MACAU HAS ITS OWN ORCHESTRA

It would seem that most people, including myself, when they first hear of Macau, imagine a paradisaical spot with charming corners and old buildings and... a casino. If we give them a map to look at, they will see that Macau is but a tiny dot in the enormous expanse of China, where Portuguese sailors came ashore for the first time to found the "City of the Name of God, none other more loyal".

These facts were left behind in the school desks along with grammar books and square roots. And so little trace can be found of what took place in the four centuries of history leading up to the present. The city, with its unique characteristics, remains almost unknown to the outside world. However, I shall leave these unanswered questions to historians. There is, however, one thing in which it is the same as every other city in the world. The people who live here, be they long-term residents or people passing through, be they European, Chinese, Philippine or Australian, be they businessmen, teachers, artists or civil servants, all of these people experience love, hate, sadness and happiness. All of us need leisure activities, all of us need human contact and, most of all, all of us need to nourish our souls with beauty.

The mysterious aura which surrounds great artistic creations is capable of transporting us to other planes, of making us dream while wide awake, of touching some emotion deep in our souls. It can overcome all barriers whether they are cultural, linguistic or social. Of all the arts, music is the expression which can most effectively attain this objective.

Beethoven once said that music began where words left off. Never has this been so true as it is of Macau, where music can often form a link between people whose languages are mutually incomprehensible.

Many people have asked me why we should bother creating an orchestra in a city with such unique social and political characteristics. My reply has always been that it is precisely because of this that Macau needs an orchestra. Just as Berlin, Vienna or New York would be completely different if they did not have their Philharmonics, Macau, as a city with a Western cultural inheritance, should do its utmost to keep this culture alive. This should be done not just by retaining cold monuments which remind us of a distant past, but also warming the hearts of its inhabitants through cultural activities.

Successful efforts made in important cultural centres worldwide have proved that the presence of a symphony orchestra plays an important role in bringing a community together, whether in concert halls or in schools. It fulfils a need for quality entertainment and in the case of educational concerts, it provides a source of information, stimulating in youngsters a taste for music. A symphony orchestra is thus a generator of culture.

"THE RIGHT TO BOO"

Judging by the reactions that we received from the public, we can conclude that applause at the end of a concert does not pertain to gender, race or religion - it arises only from people's sensibilities. It is a joy for the performer to know that he or she has succeeded in communicating with the audience and inspired this spontaneous response. Ruy Barbosa, a Brazilian author, wrote an interesting little piece entitled "The Right to Boo" in which he put forward the idea that the audience should not only be allowed to clap but also to jeer if need be. Joking aside, it is true that if we are to clap or to jeer, to praise or to criticise, we must have prior information and knowledge, for we can hardly say we dislike something which we do not know. Those institutions responsible for stimulating cultural awareness and promoting cultural interests within the Territory should offer a wide range of quality entertainment options to the public, as well as the space to house them.

This is the spirit in which I have carried out my work with the Macau Chamber Orchestra and which led me to expand it into the Macau Sinfonietta, which gave its first performance on the 20th of October, 1989 in the S. Lourenço Church in Macau, during the 3rd International Music Festival.

FROM THE CHAMBER TO THE CONCERT HALL

The shift from the already established Macau Chamber Orchestra composed of twenty musicians, to the Macau Sinfonietta with more than twice that number, was (and still is) not an easy task. This has been due to various reasons, particularly the financial burden of paying for this kind of change.

In an article published recently by the magazine Symphony, Lawrence Leighton Smith, Musical Director of the Louisville Orchestra, discusses this matter at length:

"You cannot reduce a symphony orchestra and then call it a "chamber orchestra" - it would be like shrinking a football to produce a tennis ball. A chamber orchestra is not a less expensive version of a symphony orchestra. It is a unique musical institution with unique musical needs. Not all musicians and conductors are capable of or interested in forging a chamber orchestra. Few communities are capable of supporting one.

The repertoire for chamber orchestra is totally different. Standard orchestral fare would be limited: you must stop after Beethoven's Fourth Symphony, you wouldn't be able to play much Mendelssohn, and there would be no Brahms, no Strauss, no Tchaikovsky. (Just the thought of Tchaikovsky with a chamber orchestra makes the stomach turn!) For the most part, familiar repertoire would have to stop around 1850. There is plenty of Haydn and Mozart before that, and as the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra has shown, you can adventurously commission new chamber orchestra works, but your audiences would soon become bored if all they ever heard was the very old and the very new. A chamber orchestra is precluded from playing the great symphonic works in our orchestral tradition.

Funding a chamber orchestra is not easier than funding a symphony orchestra. In all likelihood, it will be much more difficult. The public perception of a chamber orchestra is totally different-people hear the word "chamber" and think of delicate chamber music. When they hear "symphony" they think of a big, powerful sound. Just as the pop concert audiences rarely make the move to classical subscription concerts, so may devout symphony people be reluctant to embrace a chamber orchestra.

Successful chamber ventures -the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra, the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra, Orpheus - were designed, built, and sold to the public for the purpose of exploring the chamber orchestra repertoire. They exist in large cities with large population bases and generous corporations and foundations. Most importantly, they all thrive in cities where the alternative of a full symphony orchestra is readily available. Unless you are in a big city, you can only support one orchestra. And if you can only support one orchestra, a luscious, full-stringed symphony orchestra is artistically and financially more viable."

THE PREMIERE OF THE MACAU SINFONITETTA

It is not my place to judge the artistic and technical skills of the Macau Sinfonietta during its premiere performance in the Macau International Music Festival - the critics have already done their job in that respect. I would, however, like to indicate some of the feelings experienced by both myself and the members of the orchestra on that night, feelings which we would be more than happy to experience anew over the coming years.

Given the limited amount of time available due to an intensive rehersal schedule and performances with guest artists, it was a privilege to be able to work with professionals of the calibre of the Gulbenkian Choir. They quickly grasped my approach to Rossini's "Stabat Mater" and the suggestions made by the soloists Jenifer Smith, Liliana Bizineche, Neil MacKie and Oliveira Lopes made a great contribution to the success of the performance.

The Macau Sinfonietta is the product of the diversity of cultures to be found in Macau. Some of its members do not even speak a common language and yet on the evening, it served as a link between Macau and the rest of the world.

The lengthy applause which we received shall remain engraved in our memories and enable us to say with pride: "Macau has its own orchestra!".

* Veiga Jardim is a graduate of the course in Conducting and Composition of the Music School in the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro. The Macau Cultural Institute invited him to take up the position of Resident Conductor and Musical Director of the Macau Chamber Orchestra/Macau Sinfonietta in 1988.