{"id":2534,"date":"2017-11-15T10:23:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-15T10:23:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/?p=2534"},"modified":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","modified_gmt":"2023-03-22T12:40:29","slug":"my-cardiff-is-at-the-podium-in-st-davids-hall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/2017\/11\/15\/my-cardiff-is-at-the-podium-in-st-davids-hall\/","title":{"rendered":"My Cardiff is… at the podium in St David\u2019s Hall"},"content":{"rendered":"

Michael Bell (BMus 1980)<\/span> is the founder of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra.<\/p>\n

On Friday, 15th June next year, Michael Bell will be in St David\u2019s Hall, arms aloft, ready to conduct the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) as they perform Mahler\u2019s 3rd symphony. \u201cIt\u2019s a rare chance to hear one of the most uplifting works ever written,\u201d Michael says.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a huge undertaking. Mahler believed \u201ca symphony must be like the world, it must contain everything\u201d, and the 3rd certainly lives up to that. It\u2019s scored for a large orchestra, two choruses and a soloist. But for Michael, it\u2019s worth it. \u201cIt\u2019s Mahler\u2019s hymn to nature,\u201d he says, \u201cand its sheer majesty can take your breath away.\u201d<\/p>\n

The CPO has brought the majesty of music to audiences in Cardiff and around the world for the last 35 years. Michael formed the orchestra when he left the University.<\/p>\n

\u201cI chose Cardiff because it had a real emphasis on making music,\u201d Michael says. \u201cBoth the city and the University offered an unparalleled musical environment. I made great friends and when my course finished, there were a lot of us looking for a musical outlet.\u201d Encouraged by Alun Hoddinott, then Head of Cardiff\u2019s School of Music, Michael suggested a one-off charity concert in St David\u2019s Cathedral.
\n\u201cI was so nervous I thought I was going to be sick in the font! But we got through it. Afterwards, we were all rather elated. So we said, alright then. Let\u2019s do one more.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re a community-based orchestra now, but students still come and play with us, and I love it when they do.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Wales\u2019 premier non-professional orchestra, the CPO has had some very special guest performers, from Sir Bryn Terfel and Sir Karl Jenkins (BMus 1966, Hon 2005) to Hollywood actor Michael Sheen, Bonnie Tyler and even Lord Neil Kinnock (BA 1966). \u201cWhen Brian Blessed came to narrate Prokofiev\u2019s Peter and the Wolf for us\u201d, Michael reminisces, \u201cwe changed the duck\u2019s name to Gordon, so Brian could end the concert by saying his famous line, \u2018Gordon\u2019s alive!\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

The orchestra has often gone on tour, but Michael thinks of St David\u2019s Hall as their \u201cspiritual home\u201d. \u201cI always tell the orchestra that it doesn\u2019t matter if we perform to a capacity house, or a handful of people: we must be at the top of our game. That is what an orchestra does.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Michael Bell (BMus 1980)<\/span> is the founder of the Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra.","protected":false},"author":1080,"featured_media":2537,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,39,78,4,38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-humanities-social-sciences","category-cardiff-connect","category-music","category-news","category-our-alumni"],"meta_box":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1080"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2534"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2540,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2534\/revisions\/2540"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2537"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.cardiff.ac.uk\/alumni\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}