Q&A with Cellist Karen Stephenson

How long have you known that you wanted to be a professional musician, at what point did it click?

I think I’ve probably always known. And that’s not the same for everybody, but it was sort of my thing from about age three. My sister Helen played the piano – she was older than me and allowed to have piano lessons. I used to lurk outside, and because I have absolute pitch I would shout out “Helen! It’s an A! It’s an A!” from outside the door. My mum and dad got me on the piano pretty quickly after that, and I still play the piano. I love the piano very deeply, so it’s very special for me to do tonight’s concert. Then I started the cello when I was about six, and it hasn’t stopped I’m afraid, I’m still learning!

I suppose I could have done something else. My colleagues are very bright people, deep thinkers, some with very mathematical brains. There are all sorts of different minds which come together to make an orchestra. And I was lucky to have a very quick brain – I wouldn’t say I was an intellectual but I found exams very easy, and had a photographic memory. My dad always said I could be a brain surgeon, but I actually wanted to be a vet.

But despite some people trying to put me off going into the profession, I never wavered from it. I went to Cambridge to read music, so the academic part of it was always there. And then I went to the Royal Academy of Music for two years as a postgrad, and I got my first job straight after that in Manchester.

Not everyone has the same journey though. I knew someone who didn’t start the Cello until they were 15, and he’s a principal Cello now! So there are many different ways to get here.

What was your favourite moment from the rehearsal just now, and what should people look out for in tonight’s performance?

I’ve played Leonore Overture many times, this is one of the only performances where I’ve felt that the conductor is totally connected with the music and the composer. There’s just something about this guy, he’s brilliant! Not just “play this short, play this long”, but talking about what the composer was trying to portray. I particularly love the way he plays the opening of the overture. It’s very difficult but I think it makes complete sense.

The concerto as well. She [Dame Mitsuko Uchida] is just phenomenal isn’t she. She just casts this spell over everyone, and that was just the rehearsal so what’s she going to be like in the concert? The cellos and the basses are very important but we don’t have so much to play in the concerto, just some little quavers here and there. And we were asked to play them very calmly and she is great at creating that kind of atmosphere. We were all transfixed, that was my favourite moment. The quiet she created with us and the way we responded was really special.

So much of what the Philharmonia does is about the concerts, the rehearsals, performance. But we also do a lot of educational projects. You’ve recently started mentoring an emerging artist as part of our MMSF program. Can you tell us a little bit more about what it’s like to teach music, and why mentoring is so important.

Well we want people to be able to experience what we’re experiencing and have that joy in their lives, both as audience members and players moving forward.

I do a lot of teaching actually, I teach piano which I took up during Covid, and I still teach piano. I teach cello to kids, and I do masterclasses at music colleges, and I do audition practice. So I do this huge range of teaching, from people who don’t know where middle C is on the piano to top level cello playing, and I love that spread.

I am a mentor of a lady called Anna. She is at music college, and she went through an audition process to get on this scheme. Now I am looking after her for a whole year. That includes keeping in touch on the phone, by email, and 15 hours of lessons. She also gets to play in the orchestra (and she gets paid!). So it’s a really good opportunity to get. We’re about halfway through the year now and she’s making really quick progress. It’s a real joy to teach her, she’s very quick and receptive and is a lovely student. People who get on these schemes often find themselves with a job quite soon afterwards.

On the first Thursday of every month, our MMSF fellows perform a lunchtime recital at the Foundling Museum in Bloomsbury.

If you would like to attend, details of the next performance can be found here. The concert is free with museum admission.

Audience Q: Can you tell us how many rehearsals you usually have before a performance?

Normally we’d have one day, so 6 hours. And then on the day of the performance, so 9 hours total. Fortunately, the powers that be realised that maybe the Sibelius needed some extra work, so we got an extra 3 hours for this performance.

And is it the whole orchestra that rehearses? Someone once said that maybe it’s just a certain section.

