Next Wednesday the conductorless 12 Ensemble performs in sparkling new Bramall Music Building, and for three of its members it will be like coming home.
The trio of Ruisi brothers have their Anglo-Italian family home in Edgbaston, but all three of them have branched out into busy musical careers networking out from London.
Birmingham was where they learned their craft, as cellist Max explains.
“We all went to Harborne Primary School, before each going off to different secondary schools. It was at primary school that I was offered the chance to play the cello.
“I’m not sure I really knew what it was, but I remember going for the ‘audition’ meant getting out of maths that day, so whatever it was, it was an attractive option.
“I was given a music scholarship to go to Old Swinford Hospital School in Stourbridge. But most of my musical education came from attending the Birmingham Conservatoire Junior department every Saturday from the age of about 10 to 18. It was here that I really developed my love for music, and I had a great cello teacher in Elaine Ackers, later moving on to her husband and at the time principal cellist of , Ulrich Heinen. I was also principal cello in the CBSO Youth orchestra at one point in my teens.”
Violinist younger brother Roberto moved on from Harborne Primary to King Edward’s School in Edgbaston on an assisted place and a music scholarship, where he completed his secondary school education.
‘‘Musically, we all studied at the junior department of the Birmingham Conservatoire,’’ he says. ‘‘Because my brothers were already there by the time I was born, I must have spent nearly every Saturday from the day I was born until I was 17 there!”
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And brother Alessandro, another violinist, chips in.
“My musical education started with the most wonderful violin teacher, Lucy Akehurst. She is extremely dedicated and has produced a scary number of professional musicians hailing from Brum!
“At six years old I was one of the first students on the Young Strings Programme at the Birmingham Junior Conservatoire and at 14 studied with head of violin of the senior department, Nathaniel Vallois, before moving to the Royal College of Music in London. I also enjoyed being a member Peter Bridle’s Academy Chamber Orchestra and had a few opportunities to play concertos with them.”
The remarkable thing is that there is no previous history of musical talent in the Ruisi family, yet the brothers have already achieved so much.
Max has a busy career both in chamber music (in which he also coaches student ensembles) and orchestral music, performing with a range of major professional orchestras; Alessandro has developed an enviable reputation in both chamber and orchestral music, and is co-leader of the European Chamber Orchestra as well as Ensemble 12, and Roberto’s lift-off has been truly dazzling, from being appointed the youngest concertmaster in the history of the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, through taking a year off his studies to play as a member of the hand-picked John Wilson Orchestra, to guest-leading as concertmaster of both the Orchestre National Bordeaux Aquitaine, and the RTÉ Concert Orchestra in Dublin.
Hard-boiled orchestral musicians don’t take kindly to boy wonders, I observe to the still teenaged Roberto. How did he get on?
“I think acknowledging myself as a ‘boy wonder’ would be a very good reason for my colleagues in an orchestra to dislike me! I really enjoyed both experiences: Bordeaux was so very unexpected: I was walking around London at 11pm on a Sunday evening when I got a phone call, and by 10am the next day I was sitting down about to run through Brahms’ First Symphony. Paul Daniel is the musical director there; so maybe naively I assumed the rehearsals would be in English... I was wrong!”
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So here we have an assemblage of three hugely talented brothers, all performing in an orchestra which is devoted to performing without a conductor. There must be artistic discussions galore within the ranks; but how about family disagreements? Max is a true diplomat. “I don’t think we ‘argue’ as such,” he says. “We don’t always consider things from necessarily the same angle but I think we learn from and are influenced by each other’s differences.
“Alessandro and I work together on almost a daily basis. Whilst we might not agree on every musical detail of whatever we’re working on, I feel that fundamentally we share the same values with our approach, and I find it very easy to play with both of my brothers. There’s an understanding that is invaluable. It also helps that we’ve always got along really well, there was never really much fighting as children.”
And Max has the concluding words.
“There’s no history of classical musicians from either of my parents’ families, so it’s not something that was handed down to us. We’re just incredibly lucky to have had the amazing support of our parents right from day one. From putting up with us practising at 6am before school every morning, to driving us up and down the country for concerts and courses, they gave us the best possible start to a musical life and I’m forever grateful to them for that.”
* Ensemble 12 performs in the Elgar Concert Hall, Bramall Music Building at the University of Birmingham on November 16 (7.30pm).