The world of classical musical isn't all prim and proper. Flautist Emer McDonough tells Arminta Wallaceabout noisy musicians and risque jokes at the Royal Philharmonic
"You can see the state I'm in," says Emer McDonough. I give her a sharp glance, but all I can see is a calm demeanour and enviable eye make-up. You'd never guess that she has just come from the airport, that her flight from London was delayed, that she has laryngitis and conjunctivitis and, to boot, was rudely awakened at 2am by her 14-month-old son. She looks radiant and relaxed, every inch the successful young London-based soloist, except that she doesn't much like the word "soloist".
"I'm not a soloist most of the time," she says. "Most musicians are a bit of everything now. It's the way the music business works.But audiences don't see that. When you get up on stage to play, they don't see the background stuff that gets you to that night. The jumble of days, and getting childminders in and trying to find four or five hours to practice. You run around, doing orchestral concerts and chamber concerts, and you drive here, there and everywhere. And then you have to arrive on stage looking like you're a 'soloist'." It's a mad, mad world, the world of the freelance musician. Especially in London, where the competition for work is said to be so fierce that if the atmosphere were to be indicated on a musical score, it would be bitchissimo. McDonough, however, appears to be thriving on it. After three years at Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra under its highly regarded conductor Marin Alsop, she is now principal flautist with the Orchestra of St John's, a London-based chamber ensemble, and for most of last month she was playing with the Royal Philharmonic.
"I must be very lucky, because I've never come across that bitchy thing," she says. "It's where I've always wanted to work - for the diversity and the standard and the excitement. I do feel really lucky to be involved in all that. To be playing in the heart of London. It might be the Albert Hall, it might be Cadogan Square. It doesn't matter. Okay, sometimes when I'm getting on the train, yet again, trying to get home, I think, my God, why am I doing this? But when I'm sitting in the middle of the music I know why." She has, in a sense, served her apprenticeship. It takes time, patience and tact. "Let's say I go to an orchestra I haven't worked with before. I'm not exactly a shy person, but it all comes flooding back: the feeling of being a new kid on the block, of not knowing the lie of the land. Orchestras have their little cliques. Certain people sit in certain places and that sort of thing. You wonder, should you get this person a cup of tea, or is that licking up to them too much? I really don't like that feeling."
Orchestral musicians are a noisy bunch, apparently - in more ways than one. "I've found English musicians to be very welcoming, very accepting. I've never had them label me an outsider or accuse me of coming to take their work or anything like that. But I would also have to say that they're not reserved, and they're certainly not polite. Some of the stuff that was doing the rounds at rehearsal last week, for instance - oh, God." Is it fit to print in a family newspaper? "Good Lord, no. Definitely not." Shame on you, Royal Philharmonic. You know who you are. Meanwhile, McDonough is looking forward to her forthcoming gig at the National Gallery of Ireland with the Chinese guitarist Xuefei Yang - one of the innovative lunchtime series, with tickets priced at €5, which is a welcome new addition to this year's IIB Music in Great Irish Houses festival.
"We're playing five movements from Robert Beaser's Mountain Songs, which evokes the landscape of the Appalachians and the musical world of Barber and Copland, and also Piazzolla's Histoire du Tango. Perfect for that time of day, and for that venue, and that combination of instruments. When you're playing with a piano it's quite an intense relationship, and I enjoy that - being the meeker of the two instruments, having to show the beefier side of the flute. I enjoy the battle. But it's nice not to have to fight, sometimes." Next up for McDonough is a series with the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra in which the rehearsals are being taped for a television series. After that it's the premiere of a new work at English National Opera. "It's called Kismet," she says. "It's by . . . Oh, dear. I'm not sure who it's by. Anyway, they're all giving out about it." Musicians, eh? Sounds harmonious.
Emer McDonough, flute, and Xuefei Yang, guitar, play at the National Gallery of Ireland, D2, on Friday at 1.05pm