Nicola Lisle talks to conductor John Traill about this year’s Oxford Proms

Less than a month ago, John Traill was conducting the Oxford County Youth Orchestra in the final concert of their current season.

On Saturday, as he steps on to the rostrum for this year’s Oxford Proms, he might see a few familiar faces from past youth orchestra concerts, as many of the players go on to professional careers. It’s an aspect of John’s job that he takes particular delight in.

“One of the nice things for me is that I’ve been in Oxfordshire now for quite a while, and conducted the youth orchestra for six years and been at the university for just over eleven, so it’s nice to see people pop up in the Proms Orchestra,” he says. “In many cases, they have been through the county and then through the university, and now they’re working in the area or coming down from London.

“A lot of the players are chosen from professionals based in Oxfordshire, and it’s good to have that focus on local musicians.”

The Oxford Proms was conceived by violinist Mike Jones in 2011 and launched with two concerts at the Sheldonian Theatre. Within a couple of years this had expanded into a ten-day festival with three major concerts at the Sheldonian and several fringe events at the Holywell.

This year there is just a single concert at the Sheldonian, Romantic Classics, which features two of the most popular works in the Romantic repertoire — Rachmaninov’s sublime Piano Concerto No.2, and Rimsky-Korsakov’s exciting symphonic suite Scheherazade.

The Rachmaninov piece will see the welcome return of international piano virtuoso Mami Shikimori. Originally from Japan but now living in Abingdon, Mami has been involved with the Oxford Proms since its inception.

Oxford Mail:
Scoring: Piano virtuoso Mami Shikimori

“I think the Rachmaninov was something Mami really wanted to do, but obviously it’s a very popular piano concert as well,” John says. “I’ve done this and Scheherazade a number of times and I love them every time.

“The Rachmaninov is just epic. The scoring is so dense in places that you can barely hear the piano — I sometimes have to look at the keys just to work out what’s happening!

“I think it’s going to be a really good, popular programme — it’s just the two pieces but they’re really substantial.”

John himself has become a popular figure locally — he is probably best known as the conductor of the county youth orchestra, but is also director of music at St Anne’s College, and has appeared as a guest conductor for Oxford Philomusica.

Other current engagements include conducting Newbury Symphony Orchestra — where he first met Oxford Proms founder Mike Jones — as well as the City of Southampton Orchestra, the RWCMD Contemporary Music Ensemble and new Oxford University group Ensemble ISIS.

His work has taken him all over the UK and overseas with orchestras such as the London Mozart Players, London Sinfonietta, CHROMA, the Moscow Studio for New Music and many more.

But he is always happy working in Oxford, and is relishing the prospect of Saturday’s concert. “It’s very nice for musicians to have a particular project. My focus is on making sure it’s really good, and I think the programme’s really sensible this year, so I’m looking forward to it a lot.”

Oxford Proms
Oxford Proms
Saturday, August 16
Tickets: Call 01865 305305 or visit www.ticketsoxford.com