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| Maestro Eamonn Dougan (photo: Peachtree Photography) |
On August 16th 2017 I met with Eamonn Dougan in Ludlow, Shropshire,
England. An inspirational director and renowned baritone, he is fast emerging
as a leading conductor of the younger generation. Eamonn Dougan read music at
New College, Oxford, before continuing his vocal and conducting studies at the
Guildhall School of Music and Drama. Informed by his singing, Eamonn is an
engaging communicator with a particular passion for Bach, the French Baroque
and 20th century English repertoire, including MacMillan. Today he
serves as the associate conductor of the world-renowned vocal ensemble “The
Sixteen”.
PH: If I understand correctly, you have a great interest in Polish Baroque
music and have made a deep study of it. Would you like to talk about it?
ED: Yes. This is a project I have been running with The Sixteen. It came
about when we were approached by a Polish artistic foundation, the Adam
Mickiewicz Institute (Mickiewicz was a Polish literary figure). It was the
institute’s initiative. They sent over some scores to The Sixteen. We had a
look at them and decided it would be a worthwhile project. It has actually
turned out to be far more than that and has gone from strength to strength: this
is repertoire of real worth and music that nobody, certainly in the UK, has
ever come across before, except for maybe some violin pieces by Mielczewski. I
had never come across Pękiel or Gorczycki or Mielczewski, nor the Italians
Pacelli and Bertolusi. Giovanni Francesco Anerio and Luca Marenzio, who spent
time in Poland, are fairly known names. It’s interesting to discover that there
was a whole swarm of Italians who went and worked in Poland. I have researched
the programs alongside a very fine Polish musicologist - Barbara
Przybyszewska-Jarmińska. She has been wonderful in helping me devise the
programs and in providing scores. I would say she is the world authority on
Polish music of this period; she has written an important book about music in
Poland in this time. So, with her guiding me, it has been a valuable experience
exploring this music...a voyage of discovery.
PH: And you have done several recordings of it.
ED: Yes. Five volumes now and I think it is true to say that there has been
a premiere recording on each disc. There is also an incredible story about one
of the Marenzio Masses on the disc titled “Helper and Protector”. Till
recently, the Missa super “Iniquos odio habui” was familiar only in the form of
the Kyrie and Gloria movements, preserved in sources that were produced in
Protestant environments and adapted to their needs. The first recording of the
whole cycle of the Ordinary, including the Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei, has
been made possible thanks to a copy from 1603 originating from Silesia which,
from the 19th century until 1945, was part of a large collection of music
manuscripts from the 16th and 17th centuries held in the Stadtbibliothek in
Wroclaw. That collection, which after World War II was considered lost, was
appropriated by the Soviet authorities and, during the 1950s, secretly
transferred to the Staatsbibliothek Preussischer Kulturbesitz in former East
Berlin. Declassified since the fall of the Berlin Wall, it is now accessible to
scholars and musicians.
PH: Eamonn, where were you born?
ED: I was born in Bromley, Kent. Both my parents are Irish but I was born
in the UK, so I have a foot in both camps.
PH: Are you from a musical family?
ED: After a fashion, yes. There are no other professional musicians, but my
mother was, by all accounts, an excellent singer when she was younger and my
father was a chorister in the Armagh Cathedral. Music was always on the
record-player at home.
PH: What were your own early music experiences?
ED: I started piano lessons at quite an early age. Music was always
something that has brought me comfort; it is always what I turn to, the most
constant thing in my life. It has always been there. I was at a school in southeast
London, not a specifically musical school.
PH: When did you do your serious career training?
ED: It all really started when I went to university: I was lucky enough to
win a place to read Music at New College, Oxford, and I received a choral
scholarship to sing in the chapel choir there, which is a very renowned
institution. I sang under the directorship of Edward Higginbottom, and that is
where it all began for me. He was an inspiration and, without doubt, I would
not be doing what I do today if it were not for him. There, I did three years
as an undergraduate and choral scholar. Once I finished my degree I didn’t feel
ready to leave Oxford - I had too much going on, having set up various groups:
I had a group I was conducting that was doing some really interesting things,
exploring music of the French Baroque, which was a particular passion of mine;
this was also Edward’s great speciality, so he was helping me with that. I
stayed on in Oxford for a further two years, singing as a lay clerk. Then I met
a wonderful singing teacher - Susan McCulloch. She encouraged me to apply to
the Guildhall School of Music in London to do postgraduate vocal studies there
and I was lucky enough to get in, where I did two years of study.
PH: When did you actually start singing professionally?
