Jonathan Small - Oboe
Jonathan Small plays Principal Oboe with the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra and joined in 1984.
Q. What is your instrument/ position/ job title in the Orchestra?
A. Section Leader Oboe
Q. When did you join the Orchestra?
A. August 1984, although I first played for the RLPO in 1978 as a student, playing second oboe with my predecessor Keith Wood. It was an honour to succeed him when he retired.
Q. What was your earliest musical experience?
A. Hearing my mother playing the piano and gramophone records at home. Then learning to play piano and recorder myself, and on it went from there.
Q. If you could play a different instrument, which one would it be?
A. The white baton! I've taken up conducting in the last few years, I'm now Conductor of the Wirral Symphony Orchestra, and I absolutely love working with them. I've learned so much working with Phil conductors over the years and it's so rewarding to share it with others, and to put my own ideas into practice. If you press me for another actual instrument, I'd have to say the double bass. It's so different from the oboe.
Q. What would you most like to do if you weren’t a musician?
A. See above (!) But seriously, I'd say something to do with wilderness preservation in the Scottish Highlands. I'm a Munroist (about halfway round if anyone's interested) and have visited so many beautiful but fragile places. I'm also a member of the John Muir Trust which does much work in this field. In today's busy world quietude and nature are increasingly important, and also increasingly threatened.
Q. What’s on your record/CD/MP3 Player/Spotify Playlist right now?
A. Pieces I'm conducting, currently Beethoven's Fifth, Brahms' Double Concerto and Tchaikovsky's Fourth. Pieces for relaxation too, such as Rachmaninov's great Piano Sonata No.2, and Ravel's Le Tombeau de Couperin (piano original). I like to listen to the spoken word a lot, and have many BBC dramas and podcasts - In Our Time especially. I like Skeptoid (skeptical inquiry - for the internet) and audio books - at the moment Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy.
Q. What is your favourite Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra recording?
A. There are many, but Beethoven's Symphonies with Sir Charles Mackerras , Suk's Ripening and Praga with Libor Pesek, Vaughan Williams with Tod Handley and Tchaikovsky's Manfred with Vasily Petrenko are top of my list.
Q. What is your most memorable moment with the Phil so far?
A. Meeting President Havel in Prague when we opened the 1993 Prague Spring was pretty special. Playing at Boston Symphony Hall, and Washington Kennedy Center; the team of coal miners playing brass with us in the Janacek Sinfonietta in Ostrava; recording the Vaughan Williams Oboe Concerto with Tod Handley; many great concerts in Liverpool of course. Our Prom with Vasily last year was a real high, reminiscent of our first Prom with Libor in 1988 when again we put the RLPO firmly on the musical map. For entertainment, the time we had a strip-o-gram for bass trombonist John Langford's birthday, at a rehearsal with Walter Weller, has yet to be surpassed.
Q. What do you like to do with your free time outside music?
A. Climb Munros and other mountains, although I can't do that very regularly. Working on my model railroad is important too. Relaxing with my family when I get a free evening, and learning what I can about wine from Alan Pendlebury.
Q. What do you like most about Liverpool?
A. The people, the architecture and the feeling of the city. Speaking as an ex-pat Londoner, who's also lived in Glasgow - a very similar city, I love the character of Liverpool. It's so individual and people have so much spirit. The city has come so far in the last decade, Capital Of Culture was huge and its legacy will always be with us. Most of all I really appreciate the way the city takes pride in its orchestra. It's very special, and means a lot to us all.