It’s the whole orchestra. When you are studying or in a youth orchestra you sometimes have things called “sectionals”, and those are invaluable for doing detailed work. We usually don’t have the time for that, so it very rarely happens. Sometimes we have done “string sectionals”, so violins, violas, cellos, basses all together.

Audience Q: Was it difficult to choose between the piano and the cello?

No, I wasn’t good enough at the piano. It wasn’t quite in my veins the same way as the cello, apparently I have “cellists’ fingers”, whatever that means.

Audience Q: I saw you at a concert with another orchestra! What proportion of your work is with the Philharmonia, and how much is freelance?

I don’t know about percentages. We do at least 70% of the orchestra’s schedule. You can do 100% if you want, for example we didn’t have much work over Christmas, so at that time some musicians might do a bit more freelance work, or might be very busy at other times and do less.

I find it can sometimes be nice to make music somewhere else, with other colleagues. And then I find it nice to come back! Music is such a collaborative thing, so it’s always nice to work with different people sometimes. And likewise, when I’m not here, someone else will come and play instead of me, and I think that creates a healthy bit of variety.

Audience Q: As audience members we love to hear the music the orchestra makes, but there’s also a very strong visual aspect when coming to live performances. Zsolt for example is so graceful when he performs.

Yes, he’s like an antelope isn’t he!

As professionals, do you think about this very much?

Maybe we should talk about it more. I agree with you completely, there are a lot of people who go to concerts to see music being performed, as well as just hearing it. There are also people who feel differently about when people stick out too much. I certainly think it’s very important to be focused and engaged, and everyone has a different way of doing that. I know people that are very still when they play but I know that they are communicating. Maybe it would be nice if people stood up and smiled at the end, but you never know what’s going through their head! Maybe they were thinking “oh god, I messed it up!”.

But to answer your question, we don’t talk about it very much. It’s not something we talk about at college.

At this point, the sound of a drill starts in the background.

That drill’s annoying, isn’t it.

She sings the note.

D, that’s a D.

The audience laughs.

I do that all the time! Vacuum cleaners, squeaky doors. Do you know, if you ever get the northern line here, if you are at Embankment station on the northbound train from Waterloo. Without fail the sound the train makes is a middle C. Now you all need to check that out. In fact, I’d make a special journey just to see it, and you can tell anyone who will listen that it’s a middle C.

Audience Q: What drew you to the Cello?

I didn’t really know what I was doing age 6. I played the piano in a school assembly back in Staffordshire. And the head of music had come to hear me play, and brought some instruments. He asked me what I wanted to play, and I said the French Horn. He said “We don’t have a French Horn, we have a Cello”. “Oh alright then!” I said, and that was that.

Q: I saw you very recently in the trailer unveiling the new Doctor Who soundtrack. Could you tell us a bit more about the recording experience for TV, film, or video games?

Oh yes. So what was with BBC Symphony Wales, and it was a live performance! I’m unfortunately not on the actual soundtrack. That was a concert celebrating the 60^th anniversary, there was a Tardis in the room and all sorts of things, it was very exciting.

The Philharmonia has done a lot of work on video games recently. And it’s surprisingly satisfying, really good music! We have a concert coming up in May. But now people have really amazing headphones, or posh sound systems, or virtual reality, the music is becoming a really important part of the sensory experience of games, more than any time before.

The recording process if very slow, often tedious and boring, because they split everything up into sections. If it’s loud maybe they’ll just to the brass, then the percussion, and then the strings. And you have to have headphones on with a click track, everything has to line up perfectly. If you bring a novel you can probably get through it in a couple of days.

But one of the things that I like about recording for Films especially is that the music is often the last thing to be added. Sometimes they’ll put the visuals up, so you can actually see the film while you’re recording. When we did E.T. and Elf in concert, they can take the music off the film, and we can play along live.

I really liked Elf. I turned my nose up at it for many years, but after performing it I finally went home and watched it and I’m a total convert.

Thank you Karen and everyone for joining us today. We look forward to seeing you again soon!

The next Friends Q&As will be on 7 March & 14 March in London. Keep your eyes peeled for more Q&As being announced soon.