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About Me

I'm writing this page in English, because I am - English, that is.

I was born and brought up in Sutton Coldfield which is a  town about the size of Dordrecht where I live now, on the northern edge of Birmingham. So strictly speaking I'm a Brummy!

I was exposed to classical music from an early age as my mother sang in the church choir, and my father, who can't sing a note, enjoyed listening to records. My sister who had the same upbringing as me ended up with very different musical tastes, but this is about me and not her.

I suppose I was about seven years old when I started playing the recorder. At age 8 or so I started the piano, having already taught myself the basics. At age eleven I took up the clarinet.  Shortly thereafter my parents took me to see Welsh National Opera's production of Verdi's Rigoletto. I thought it was wonderful and decided there and then that I wanted to become a clarinetist in an opera orchestra. The idea of actually singing opera hadn't yet entered my head!

I went to a school (John Willmott Grammar)l that was renowned for its music (that's why I chose it) and enjoyed a very musical time. There were two school orchestras, a school choir and a girls choir, and I was a member of all of them! I also joined the Sutton Coldfield Youth Orchestra and played a number of concerts in the Sutton Coldfield Town Hall. It all seemed very grand then! Then my clarinet teacher suggested that I joined the Birmingham Schools Wind Orchestra and although it took me three busses and a very long time to get there every Saturday morning I thoroughly enjoyed every minute of it. There, I also learned the bass clarinet which to this day is my favourite instrument because it sounds so sexy!

So from the Sutton Coldfield Town Hall I graduated to doing concerts in the Birmingham Town Hall, at that time home to the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. I was going up in the world!

But I wasn't restricting myself to playing the clarinet. I was also singing in the school choirs and we took on some tricky stuff!  The Faure Requiem, Borodins Polotsvian Dances to name but  two. With the girls choir we sang, amongst other things Brittens Ceremony of Carols, and took part in a number of performances of St Nicholas (by the same composer) with several other choirs dotted about Birmingham. It was after a rehearsal for one of those performances that the music teacher who conducted the choir suggested that I had  what it took to become a professional singer, and so the idea was planted.

In my last year at school I took part in an inter-schools production of Brittens "Noyes Flood" in no less a location than ...... Birmingham Town Hall. So not only had I played there in an orchestra but had now sung my first role in an opera there as well.

In the same year the school put on a production of Offenbach's "La Belle Helene" and guess who got the titel role? I was on my way!

And I was on my way to Kingston Polytechnic to do a B.A in Music Education. The reason I chose Kingston was because of the setting. The music dept was located in a beautiful Georgian mansion with sweeping lawns and fantastic rhodondendrons. What the course was like didn't bother me but the setting....?

But as luck would have it the course turned out to be quite good!

I went to kingston as a clarinetist, but shortly after arriving I started having singing lessons with Kathryn Harries and it fairly quickly became apparent that I was quite good at it. I sang in the Polytechnic Chamber Choir which took us to some wonderfull cathedrals  - Salisbury, Guildford, Winchester (to name but three) where we sang choral evensong.

Playing the clarinet took me to some pretty exciting venues as well. I joined the Surrey County Wind Orchestra with whom I made my first appearance in London's Albert Hall. Playing in that orchestra also took me on a tour to Germany and lead to me joining the British Youth Wind Orchestra, which didn't actually bring me to any very exciting venues but was a very good experience.

Meanwhile, the singing was becoming more important to me. I joined the London Choral Society, a great big choir that did concerts with the London Symphony Orchestra and the London Philharmonic with such great conductors as Simon Rattle, Bernard Haitink and Sir John Prichard.

It was a great time of learning and working with some of the best musicians in Britain and I think in the world.

After two years at Kingston I switched from clarinet as my first study to singing and when Katrhryn suggested I should do an audition for the Royal Academy of Music I jumped at the chance.  Can't remember what I sang for the audition but they accepted me and there followed three more wonderfull years of study in one of the greatest musical institiutions in the world.

My singing teacher at the Academy was Constance Shacklock. A formidable lady with a long carreer at Covent garden behind her. There was a lot to be learned from her, but one of the most important lessons that she taught me was to be true to myself. It's not always the easiest path as people will try to lead you in different directions but ultimately it is the only path. It's taken me a long time to learn that lesson, but the seeds were sewn way back then. If you compromise yourself for any reason it will catch up with you in the end as I found out to my cost. But more on that later.

My years at the Academy, whilst musically incredibly fulfilling were financially demanding. I wasn't able to get a grant so I had to earn my own own money whilst studying. To this end I got a job at the London Colisseum, home of English National Opera. It was a job many student did - selling prgrammes and ice creams but it got me into one of the besy operas houses in the country where i not only saw countless performances of fantastic operas (very educational) but I also got to mix with the singers and the musicians. I was lucky enough to be able to have some coaching lessons with one of the repetiteurs from E.N.O.  which I valued enormously.  I was sort of learnng the business from the inside out.

After finishing at the Academy, which I did with honours incidentally, I continued to study privately with Constance and I carried on working at E.N.O. and having my coaching lessons.

I started singing roles with operatic societies and giving concerts wherever I could, whether it was a recital or an oratorio with a choir.  I was always busy singing. Learning what I could from who I could and from every experience that presented itself.

After a couple of years I went to work at Harrods selling pianos. This gave me more freedom in the evenings to go out singing but cut me off from being in the world where I really wanted to be.

I think this next part is going to be a bit difficult to write, not because I can't remeber it but because of the emotions it's going to bring up. 

I'll continue it later.