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Despatch… Alumni
news from the Royal College of Music issue no.6
Spring 2003 article on: Richard Smith
If you are an
orchestral player, the chances are that you will know about The Musician’s Answering
Service (MAS), the diary service used by over 850 of MAS was
the brainchild of alumnus Richard Smith back in 1976, when he was a busy
oboist. ‘It was the era of the answerphone and fixers would get very frustrated at
having to leave messages never knowing when to expect a response. We had just had our first child and, with
my wife at home in the day and able to answer the phone, we decided we would
give it a try.’ After a false start –
they had to relaunch the scheme three months after
the first attempt – the business evolved and grew from a nursery sideline to
a significant business. Richard is an
RCM alumnus man and boy. He entered
the Junior Department in 1956 as a pianist, studying with Barbara Kerslake and subsequently John Barstow (RCM Professor
Committee). At the age of 14 Richard
was advised to take up an orchestral instrument “just in case!” and chose to
take up the oboe under the guidance of Sarah Francis. Alongside all of this inevitable shortage
of percussion players at the Junior College gave him the opportunity to have
lessons in this department that subsequently lead to his first professional
engagements. In the cheerful Saturday hubbub, Richard rubbed shoulders with
some formidable young musicians and began to develop the art of networking, a
skill that later proved invaluable on building his business. He progressed to the main College in 1962,
as a joint first study student on piano and oboe with percussion as a third
study but soon began to focus on the oboe.
Richard studied with the unforgettable Terence McDonagh
for whom the adjective eccentric might have been coined, a professor who
attracted fierce devotion among students and nurtured a whole generation of
oboists into exceptional performers. On leaving
the RCM in 1965, through his colleague Sarah Francis (alumna and RCM
Professor), Richard joined the orchestra of the Ballet Rambert
and experienced the joy of touring. He
then moved west to the BBC Welsh in The early 70s
saw Richard heading back to Despite being
offered permanent positions with both the LPO and the LSO Richard decided to
remain freelance, leaving himself free to direct his
own destiny. In the spirit of
portfolio careers, he was balancing a number of professional commitments,
still playing full-time mostly in the session world, but reducing the touring
so that he was never far from the MAS hot desk when needed. By the mid-90s, however, the time had come
for Richard to devote himself to his ever growing business full-time. He instituted a three-month training
programme for new employees, and to this day retains the ‘first job’
opportunity in arts administration, of which there are too few. The staff now number 13, of whom several have been with MAS for many years. The current
premises ‘at the quiet end of Dorking’ (the neighbours are a funeral parlour
and retirement home) are purpose-built, light, bright and a hive of activity
very nearly round the clock. The
company’s next big project is currently in managing the gradual transition
from paper to electronic records.
Richard is currently in the throes of piloting a sophisticated IT
solution that will revolutionize his operation. A tailor-made web-based system, conceived
and part-developed by Richard himself, will allow MAS clients to access their
diaries on-line from anywhere in the world.
This is a far cry from the early days, when all players on the MAS
books were required to ring in every day to check their diaries. With the current client list of 850, that
would clearly be out of the question.
Mobiles and text messaging have greatly eased that aspect of MAS’s operation. ‘It’s
impossible to predict the way work will flow.
It comes in surges. There are
busy times of the year but sessions work often comes in with very short lead
times. We provided musicians for all
sorts of work from James Bond films to symphony orchestras, often booking
months ahead but occasionally filling in a sudden gap caused by illness.’ It’s easy to
see the convenience that MAS can offer players but what about the benefits to
fixers? A letter of appreciation from
a hard-worked orchestra manager neatly summed up what the MAS operation means
to him. His first trumpet had declared
himself sick late on Friday night before a Saturday evening Verdi
Requiem. With lots of big brass needed
in London for various concerts and operas, finding a replacement was going to
be difficult, especially when the orchestra manager had to be setting up the
concert platform on the Saturday morning, unable to sit down with his address
book and mobile phone. It took two MAS
employees until Richard Smith
exemplifies better than most the versatility that musicians possess. A first-rank performer becomes shrewd
business man – but how, exactly? ‘I
never think of myself as a businessman.
I am a musician and that’s been vital to the success of the business. As a freelance player you are running a
business. We all know that in theory
but how many really take that on board initially? I learned early on not to accept failure –
performing taught me that. You must
get past being disheartened when something goes wrong. You need persistence and conviction: without them you will find it hard to
succeed.’ Richard feels
passionately about the importance of taking risks, a characteristic he feels
is inherent in his own personality.
‘It’s important to be able to judge risk. When I played in orchestras, I took
artistic risks according to the repertoire, my colleagues, conductor, venue, acoustic and so on.
The same is true of business, I guess I took arbitrary risks but now,
through experience, these have become calculated risks.’ Despite
working full tilt, Richard retains real concern about the nurturing of our
orchestral players. He is one of the
Woodhouse Centre’s most active consultants, helping students to think through
their next step in a precarious and demanding branch of the profession. To this, he brings a unique perspective of
performer, businessman and entrepreneur, with a commitment to developing
technology to support the art form.
Happily, Richard’s musical and entrepreneurial DNA lives on in his son
Alistair, RCM alumnus and singer, who, after considerable operatic success
(Holland Park, Glyndebourne, Aix-en-Provence), is shortly heading for Germany
to develop his career. How gratifying
to see baton being passed on. |
