Being the Managing Director of a booking agency for orchestral and session musicians is an endlessly rewarding job. Having started out as providing an essential diary service some sixteen years ago, Morgenstern's now have a first-rate body of over 600 musicians that can literally be called up at the touch of a button.

We hold everyone's details and daily commitments on a computer. The beauty of this system is that we can sort through our database to find the person or people required according to even the most exacting criteria. If someone rings me wanting, say, any available violinists for a particular concert and rehearsals, I can produce a list in a matter of seconds. In the past this would have taken several hours calling around various contacts in the hope of finding someone. One of the huge benefits of the way we work is that we can produce CVs from 'live' data. Someone may ring up wanting a profile of a certain musician and we can tell them exactly what that person 's playing experience has been over the last three years: say 30 dates with the Bournemouth Sinfonietta and 100 with the Academy of St Martin in the Fields, and so on, from which we can glean that this player is a chamber orchestra specialist.

If, on the other hand, a player has had lots of work with the London Sinfonietta, then it is fairly safe to assume that they are going to be particularly adept at contemporary music. The fixer can then make a selection based on a musician's playing experience. Inevitably for a business such as ours, around 50-to-60% of our day-to-day business involves string players - we've currently over 300 on our books.

The endless permutations and combinations of enquiries continually throw up fresh challenges so that as soon as you hear the phone ring there's a kind of excitement and buzz about the place - and the sense of satisfaction that goes with it when you've managed to pull it off. Recently we had to put together an entire 25-piece orchestra to go to Cyprus, virtually at the drop of a hat. At least with pagers, mobile phones, e-mails, its not so very often that we literally have to go rushing after people in person!

Occasionally people contact us in an emergency because they've fallen ill, or perhaps because their car's broken down and they need a lift to a particular gig, and therefore need to know who else is playing in the same concert. We had a fixer ring up only the other day with a last-minute change of time and venue for a particular orchestral rehearsal and we were quickly able to locate the musicians involved and get the information out more speedily than would otherwise have been possible.

With success comes the ability to put back into the business something to help young musicians on their way at the start of their careers. That is why we instigated the annual Morgenstern's Award for particularly promising players. We naturally maintain close contacts with all the major music colleges, as they are (after all) training the very people whom we hope will become our clients in the future.

The freelance world carries with it all sorts of insecurities so I see it as very much my job to ensure that day-to-day stress and worries are reduced as far as possible by providing an efficient and friendly service. We always make a point of immediately contacting a musician once a booking has been made so that they are relieved of the hassle of perpetually phoning in. Accuracy is also prerequisite, and an intimate understanding of the musical world and what musicians require. Speed and efficiency combined with an easy and relaxed manner helps us to cope with the pace at which we sometimes have to work, and 'visibility' is also very important. My staff and I spend a lot of our time going to concerts and meeting up with clients.

But perhaps most of all, tenacity is the key. I can remember once tracing a cellist to a hotel bathroom in Texas, whilst on another occasion we managed to get an important message to a trumpeter through a police seargeant who just happened to be going to the concert that night! In fact every day brings its own unique sets of problems and solutions so that there is truly never a dull moment. For me, it's quite simply the best job in the world.

Julian Haylock 1999

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