ABO Orchestra Manager of the Year 2021: Crispin Woodhead

Crispin Woodhead certainly wasn’t lacking portfolio bandwidth when his case for becoming the new chief executive of the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment was being considered in 2015. Brace yourself. Oxford modern languages graduate. Singer/organist/pianist. Schoolteacher. Creator, online support service for music teachers. Artist manager. Undertaker (trust me). Plus (of more relevance) his previous role as co-founder (with Jonathan Cohen) of the Arcangelo period instrument orchestra.

Woodhead freely admits the OAE must have been taking a bit of a punt when appointing a self-confessed career maverick (his word). As it happens, a restlessly energetic, adaptable and ever-imaginative individual has provided the ideal hand on the tiller to chart a course for the orchestra across the raging Covidian seas. And even amidst the wealth of stories of extraordinary work done by his counterparts in orchestras across the UK during a desperate 2020, Woodhead’s nomination for the ABO/Classical Music Orchestra Manager of the Year Award was impossible to top.

The moment when the gravity of the coronavirus threat first hit home is a scar on Woodhead’s memory. ‘This was before the first lockdown, when our finance director, Ivan Rockey, raised the question of what our policy would be if concerts were cancelled due to the virus. For 15 seconds I was thinking this was a touch alarmist… and then it was “Oh God!”. It really hit home what the consequences could be.’

Not far into that initial lockdown, Woodhead found himself putting in hours on the phone reassuring individual orchestra members as best he could. ‘For these brilliant people to have everything in their diaries erased was absolutely desperate. This involved a double loss — of both income and identity as musicians. It was a case of letting them know that if they found themselves in real difficulties the orchestra wouldn’t abandon them…allocating money, for example, or generating work where possible. We did what we could. It could never be enough, though.’

Woodhead was determined his organisation’s reaction to the crisis should be active rather than passive. ‘You couldn’t just sit tight and wait for it to all be over. For one thing, I was determined to only furlough staff when there was no other option. After all, they’re an extraordinary team — the very best.’ One particular initiative helped massively in keeping that team fully engaged — the standout feature of Woodhead’s award nomination. After months of project assessment and then preparation, the OAE became the first orchestra in the country to move its entire operation into a secondary school — Acland Burghley School in Camden, north London, an area where the OAE already had strong education links.

‘It was agreed that our existing accommodation agreement with King’s Place should come to an end,’ Woodhead recalls, ‘so a new home was needed. My feeling already was that the whole basis of traditional concert activity needs a complete re-think, especially in the area of democratising access to music. So, inspired by the work of the Deutsche Kammerphilharmonie in Bremen, I had this idea of the OAE collaborating on a day-to-day basis with a school. I wrote to various London borough councils and a response came back from Kat Miller, director of operations at Acland Burghley School. She suggested we came and had a look at their Grade II-listed assembly hall. This proved to be more than usable. A little resonant, perhaps, but a good rehearsal space. Then the headteacher, Nick John — a leader of remarkable talent and a pivotal figure in all this — announced that there were three rooms available that we could rent as office space and storage.’

Result: the OAE moved into Acland Burghley last autumn and the process of exploring the range of possible ways in which the orchestra could integrate into the life of the school began. Things have moved apace. Woodhead references such initiatives as one involving special needs pupils — tapping into the skills of Cherry Forbes, OAE education director — and then an exercise in which students created their own choreography for Rameau’s Les Sauvages. ‘Remarkable,’ says Woodhead. ‘A real breakthrough project.’

Plenty more leaps out in the award nomination Woodhead’s colleagues covertly put together. For example, his dedication to digital across Covid Year 1 exemplified the insistence that the OAE should not merely weather the crisis. ‘Crispin had the vision that we should set up our own digital platform to allow our musicians the creative freedom to explore repertoire that interests them,’ says the nomination. ‘With his support, our musicians created 32 unique films for the launch of our digital platform, OAE Player.’

Far from standing on the sidelines while others fleshed out his vision, Woodhead joined colleagues in learning the skills of a professional film-maker — duly shooting, editing and mixing content for the orchestra’s online offer. This built on foundations laid by Zen Grisdale, OAE digital and technical director. A concern for the lifelong learning community during lockdown led to Woodhead creating a series of YouTube productions in which OAE players de-mystified the thickets of music terminology: ‘The Illustrated Theory of Music’. Apart from any other benefit, a source of income for locked-down musicians involved.

And Woodhead being the maverick he is, not even a global pandemic was going to distract him in 2020 from furthering the OAE’s contribution to meeting that other daunting threat to the health of the planet — climate change. Last year saw him author the orchestra’s first annual carbon budget report, endorsed by Professor Katherine Willis of Oxford University. To show he meant business, the orchestra went on two tours to central Europe in 2020…by train. ‘It’s fine talking about planting trees,’ he says ‘but one put in the ground today may well not make its full impact on climate change for a century. I’ve done a great deal of reading on all this. It’s clear that there’s a margin for error in the predictions being made concerning global warming. OK. But what you can be accurate about is the measurement of the impact your organisation is making in carbon terms in crucial areas like touring.'

‘Travelling by train to Budapest rather than flying represented a massive saving in CO2 emissions. Yes, the orchestra members have to be paid more if they’re away longer, but it’s far better to tighten belts or make a bit of a loss - and do what’s right. Of course, I wondered how the players would react to being on a train all that time, but they enjoyed it. Far better than getting up in the middle of the night to catch a plane at 5am, rehearse on arrival and perform on the same day, then come back the next morning, first thing. The players said the food was so much better on the train and that they greatly valued the conversations they had with each other during the journeys.’

One more way, then, in which the maverick takes the long view, envisaging a very different future. It feels almost short-sighted to draw Woodhead back to the immediate challenges of toughing out the Covid crisis. With a good way still to go before we can all count ourselves in the clear, what’s his mood? Daft question. ‘I’m completely optimistic! Hope springs eternal. What’s the alternative?’