Staffordshire: County 22

Like many budding young musicians, it was on a summer course as a teenager that I first formed friendships with other people my age who cared about music in the same way that I did. The classic ‘summer at band camp’! There is nothing like that moment of finding your tribe – the ones who are fired up by the same things and take the same things seriously and share the same sense of humour. For me it was at the Oundle for Organists summer school where I met people who just ‘got’ me. I met future housemates and many colleagues I still work with today (even though I’ve long since stopped playing the organ regularly!) – and formed some of my closest friendships, still true today, 25 years on. Three of my godchildren are the offspring of friends formed that week!

I’ve said before that one of the joys of this project has been taking the chance to reconnect with important people in my life – well, Cathy Lamb is definitely one of those. Arriving on the Oundle course in the late 90s, we were thrown together a bit: in those days the girls were definitely a minority, and we were two of the youngest on the course, sharing a twin room. We sat up for hours chatting, swooned over Leonardo di Caprio together (this was the era of the Titanic film, after all), got up at the crack of dawn to go to extra sightreading and transposition classes – and then ran up huge phonebills on our parents’ landlines over the following months as we nattered endlessly about everything and nothing. We ended up studying together for sixth form and have remained firm friends ever since.

These days Cathy is Head of Music Performance and Director of Music Outreach at Lichfield Cathedral School, having previously been Joint Director of Music in the Cathedral itself. Her drive and musical skill and utterly infectious charismatic enthusiasm for sharing music were striking at the age of 16 (I remember her fearlessly getting up and teaching the whole school parts of the Verdi Requiem), and these qualities have not lessened over the years. I often think I’m someone who’s spinning a lot of plates…. Cathy takes it to a whole other level. At every minute of the day she is leading a singing group – for teenagers, for young children, for adults – or teaching someone else how to run such a group. Her MusicShare project, building meaningful creative lifechanging singing projects in hundreds of schools in the area, is just astonishing (and rightly recently won the TES Independent-State School Partnership Award). 

So, when I knew I needed to arrange a Staffordshire performance of the 48, it was always going to be Cathy and Ben whose arms I was going to be twisting! The chosen venue was the school hall at the junior department of Lichfield Cathedral School – Longdon – which caters for pre-school up to Year 4. Thus I found myself rehearsing surrounded by cardboard cut outs of Roman soldiers and motivating display boards about sharing and being kind! 

The three performances were across two days: a Friday evening, a Saturday afternoon, and a Saturday evening. Cathy had gathered a lovely audience together – schoolchildren, parents, staff, local music-lovers – and there were even some friends who lived nearby who came along. My godson loyally came to some of the performances ( / had no choice as his parents were organising the thing!). Only a few months earlier I’d been in Lichfield playing for Rossini’s Petite Messe Solenelle conducted by Cathy’s husband Ben – and there were some familiar faces from that occasion too (from the choir, from the audience, and from the team of soloists).

Cathy’s colleague Jo had created a beautiful poster and people saw it and came; like all concert organisers ever, Cathy was busy making disclaimers about all the reasons why some people who would ordinarily have come weren’t available to be there – and yet enough people turned up that a bench from the playground outside had to be dragged in at the last minute to provide extra seating! 

As always with this music, there were such heartfelt reactions from people in the audience – some loving the euphoria or tranquillity of the major key items, some struck by the breathtaking craft of writing these densely wrought fugues, some moved by memories or by the space to think and feel or by the sheer profundity of some of the music. It’s always been integral for me to get the chance to chat to people and hear their thoughts and reflections in this project – to the extent that these days I’m surprised when musicians don’t expect to do that after their performances! 

I was coming straight from coaching singers at Chetham’s in Manchester for a few days, and ended up coinciding with a rail strike day: so my route to Lichfield was a little scenic (very full coach from Manchester to Birmingham, then bus from Birmingham to Lichfield via every imaginable cul-de-sac and speed bump). But a restorative cup of tea, and some warm up time on Ben and Cathy’s own piano (which I know well as I lived them for six weeks between house moves once), and I felt ready to go! Ben’s amazing asparagus quiche was a mainstay of energy on day one, and a short run on the Saturday morning around the cathedral and park gave a boost for day two! 

As I emerged on the Saturday, a little wrung out, there was the most stunning, calm sunset – somehow the light was depicting visually where the music had just taken us. After a little wine and a little sleep, I was off early (on a similarly long-winded route) to give a (completely unrelated) concert in a stunning rural Bedfordshire church with a saxophonist and a soprano. Variety is the spice of life, and I would have it no other way.

Thank you so much to Cathy, Ben, Jo, and everyone at who made the school available. The Lichfield performances raised over £1,200 in a combination of ticket sales and additional donations, bringing the running total for the fundraising to almost £31,000. A job well done!