ED: The great thing about being at New College was that we sang six days
out of seven - a real crash course. Your musical standards just rise within
weeks. That was incredible training. I had not sung at anywhere near that level
till I got there. We were working with Christopher Hogwood, René Jacobs -
singing for great conductors - as well as for Edward. It was work on a highly professional
standard. We were also singing with the Academy of Ancient Music, the King’s
Consort and the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment.
PH: When did you begin conducting?
ED: I had started conducting at school, actually. I don’t really know how
it began. I just felt this urge to do it and I would go to our local library,
which had a music hire section. I would take scores out, also taking home
recordings of the works. So, I started looking at such scores as the Duruflé
Requiem, the Mozart Requiem and the Fauré Requiem...
PH: Did you study conducting?
ED: Not at that stage. That came later.
PH: After Oxford, I believe you started your London career as a lay clerk
in London.
ED: Yes. I started singing in- and deputising in various churches. That’s
how you start to get onto the circuit. I then joined some of the smaller groups
around London. That helped to support me through my studies at the Guildhall School
as well. When I left Guildhall, I couldn’t make ends meet just from singing, so
I took a teaching job as well...teaching as a peripatetic singing teacher a
couple of days a week. I then got a job conducting a chamber choir. It was a
real “portfolio career”. You often find young musicians will perform, teach and
do whatever. I had a good church job at the Brompton Oratory in London for six
years; it is a huge Catholic church with a fine choral tradition, located right
next to the Victoria and Albert Museum. I met quite a lot of colleagues there
who were coming in deputising. That, in turn through people I met there, led to
colleagues suggesting to Harry Christophers, director of The Sixteen, that he
take me into the group. I came into The Sixteen as a deputy, started working
with them and was lucky enough that a space came up in the group and Harry
asked me to join. After a couple of years, he made me his assistant
conductor and then I became the associate conductor.
PH: What about your solo singing?
ED: Well, that is something that has very much taken a back seat over the
last few years. I used to do a lot of it, but have kind-of made a pragmatic
decision that I am now focusing on conducting. That is where I see my future.
You can spread yourself too thin. I used to sing quite a bit of opera as
well and, ten years ago, made a decision to stop doing that, too. Once I
started conducting more and really wanting to focus on that, I thought I
couldn’t be all these different things. That’s when I cut the opera out. Over
the last four-or-so years, my solo work has really dropped off as well. But
that’s all right. I’m okay with that because conducting is what I do now.
PH: Let’s go back to the question of your studying conducting. Where did
you do that?
ED: On the job. Initially. Edward was my big influence. People used to tell
me that I looked like him when I conducted...that I conducted like him, that
is. You pick it up “on the street”, so to speak. I had worked for some great
conductors, but also some people who aren’t very good conductors; so,
hopefully, that way you learn what not to do as well. But I reached a point
where I knew I didn’t have the conducting technique that I needed and, as I was
starting to do some bigger repertoire with orchestra as well, I felt I needed
some help. Fortuitously, I met Martyn Brabbins when I chorus-mastered for him
at the St. Endellion Festival in Cornwall. He was conducting “Death in Venice”
when I chorus-mastered for him. Meeting him was another life-changing moment.
He is one of the most phenomenally, technically gifted conductors I know of, as
well as being a wonderful man. I watched him rehearse for two weeks. After the
first performance, I said to him: “I want to learn to do what you can do.” For
many years, Martyn has been running a conducting course as part of the St.
Magnus Festival in Orkney (the festival was founded by Peter Maxwell Davies). He
suggested I come to study there with him in Orkney, which I did, attending an
intensive two-week course doing proper symphonic repertoire - Beethoven
Symphony No.1, Brahms No.2, Bartok’s “Concerto for Orchestra”, Debussy’s
“Prélude à l'après-midi d'un faune”, Elgar’s Cockaigne Overture - big stuff I
had never encountered before as a conductor.
PH: He was clearly a big influence on your professional career.
ED: Yes. I have been extraordinarily lucky with the artists who have
seriously influenced my life: Edward Higginbottom, Susan McCulloch (the singing
teacher with whom I studied for ten years) and singing teacher Robert Dean (who
has been similarly life-changing). I met Harry Christophers and have worked
very closely with him. He has been a huge influence for me and a real mentor
figure. And then, as I mentioned, I met Martyn Brabbins. I feel these five
people have really shaped who I am musically today.
PH: We talked about your interest in Baroque music, but I understand you do
also conduct 20th century and new music.
