{"id":13034,"date":"2012-11-13T12:32:33","date_gmt":"2012-11-13T12:32:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jomec.co.uk\/altcardiff\/?p=13034"},"modified":"2012-11-13T12:32:33","modified_gmt":"2012-11-13T12:32:33","slug":"cardiff-character-julian-bigg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-julian-bigg\/","title":{"rendered":"Cardiff character: Julian Bigg"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_13182\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13182  \" title=\"Julian Bigg in rehearsal\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal-300x137.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13182  \" title=\"Julian Bigg in rehearsal\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal-300x137.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Julian conducts the Royal Welsh Orchestra rehearsal for Bond at 50<\/p><\/div>\n<p>His old teacher said a budding conductor needs two things: a degree in psychology and an iron constitution. After 30 years it seems Julian Bigg has both but he sees the start of his career a bit differently.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Conducting<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\u201cLaziness,\u201d was what appealed to him. \u201cI liked playing in orchestras but I got bored quite quickly.\u201d Even in his youth orchestra in Hemel Hempstead he showed interest in conducting. \u201cI was listening to what was going on around me rather than my own thing. I wanted to be in charge of that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Apart from fundamental musicianship and the ability to read music very fast conducting is, according to Julian, all about communication. \u201cYou\u2019re communicating, without words most of the time, with a large number of people some of whom may want to kill you.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>An illustrious career<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Soon after graduating from the Royal Academy of Music in 1983, Julian was made Musical Director of <a title=\"Les Miserables\" href=\"http:\/\/www.lesmis.com\/uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Les Miserables<\/a> in London. He held the same position on The Phantom of the Opera, Sunset Boulevard and Miss Saigon. \u201cI\u2019m very proud,\u201d he asserts, \u201cthat I was the musical director for the most famous and long running shows in the West End, very early on in their lives.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Julian has worked with hundreds of orchestras across the world including Australia, Sweden and South America and was Music Supervisor for the Queen\u2019s Golden Jubilee celebrations. From concerts, theatre, opera, ballet and recording sessions, he has mastered every style.<\/p>\n<p>Joining the <a title=\"RWCMD\" href=\"http:\/\/www.rwcmd.ac.uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Royal Welsh College of Music and Drama<\/a> a couple of years ago, Julian is a musical theatre lecturer and takes great pleasure teaching the pressures of orchestral performance. \u201cI felt that to mix the orchestral training with some of the other training was really important.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>For any aspiring conductors out there, Julian has an important piece of advice. \u201cYou have to watch people. You have to watch lots of conductors both in rehearsal and in concert.\u201d<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_13187\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\" style=\"width: 480px\"><a href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal-2.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13187 \" title=\"Julian Bigg rehearsing for Bond at 50\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal-2-300x137.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" \/><noscript><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-13187 \" title=\"Julian Bigg rehearsing for Bond at 50\" src=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2012\/11\/Julian-Bigg-rehearsal-2-300x137.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"220\" \/><\/noscript><\/a><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bond at 50 was held in the beautiful Dora Stoutzker Hall at the RWCMD<\/p><\/div>\n<p><strong>Bond<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Next to Julian is a huge pile of sheet music covered with scribbled annotations. With the concert Bond at 50 approaching, marking the release of James Bond\u2019s Skyfall, he will have to run straight to rehearsal. It is his first time conducting the Royal Welsh Orchestra, his excitement is clear. \u201cIt\u2019s such powerful music and it\u2019s a very distinctive style. It is hard to play. You have to make a lot of noise.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He was particularly intrigued by the opening sequence of Licence to Kill. \u201cA fantastic piece of orchestral writing, it has all the Bond themes in it and the film is in Cuba so it\u2019s got a lovely sense of Central-American style. That\u2019s fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>The road ahead<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Bond at 50 was hugely successful but with The Mystery of Edwin Drood at the end of December, a production of Shrek in Sweden starting rehearsal in February and continued work in Cardiff, the tireless conductor shows no sign of resting his baton hand.<\/p>\n<p>And why would he? \u201cI love pretty much everything I do, there\u2019s nothing I\u2019m ashamed of. If there is I\u2019ve wiped it,\u201d he grins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>His old teacher said a budding conductor needs two things: a degree in psychology and an iron constitution. After 30 years it seems Julian Bigg has both but he sees the start of his career a bit differently. Conducting \u201cLaziness,\u201d was what appealed to him. \u201cI liked playing in orchestras but I got bored quite quickly.\u201d Even in his youth orchestra in Hemel Hempstead he showed interest in conducting. \u201cI was listening to what was going on around me rather [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":252,"featured_media":13192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[2404,2226,2331,2405,2406,1357,2407,2408,2409,2410,2411],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-13034","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-culture","tag-conducting","tag-james-bond","tag-julian-bigg","tag-les-miserables","tag-miss-saigon","tag-royal-welsh-college-of-music-and-drama","tag-shrek","tag-sunset-boulevard","tag-the-mystery-of-edwin-drood","tag-the-phantom-of-the-opera","tag-west-end"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v25.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Cardiff character: Julian Bigg - alt.cardiff<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/cardiffjournalism.co.uk\/altcardiff\/2012\/11\/13\/cardiff-character-julian-bigg\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_GB\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cardiff character: Julian Bigg - alt.cardiff\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"His old teacher said a budding conductor needs two things: a degree in psychology and an iron constitution. After 30 years it seems Julian Bigg has both but he sees the start of his career a bit differently. 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