Singing solo at William and Kate’s wedding was nerve free
TOM FETHERSTONHAUGH WAS just 18 when his Fantasia Orchestra first performed in public. Comprising fellow students from the Junior Royal Academy of Music, it was, he tells me, “an initiative to play some great music, but we were all still at school, so it was also a way of getting together to make some wonderful friends”.
Many of those same talented friends will join conductor and artistic director Tom, now 26, when the orchestra makes its debut at the BBC Proms next month.
“In those early concerts were many of the people that we’ve continued to collaborate with over the last eight years, including two of the soloists who are coming to join us at the Prom,” says Tom.
He’s referring to Sheku Kanneh-mason MBE, the 25-year-old who Esquire dubbed a “cello rock star” and who found fame at 17 when he became the first black musician to win the BBC’S Young Musician Of The Year competition.
Then there is Sheku’s 27-year-old brother Braimah, brandishing a fine 18th-century Gagliano violin. The third featured soloist is the young Brazilian sensation Plínio Fernandes, who also performs in a haunting classical guitar-violin showcase with Braimah.
“Braimah and Sheku were both playing in the orchestra in those early days, so it’s a fantastic journey that we’ve shared.”
In person, Tom is charm personified, yet crystal clear in his thoughts; the handsome English maestro, touched by the musical gods, wears his reputation as lightly as his conductor’s baton.
Most disarming of all, he truly sees his role as conductor as not solely musical, but “cultural, spiritual”.
He has been this way since he first began to play. “I started learning the violin when I was four. I was then a chorister at Westminster Abbey. An incredible training that gives you a grounding in music from a very early age.”
Eventually, he says, “I was singing at eight services a week, some very high profile, and you learn to be a professional.”
On tour in Russia with Westminster Abbey, when the choirmaster’s visa hadn’t arrived on time, Tom took that day’s rehearsals. He was 13.
“That was the first time I conducted. From that point, I knew that’s what I wanted to do.”
The same year, 2011, he sang the solo at Prince William and Kate’s wedding to about two billion people worldwide.
No pressure then. Actually, no, he says. “The years of training prepare you so well that you are able to deliver and not get nervous.”
He smiles. “And it was nice because
Sheku then performed a solo at Harry and Meghan’s wedding.”
In a prophetic echo of what his Fantasia Orchestra has become, after Tom left Westminster Abbey he was hired for a variety of pop sessions, including singing on the Bryan Ferry album Olympia.
“I also did a lot of film sessions for composers like Hans Zimmer. Even though most of what I do is classical, I love all music. I try to tune my listening in to anything I can get hold of.”
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HE WAS also an organ scholar at Merton e, Oxford, and a winning Associate of the College Of Organists. have been live BBC Radio dcasts and conducting st Anglican Evensong at
St Peter’s Basilica, in Rome. More recently, Tom conducted concerto performances with internationally acclaimed soloists such as clarinettist Julian Bliss, pianist Danny Driver, saxophonist Jess Gillam, violinist Thomas Gould, and a dozen more equally estimable.
He’s coming to the end of two years working as the assistant conductor of the Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra, with whom he’s performed 70 concerts.
“Now with Fantasia, I make my Proms debut,” he says. “The Proms is the big one.”
In readiness, Tom has been road-testing the Fantasia Orchestra with appearances still to come at prestigious music festivals.
There was also a private performance at the Proms Press Launch in April, and a BBC Tiktok exclusive for the Proms marketing team. Audiences can expect to find Tom conducting a freeform musical programme mixing Bartók with Bacharach, Piazzolla tango with Stevie Wonder soul, even some easy-listening, in the form of Brazilian jazz-samba-bossanova legend Antônio Jobim’s The Girl From Ipanema.
Tom explains: “At the Proms, we’re playing music from Brahms to Bob Marley, from folk to funk. The idea is to present and play incredible gems of the musical world, and not just restrict ourselves to classical music.”
ALONG with what the official programme describes as “folk songs, dances, prayers and incantations”, Tom sees the Proms as “an opportunity to widen our repertoire with outstanding soloists and a very special orchestra. The soloists and myself are all bringing some of our favourite pieces”.
Most of them arranged especially for the show by jazz-classical composer Harry Baker, another twenty-something musical explorer.
“One of the amazing things about music is that it forces you to listen. In this very cluttered world we live in, with so many screens and all the chaos, actually being forced to listen to something and focus is something only music can do.”
A musical collective with a conscience, Tom has forged a partnership between the Fantasia Orchestra and the Dacapo Music Foundation.
“They’re a fantastic charity in London who have produced incredible classroom software for teaching music in primary schools where there is little or no music provision.”
Fantasia are the musicians on the software, he says proudly. “It takes you through all the elements like rhythm, pitch, instrumentation, and we recorded all of the tracks.”
He is deeply aware, he says, of the privileged musical education he enjoyed. “I’ve been fortunate enough that I’m now a professional musician. But musical education shouldn’t just be for people who might then go on to be a professional. It’s vital for children’s development, as well as being a lovely thing to do.”
In the rarefied air of the classical establishment, any ambition to popularise the form is welcomed by some but seen as the thin edge of the wedge by many more. Where does Tom stand on the subject?
“When Henry Wood founded the Proms, the aim was to create a festival that everyone can attend. What we’re bringing this year is a very exciting, young orchestra, who have all had exceptional classical training, to present classical works and some other non-classical works. We hope there is something for everyone because we want to share our love of music. This blend, hopefully, will do that.”
The morning after the Sunday show, the Fantasia Orchestra will be performing “a relaxed” version of the programme.
“It’s this fantastic initiative the Proms do where people who can’t necessarily come to a concert in the evening, or perhaps have young children or access requirements, this is for those people. That’s going to be presented by Jess Gillam, the saxophonist, who’s another young musician friend of Fantasia.”
They are all so young and talented and – no other word – fantastic.
The Fantasia Orchestra perform Songs & Dances with the Kanneh-masons at BBC Proms: Prom 20, Royal Albert Hall, 11am, Aug 4, and Songs & Dances with the Kanneh-masons (a relaxed prom), Royal Albert Hall, 11.15am, Aug 5.