As well as keeping my voice in trim and being involved with some great singing projects along the way – see my website for details! – I’ve been looking after my two children Theo and Caspar. Whilst doing this, I have found myself keen to share my love of music with as many other children as possible; to try and give back some of the great things I have taken from a life-long involvement in music and to share this with young people who might not find their way to classical music so easily.
As for the singing projects, several recently have been linked to researching how music fitted into various social and cultural scenes. For example, music from the last gasps of the Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens to Jane Austen’s domestic use of music or Charles Dickens’ love of the stage or the multicultural society in pre-First World War Britain that links back to Elgar and his contemporaries. Music by women composers have also been revisited and there are more concerts linked with this planned for the coming year. More details on these projects including details of recordings, can be found on this website.