A graduate from The Royal Conservatoire of Scotland, Max Fane is one of the UK’s youngest conductors and is using his position in the classical music world to lead the way in breaking down perceived social and cultural barriers and encouraging the participation of younger people on an international scale.
We took the chance to speak to Max about The New Generation Festival in Florence, Italy.
Tell us a bit about yourself?
I was born and educated in Berkshire, but always spent my Easters and Summers rural Umbria with my family. After finishing school at Bradfield College, where I founded a choir and took them on tour to Italy in 2010 and 2011, I went to study music at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland. During my four years of study I conducted many choirs around Scotland and founded my small opera company Raucous Rossini which toured the UK and Italy every year from 2013.
Having completed my BMUS I was awarded the European Visionary Scholarship to study Business and Management at Strathclyde University, where I undertook extensive research relating to the classical music industry. Now, aged 25, I am occupied as the Musical Director of the New Generation Festival.
What made you want to become a conductor?
Conducting is something I have always done, mainly because I liked to organise and create things. Almost by default I found myself conducting from the age of 16. It was really when I founded Raucous Rossini, and importantly our orchestra in 2014, that my interest and journey with ‘serious’ conducting began. I was prevailed to be surrounded by exceptionally talented musicians, many of whom jumped at the opportunity of touring to Italy.
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I suppose I’ve always loved conducting as much as for the music’s sake as for the chance of interacting with so many brilliant people and impacting their experience, and the experience of our audience. As part of this I’ve always devoted myself to performing in alternative spaces and taking classical music to a wider audience.
You’re one of the youngest conductors in the UK, how are you helping promote classical music to a new audience?
Aside from the extensive touring work that we have done, and continue to do, to areas and locations often unthinkable for operatic performance, the work of the New Generation Festival is taking things to a whole new level. Just recently in New York we created a performance piece of immersive cultural fusion in a theatre in New York. This performance brought together artists across the genres of classical, opera, jazz, blues, and gospel, artists from diverse backgrounds and races, philosophies from across continents. The theatre was packed with an audience of young and interested individuals.
A similar experience happened in Florence in March during a dress rehearsal for Orfeo e Euridice when scores of 20 year olds come to attend our dress rehearsal, of an opera exclusively performed by 20 years. Almost none of these individuals had seen an opera before, the party went on until 2:15am! On a much wider level our main stage festival from the 29th of August to the 1st of September has a commitment to selling on third of our tickets to under 35s at special rates. So far over 40% of ticket sales to date are to under 35s. Something extraordinary is happening and word is spreading.
Tell us about The New Generation Festival?
The New Generation Festival is founded by the new generation for the new generation. Set in the Palazzo Corsini gardens in Florence this unique setting plays host to four nights of spectacle this August 29th to the 1st of September. With Don Giovanni, followed by Drag, Jazz, Pop and DJs, on the 29th and the 1st, an orchestral concert in memory of Filippo Corsini Jr. will take on the 30th as an evening of celebrating and contemplation.
There will be a gospel recital before the concert in the Chiesa Ognissanti and a midnight concert in the same location to round off this unique journey. On the 31st of August we are staging Shakespeare’s Henry V with William Walton’s score live in the orchestra. There is an interval of 75 minutes each night for dining in the beautiful gardens.
What inspired you to found it?
Florence is the birthplace of opera. Having had a lifelong love affair with Italy and through this created several tours in Umbria and Tuscany I always dreamt of creating a more permanent base for our philosophy and music. The Palazzo Corsini was the perfect place with the perfect family to do this. Here we have the platform and the opportunity to change the way people view opera and classical music, and crucially to introduce young people to the joy of music itself. Our moto is ‘great music is great music’, and we are unashamed at the prominence we give to the life changing possibility of the classical music genre.
The reality is that classical music and opera are commonly thought to belong to a past too distant from our present. It has a reputation for being the music for the elites, not meant for ‘you and I’. Of course this is nonsense. Music is music and music is for everyone, and everyone should be given the opportunity to shed such obsolete conceptions and stop fearing the unknown. This is why our goal is to destroy the wall that has been built around every musical genre, and start working toward the goal of a musical horizon which unites rather than separate us.
What can visitors to the Palazzo Corsini expect this year?
From your arrival into these historic gardens you will enter a new world. The theme this year is Renaissance Masque, so on day one you are welcome to dress up should you wish and indulge a little in the madness. The best that Florence has to offer for food and drink will be at your command as well as secret performances in the hidden parts of the gardens and musicians wandering the orange houses during the intervals. Of course, this magical world is all to serve up the hedonistic brilliance of Don Giovanni which will emerge from the Loggia under the Palazzo terraces, with the audience seating growing up over the gardens you might even sit next to a statue or two.
