Brigantes Orchestra: Big plans revealed for a Yorkshire symphony orchestra

The Brigantes Orchestra – made up entirely of professional players – is based in Sheffield. Why the name? It derives from the tribe of Ancient Britons who once held firm grip on the north of England, and who controlled territory from the Derbyshire of today right up into the middle of Northumberland. Territorially, they were the largest of all the English tribes, and they were fiercely independent, but were astute enough to get on with the Romans when they invaded.

It's that independence of spirit and purpose which – hopes Quentin – will empower the players in the new ensemble.

Yorkshire isn’t Quentin’s home turf. Far from it. Now 47, he is the son of a trawlerman, and was born into a fishing family on the south coast. When it came to holiday jobs, there was only one option for the teenage lad – out on the sea, with his dad, hauling in the catch. “It was tough. Really tough.I had a lot of respect for my father,” he reflects. “I saw at first hand the things that he had to cope with every time he set out into the English Channel. It wasn’t an easy life, far from it, and I certainly didn’t want to follow him into that business, I didn’t have the same mindset as he did.”

However, from about the age of three or four, Quentin was attracted to music. “There’s a story”, he says with a smile, “that there was a piano in the house, and on one occasion I managed to crawl up to reach the keyboard, and picked out ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star', without any prompting or pushing. It just came out naturally. My parents were advised to wait a while before they let me have proper lessons, and when I was about five, they found me the right teacher, which is so important. You need someone who is encouraging, and not forceful or threatening. We’ve all heard stories of people who feel that they have a talent for music in some way, an instrument that they’d like to play, maybe, and who were put off by finding a teacher who was too strict, or uncompromising, or just difficult to get on with. People are enthused if they discover that something is fun – and that goes for art, history, sport, whatever it may be.”

The young Quentin also discovered that he had a talent for composition – and was even writing music for his primary school Christmas production before he went up into senior school. It seems that someone enquired “Who wants to write some songs for the pantomime?”, and it was Quentin who replied “Me, please”, and he was assigned to do just that. To this day, one of his “great joys” is conducting works from the piano, “I really do like that very much”, he admits.

He went off to college in Birmingham, where he studied composition and piano, but at that time, he could find no-one who could offer tuition in conduction – and he didn’t go fully down that path until he found himself in The Netherlands, and at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, where he worked with inspirational musicians like Jac van Steen, Ed Spanjaard and Michal Hamel. His professional debut as a conductor found him on a pretty prestigious podium – in the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester, and in front of the internationally-famed Halle Orchestra. He was still only 25 years old.

Since then, Quentin has raised his baton all over Europe, and further afield, for orchestras like The Dutch Radio Philharmonic, and the Danish National Symphony, and he has a great affection for the Young Sinfonia, the orchestra of emerging talents that is affiliated with the North East’s Royal Northern Sinfonia.

He never seems to be far away from a plane, his scores now all stored on an iPad.

The idea for Brigantes came when he was talking with a close friend on several issues – among them the lack of live orchestral music in Yorkshire that comes from Yorkshire and the fact that there are a lot of people out there who know their classics, or who would like to know about this genre of music, but who are slightly wary, or even worse, baffled by it.

He’s full of praise for the Orchestra of Opera North – and, indeed, for that company as a whole – but slightly puzzled by the fact that the county, in general, must rely on sporadic appearances from visiting orchestras, who arrive, play, and depart.

“One of the great things we found, when we were pulling Brigantes together,” he says, “was that there are simply scores of amazingly talented musicians in the county, and in particularly South Yorkshire, who love the place, but who – for the simple reason of earning a living – are always having to get the train to London, or to drive to Manchester or Birmingham, you name it, and then they have to return home – to Barnsley, or Sheffield or where-ever they may live.

“One of the many other reasons why we wanted to start Brigantes was that people can now identify with ‘their’ orchestra, ‘their’ players. The main venue that we use is Sheffield Cathedral – and that’s for many reasons. It’s the right size, it has amazing acoustics, the organisation of the Cathedral is second to none, and it has all the facilities that we need – there’s a café, a bar, and plenty of seating.

“It also allows the players to engage with the audiences after the show, and to discuss the music. There was one time when I was just going back to my dressing room during the interval, and someone stopped me, and started discussing what they’d just heard. That was wonderful. Contact, feed-back, appreciation.”

The Brigantes offered their first concert season in 2019, but, like so many others, life was cruelly interrupted by the pandemic, and it is only now that they are getting firmly back into their stride. He loves the fact that the original Brigantes were – apparently – a highly sophisticated and cultured tribe, and adds with a smile: “What are we, but a tribe of musicians?”

While The Brigantes are – for the moment – brought together as individuals for each concert, there are firm plans to move, in time, to their being a permanent and full-time orchestra, “part of the fabric and aspirations of the city,” with all players under contract. “In this current world of uncertainty in the arts,” says Quentin, “you have to move with both care, and caution. It’s ‘baby steps’ toward our goal and ambition. But we do have a growing band of sponsors and supporters, all of whom are very loyal.” The Brigantes are a registered charity, and enthusiastic audience members make regular donations. And ticket prices for concerts won’t break the bank, either – there’s even a scheme to entice younger audiences in, with 16 and unders going free of charge.

He and his colleagues have, rather cleverly adopted little techniques to entice the audiences. All the advertising fliers, for example, are beautifully designed – Quentin’s ideas are transmitted to the image and the wording – and also themed.

“Getting out the message, letting people know that we are here. And yes, we love it when audiences discover a work with which they are not, perhaps, overly familiar. Programming is essential – dropping in something new by what, is perhaps, stealth. Sandwiching it between a pair of favourites. It’s a battle to win and to keep your audiences.” And then he smiles: “But then, the original Brigantes were pretty good at winning battles as well, weren’t they?”

Brigantes Orchestra: Winter Warmer (including extracts from Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker Suite, Respighi and “a dusting of carols”, Sheffield Cathedral, Saturday December 17, 4.00pm.

www.thebrigantes.uk