An Award from the Royal College of Music
19 May, 2010
It was with great honour and privilege that I accepted a Fellowship awarded to me by the Royal College of Music. On the 11th of May, The President of the College, His Royal Highness The Prince of Wales bestowed upon me the Fellowship of the Royal College of Music.
I received a letter about a year ago asking me whether I would accept the Fellowship of the Royal College of Music. I was thrilled that the College I had attended so many years ago had considered me for this. I have some very fond and wonderful memories of my time at the College – these were formative years, musically and personally. I met some wonderful people during my time there and my teachers and musical training was exactly what I needed and was looking for at the time. So it was absolutely wonderful that the Royal College of Music invited me to accept the award at a meticulously organised ceremony in London. Needless to say there were a lot of preparations and some changes with my conducting commitments and travelling schedules had to be manipulated!
On the day of the Ceremony I was supposed to be rehearsing with the Orchestra Toscanini in Parma. The Director of the Orchestra was very considerate and realised how important it was for me to go and accept the award personally. The Orchestra rescheduled the rehearsals in order for me to travel from Parma to London for one day.
My fiancee and myself had everything organised and prepared and there was just one thing that could stop us from going. The Ash Cloud! Up until a day before I had to be in London, Malpensa airport was closed due to the Ash and there were still several delays until Monday night. In fact, our plane was delayed by a couple of hours and we ended up arriving in London after midnight.
Happy that we finally made it to London we knew that we had a long day ahead of us. I had to be at the College at 8.30am and the guests had to be seated by 10.15am. The Ceremony was beautiful and it was a real honour to be handed the award by His Royal Highness Prince Charles. Sitting on stage during the Ceremony I had a flurry of memories of all the student concerts, masterclasses, competitions and many other happy hours spent in that very same theatre during my time as a student. After the Ceremony we were invited for a Champagne Reception. There was time to meet with some old friends and catch up with them. We sipped our champagne and toasted to many more beautiful things to come, took plenty of photos and I realised how happy I was to share this special day with my mother, sisters and fiancee.
After the Ceremony we headed back to Heathrow where I was hoping that there would not be any more delays or problems with the Ash Cloud since I had to return to rehearsals. Luckily everything was back on schedule. The members of Toscanini Orchestra were very accomodating since in normal circumstances it would be very difficult to change the schedule.
The following day rehearsals continued as normal and we had three wonderful concerts in Pordenone, Parma and Piacenza.