Musical master's Lakeland return

Beethoven’s Fourth Piano Concerto, starring in demand St Bees-born and bred pianist, Sam Haywood, also features in the terrific Lakeland Sinfonia's programme.

On the orchestra's podium will be Wyn Davies, undoubtedly one of Lakeland’s favourite visiting conductors, and a star turn during many a Lakeland Sinfonia Jack Symons Christmas Concert with his cheery disposition and Santa headgear.

So what keeps bringing the 63-year-old musician back to the Westmorland Hall: "I like the atmosphere of the orchestra; and the level of playing is high," explains Wyn. "I don't know anyone who wouldn't want to keep returning to the Lakes."

Wyn, director of music for New Zealand Opera, was born and brought up at Gowerton, near Swansea.

He first got into music through his grandmother: "She was a chapel organist, so I learned the piano; my mother an amateur violinist so I learned the violin and my father thought he could sing tenor. There was always music around.

"The Welsh National Opera (WNO), who gave me my first job as a rèpètiteur, then gave me first chances to conduct professionally. I had been a violinist in a few orchestras, and like a lot of players I had an airily dismissive view of 'the idiot on the box.' So I thought I'd better try it myself.

"As a schoolboy I was accompanist to a male choir. Their conductor was someone I learnt a lot from. Then at WNO I understudied the Hungarian/German conductor Georg Fischer in many operas and began to understand what professional conducting was. Since my twenties I've been trying to do what Bernard Haitink does, and I'm still trying to work it out."

As for music to relax to, Wyn says he doesn't listen to classical music very much at home, but is keen on solo piano jazz musicians, especially the recordings of Scottish jazz pianist, David Newton.

Wyn's baton wielding talents are highly sought after with one of his biggest commitments as director of music for New Zealand Opera: "A friend of mine, the director Jonathan Alver, was working in Auckland and invited me to conduct. That was at the end of the 1990s. I returned once or twice and subsequently the national company asked me to take on a bigger role. I go there for three months, maybe four each year to conduct productions and audition casts. Much of my role is to keep up with singers at this end of the world with a view to inviting them to New Zealand. Many of them are kiwis who live and work in Europe."

Wyn also did a spell conducting the prestigious Metropolitan Opera in New York. "Because of my work at ENO I was invited to do some assisting of conductors there at a time when my wife was already working in New York. I stayed for two stimulating years. I did a lot of rehearsing, sometimes of people with famous names, but none of the international conductors I was understudying ever fell under the proverbial bus. So eventually I thought that if I really wanted to gain performance experience I'd better leave and get some."

Additionally, he spent time in Canada with the Banff Centre for Performing Arts and directed an award-winning production of Kurt Weill’s Threepenny Opera: "I made wonderful contacts and friends there. It was a crucible of talents. For the first time I met people who were compelled to write, and I gained great respect for them. It takes a lot of guts to expose yourself to the public in that way. That's why I respect singers and instrumental soloists so much and enjoy accompanying them."

Wyn's conducting career has been far and wide with many highlights long the way: "The most emblematic and also emotional experience that music has brought me was as the conductor of Showboat at the London Palladium on the night Nelson Mandela was released from prison. When Bruce Hubbard sang Old Man River - music that is shot through with the triumph of an enslaved population against adversity, everyone in the theatre from the stage hands to the punters at the back of the balcony felt what he was really singing about that night.

"Noone mentioned Mandela by name. They didn't need to."

Recently, Wyn has spread his conducting wings ever farther, embracing theatre and cabaret with a Just Wyn CD. "I was accompanying Linda Ormiston and Donald Maxwell (the Music Box) and they asked if I'd do a number while they were changing costume. One grew to three or four and then solo shows. It's a fun and stimulating to do (take a look at stone records.co.uk/ album/ just-wyn- volume-1). I sit at the piano and sing silly songs, though I try not to think of it as singing.

"As for conducting 'light' music I never make any distinction between the styles. You just do Rogers or Sondheim in the appropriate style as you would with Mozart or de Falla."

For tickets and further information about the eight concerts in the new LSCS 2015/16 season visit www.lakeland sinfonia.org.uk or telephone 0333-666-3366.