Alastair Moseley

Clarinet

I am a chartered Civil Engineer and Water and Environmental Manager working on all aspects of water treatment, supply and disposal, as well as making our rivers healthy and preventing flooding. I am an advisor to the water team of the Government Department for Business and Trade, Technical Expert for the 80+ river diversions required for HS2 and Professional Development Lead for Severn Trent. I was President of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management 2007/8 and am now Honorary Vice President. 

Since 1989

I started on piano first at the age of 4 as my mum thought it would be a good grounding before taking up another instrument. I actually wanted to play oboe but my parents couldn’t afford one, so I chose clarinet instead and have never looked back!

I used to watch BPO concerts and got to know some of the players, and was asked if I would play piano and celesta in, as it turned out, the concert programme where Ken Page left the orchestra in a rage! Sometime after, Gill Reynolds, the wonderful Principal Clarinet at the time, asked if I would play second to her on clarinet, and the following g year asked if I would take over the Principal role as she wanted to leave the orchestra due to family commitments. That was, I think in 1990 and I have been Principal ever since!

After 35 years there are of course many, but for me it was probably our first Prom concert at Symphony Hall in 2004 which I organised through my then employer, Hyder Consulting. The hall was packed and we then put on three more in the following years the last of which included Rachmaninov’s Third Piano Concerto with Piers Lane as soloist. The second half started with Malcolm Arnold’s ’A Grand Grand Overture’ for four rifles, three hoovers and a floor polisher, which Piers generously agreed to ‘play’!! 

Again, probably too many to mention, usually involving picking up the wrong clarinet (A instead of Bb), but most memorable was playing Poulenc’s Concerto for Two Pianos with John Gough, walking on stage to our instruments only to discover that the music was not there!! The piano tuner had moved the scores off the pianos as he tuned them but failed to tell anyone where he had put them, so we had several embarrassing minutes trying to keep the audience amused while we waited for the scores to be found!! 

It’s hard to have one favourite composer when there are so many great ones to choose from, but if I had to pick one it would probably be Francis Poulenc. And for me my least favourite is probably Vaughan Williams, but of course it’s all down to personal taste!! 

I am lucky that in my 35 years with BPO  I have played so many works including all of Beethoven, Brahms and Mahler’s symphonies, and many, many concertos, both in the orchestra and as soloist! But works I would love to play in before I hang my reeds up, so to speak, would be Shostakovich’s 6th Symphony, Nielsen’s 5th Symphony and Debussy’s ‘Image’ and if I get another shot at a concerto it would have to be the pianist in Beethoven’s Triple Concerto!!