.

"He was well into his 80s by then but still incredibly vigorous," said Martyn. "He was a saint of a man, an inspirational tutor, and absolutely dedicated to his students." Martyn stayed in Russia for two years and has many fond memories of the warmth and cheerfulness of the people, despite living under the by-then failing communist system.

While there he formed an association with world-renowned conductor Valery Gergiev and appeared at the Kirov Opera. "I was the first English conductor there for something like 50 years," he said. "It was quite something for me, a real honour."

Martyn had travelled to Russia for his training because he thought he would be better off there than following the more traditional career path. "Teaching here wasn't considered seriously in those days," he said. "Things have moved on a lot since then but conducting was seen as something enthusiastic and gifted people did rather than something you could study and learn to do well."

Competition

Back in Britain Martyn entered, and won, a major conducting competition in Leeds. Part of the prize was an opportunity to conduct a series of concerts which gave him the chance to make his mark.

"That was my first step on the ladder and the start of my professional career in this country," he said. Since then Martyn has recorded a host of CDs, has countless concerts under his belt and is a man in demand, having travelled all over the world through his work.

On Saturday, July 5 he will be at the Cheltenham Town Hall conducting the Salomon Orchestra in their nine-symphony Beethoven-athon in aid of Wynstones Steiner School in Whaddon.

The colossal concert will begin at 10am and carry on well into the afternoon and will be presented in a relaxed and informal style with listeners free to come and go as they please.

Admission is free but donations will go towards the school's fund-raising for a much-needed new hall.

It was the school which brought the Brabbins family to Stroud in the first place. "We had been living outside Bath but when the time came to send our oldest son Alex to school something didn't chime with us," said Karen, Martyn's wife.

"He didn't seem very happy and when we heard about a Steiner kindergarten being set up nearby we went to a talk about it and were really taken with it. "He went there and it a was a breath of fresh air, such a nice experience."

The impressed family looked at where the nearest Steiner School was and enrolled the children at Wynstones.

"We nervously did it and felt very brave about taking the children out of mainstream education. "But it all fitted in immediately and we've all been very happy."