An Interview with Sinead O’Carroll, the woman behind the International String Competition.
Waking up one day and asking herself “What can I do to help young musicians?” Sinead O’Carroll became the energy and inspiration behind the International String Competition, supported by Windsor Festival.
With a background in music, she started playing flute when she was eleven, went through the Royal Academy of Music, and then played professionally after that. When she was at the Academy she was constantly organizing everything, she says; “’Having noticed that the girls who toured with the Philharmonia orchestra were always well dressed, I wrote to the Managing Director of Harrison Parrott, one of the top 5 music agencies in the world, and told him I would like to be involved in orchestral touring. I stayed with Harrison Parrott for 10 years and became an associate director there.”
With her broad experience, Sinead has always been aware of the difficulties young people face getting a performance opportunity.
Martin Denny was looking for a way forward for young people too, the festival was already doing a lunchtime recital, which he was looking to do more with, and Sinead says; “We really felt we could turn that around and use it to create an international competition to look for string players throughout the world. Offering them not only a chance to perform in a competition, but also to have a lunchtime recital for their CV, so when they go onto the next thing they can say they did a recital for Windsor Festival.”
Her vision is ambitious. “We also thought it would be a fantastic idea to bring a competition together of that nature to Windsor, and start to introduce the Windsor audience to young musicians who they will see grow.” The idea is that the winner will be very much supported by the community of Windsor, and Windsor Festival. “Windsor will then have the loyalty of these musicians, who in a few years time, when their artist fees are so much higher and the festival may be less likely to be able to afford them, will feel a commitment to our town and come back, because we gave them their first chance.” The winner already comes back to do a concerto with a leading UK orchestra the following year as part of the prize.
“We also want, very much, to have a project whereby the people who heard them in the final could possibly benefit their further career, so we didn’t just want a panel of musicians, I have seen many panels of just musicians, we wanted to have an orchestra director there who could possibly give them a concerto in the future, we wanted a big, top, music agent. We wanted to have a conductor on board who, again, would potentially give the contestants work.”
“The jury panel meet for a glass of wine afterwards. They tell us exactly how the performances went, they go up to the finalist and give very solid advice as to their potential and where they should be studying. The Finalist must not waste the next 12 months of their life following a win here at Windsor Festival.”
Sinead says they want Windsor to be a festival, and town, that opens up opportunities for the contestants, or at least possibilities. “It is then entirely up to them as to how they perform in the final, and what they make of those opportunities.”
That is how they started off with it and that’s how Sinead and Martin are growing it. This year, from over 50 entries, eight were selected to play in the semi-finals, which took place as a series of lunchtime concerts at Windsor Parish Church throughout the Festival. Four were then chosen to participate in the final, an evening concert held at the Theatre Royal, during which the audience had the opportunity to award a prize of their own.
She now has three children, and as orchestral touring trips mean traveling as far away as Japan or America, Sinead didn’t want to do that any more, “It was a real wrench to get on a flight to travel to the other side of the world.” She opened, and now runs, her own agency, O’Carroll Artist and Project Management, and loves life in Windsor with a passion. She says, “When I was driving across the bridge moving out from London, I said they will have to take me out in a coffin.”
“It’s friendly, with everything on your doorstep, you can go for walks for miles in the park if that’s what you want to do, or bike down the river, people love visiting you, it’s a global destination. That’s when you realise just how great is the history, the accessibility, nothing beats Windsor in the summer - it is Britain’s best kept secret.”
For Sinead the interaction with Windsor Festival is the icing on the cake. “I think what Martin has done with the festival is just extraordinary, really, bearing in mind the money problems that are hitting every festival we know. In my experienced opinion, Windsor Festival is on a par with some of the major festivals in Europe, not just on a UK basis. On a UK basis it’s The Proms, the Edinburgh Festival and I would say Windsor Festival comes a close third, that invites so many orchestral evening events in the extraordinary venues that we have, you know people have a lovely association with the word Windsor.”
“Does it feel right to use my past experience in this way? Absolutely, it is purely on a voluntary basis, it is sort of my giving back period.” Sinead emphasizes, “I’ve got a lot of contacts in the field.” Sinead and Martin now have a few concerts in a series, the winner is going to be able to play the title at the Beaconsfield society, Winchester Festival have agreed to lunchtime recital, and two at La Mortella, Ischia, promoted by the William Walton Trust. ”At some point we hope to have ten concerts we’ll be able to offer the winner, it’s only in its second year, we are achieving it on a complete shoe string.”
Windsor Festival, Martin and I are truly delighted to have the support of the Patron of the Festival, His Royal Highness the Earl of Wessex, who has attended both finals and whose presence and support means so much to the young competitors.
“Our ambition is to support a new breed of work, and get new works commissioned, again as part of the festival portfolio, and these will go out with the young person and spread the news of the festival, and of Windsor. It would be nice for the International Strings competition to get to the stage, in an artist’s eye, that they would love the opportunity to play in the Waterloo Chamber.”
Waterloo Chamber by Doug Harding
During this interview, Sinead dealt with a team of builders and decorators, a home in the disarray that comes with the territory, two young children back from school already, and excited by the novelty of all that was going on around them, she responded cordially to a nagging phone and cooked a Pavlova. With her passion and experience, and her ability to balance motherhood, business and care of her clients, it seems certain that all she envisages will happen.
Sinead O’Carroll can be found at her agency O’Carroll Artist and Project Managment
International String Competition is part of the Windsor Festival
Doug Harding is a Windsor based photographer, more inside the castle walls can be found on Kaptured Moments
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