Naked Classics
It started out as a bit of an experiment, though one (you may be reassured to know) in which all the performers were fully clothed. Having established himself as a presenter of innovative orchestral concerts for young audiences, Paul was invited by the Royal Scottish National Orchestra to develop a series of music discovery concerts for adults. The brief was very specific: create something that would enlighten regular concert-goers, but ensure people who are curious about the orchestra and its repertoire have an entertaining and accessible inroad to the world of classical music. And so, in Glasgow in 2007 Naked Classics was born.
“It’s not often that you get to clap your hands, slap your thighs and jangle your car keys in a classical concert - certainly not at the same time! But that was presenter Paul Rissmann’s ingenious solution to explaining Stravinsky’s notoriously tricky rhythms in The Firebird. Even better, it worked... Rissmann’s insights were spot-on, and pitched at just the right level for an audience that gratifyingly mixed newcomers with aficionados.”
— The Scotsman
Naked Classics is music discovery for everyone. It’s an ambitious concert series which aims to explore classical music in a fun and fresh format. Paul takes some of the greatest works in the orchestra’s repertoire and dissects them live in concert. With a full symphony orchestra on stage and accompanying projections, Paul not only introduces the historical background to the music, he investigates its mechanics too. Naked Classics invites an audience to listen from a completely different perspective and discover how music works.
Paul likens his approach to watching a cooking show on television: you are presented with all the ingredients, you witness the skill in how they are combined, and finally marvel at what is created. However, unlike a cooking show - where you never actually get to taste the food - Naked Classics treats the audience to a full concert performance too.
Since its inception in Scotland, Naked Classics have been performed in the USA with the ProMusica Chamber Orchestra and Canada with the Victoria Symphony.
In addition to Naked Classics, Paul creates and performs music discovery concerts for orchestras and opera companies under various other banners. He presented Don Giovanni: Behind the Curtain for Glyndebourne Opera, Uncovered and Tuned In for the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra and Open Air Classics for the London Symphony Orchestra in London’s Trafalgar Square.
“Presenter Paul Rissmann brought along his full box of magic tricks - visual, verbal and musical - to demonstrate with stunning effectiveness that there is much for us all to gain in increased intimacy with Elgar’s great masterpiece.
The intellectual strength of the project, and it is important to underline that intrinsic quality, is that it does not use the tricksy stuff to avoid dealing with the actual musical matter - the dots that form the melodies, harmonies, rhythms and orchestration of the music are all helpfully analysed. And the retention of key projected images for the second half complete performance was one of the best visual guides to music, in portraiture and landscaping, that I have witnessed. ”
— The Herald