ED: Yes. I have always tried to make sure that I don’t do just early music
and I have actually conducted quite a few world premieres of new works - works
by Gabriel Jackson (with The Sixteen), Eriks Esenvalds and Nico Muhly, the latter
two with Britten Sinfonia. In the coming weeks, I am going to be conducting the
world premiere of a piece by Thomas Hyde at a festival in Belgium. The whole
festival will be based around Magnificat settings. We commissioned a Magnificat
from him for The Sixteen and will be highlighting it alongside some older
settings of the text. Tom and I were actually at school together. Even as a
young lad, he was obsessed with composing. He is now a professional composer
and a fellow at King’s College, London, also teaching at Oxford University. And
now, some 25 or 30 years after meeting him again, I commissioned him to write a
piece I am premiering with The Sixteen.
A lot of performance of new music has come through The Sixteen. We are very
lucky to have a close association with composer James MacMillan which,
especially over the last few years, has been a joy to develop. About three
years ago, James set up his own festival - the Cumnock Tryst - in his hometown
of Cumnock in Ayrshire, up in Scotland. I have been directing the Festival
Chorus there for the last three years and am going back in October to do
another year. The Sixteen has a training scheme for young singers, called
Genesis Sixteen, supported by the Genesis Foundation; it is run by
philanthropist John Studzinski. A patron of the arts, he has been supporting
The Sixteen and funding this training course. So, for the past three years, I
have taken a group of Genesis Sixteen singers up to Cumnock Tryst and they have
performed there, either as soloists with the Festival Chorus or doing a program
on their own. James wrote a piece for us which we premiered there. It was
amazing to do a MacMillan premiere. Next year I am going to be conducting the
world premiere of a big piece he is writing for brass band, string quartet, the
Festival Chorus and tenor Ian Bostridge. It is hugely exciting to be lined up
to conduct a work like that.
PH: This week you are in Ludlow directing mostly amateur singers at a
Lacock choral course. Do you like working with amateurs?
ED: It is something I have always done. I do love it and get a lot out of
it. I like to work hard and I like to work people hard - that’s what I am here
to do. I’m enjoying this week, because I like sharing this Polish Baroque
church music, music that not many other people do. I think that’s part of my
job with this music, to spread the word of it. Being a singer and having
studied singing for so many years now, I love working with singers. I feel I
know how to make improvements for people. I know what I am talking about. I
know what’s “under the bonnet”. It’s about speaking the right language and,
because of the wonderful teachers I have had - Sue McCulloch and Robert Dean -
I feel I have been extremely well taught and it’s lovely to be able to impart
that knowledge to people and help them improve their singing, whatever standard
they are at. It is very gratifying for me when you give an exercise and you can
hear the improvement immediately.
PH: Do you write in words?
ED: I don’t have that much cause to, really, but I enjoy it when I do it.
The most recent things I have had to write are the liner notes for the Polish
CDs we have been recording. But most of my time is taken up with learning music
and a great deal of administration. When you are a conductor, 90 per cent of
your time is actually spent in setting things up, rather than actual
music-making! So, the time spent in music-making is to be cherished.
PH: Where do you stand vis-à-vis the Authentic Movement?
ED: Gosh...how long have you got? I have been brought up with it. It has
changed a lot in the last twenty years if I think back to when I was a student,
working with Chris Hogwood and the Academy of Ancient Music. I think when you
have the opportunity to perform this music with all the right elements -
the appropriate bows and violins, instruments strung the correct way -
then it is wonderful, but I am not exclusive at all. I’m very happy to do
Bach on modern instruments. My preference would be to do it with period
instruments, but I am by no means exclusive. I’m not a musicologist, but I’m
not a purist either. For me, it is much more important to just be doing the
music and, honestly, I’m not enough of a specialist. There is a lot more I need
to learn about the whole Authentic Movement in terms of doing stuff with
instruments, but I’m very happy to be guided on that by people who know more
than I. So, this week having David Hatcher guiding the instrumentalists has
been fantastic. He has taken a lot of things I have suggested and actually
changed some of them because he has a better idea of what instruments work well
with which parts. For the Polish recordings, I go to the experts and get their
opinions on how to do things. I would much rather ask their opinion and tap
into their expertise.
PH: You perform many different kinds of music. Do you have any preferences?
ED: Put it this way: for me, the greatest music to perform is that of Bach.
I can’t go a year without doing performances of Bach.
PH: When it isn’t music, what interests you?
ED: My children, my wife. I’ve got a young family - two boys. One is seven,
the other two. My wife is a singer as well. She is busy. It is important for us
to make time for the family. Quite simply, that’s where I spend the rest of my
time.
PH: Maestro Eamonn Dougan, it has been most interesting talking to you. Many thanks
for making time during this very busy week of music-making.
