The last thirty of my forty years in teaching have been spent at Sherborne Girls. It has been a huge privilege to work with several generations of our wonderful girls and my fantastic colleagues in the Music Department, teaching and administrative, past, and present.
Alongside all their academic and sporting endeavours, the girls manage to achieve an incredibly rich variety of music at an impressively high standard. The close musical collaboration we enjoy with Sherborne School, such as in the joint orchestras and the Choral Society, was a factor which greatly appealed to me when I moved here. This pooling of talent and resources enables us to embrace vastly more than if we were just a single-sex school, and I have loved seeing the links develop even more successfully over the years. Given all these challenges and rewards, the bedrock of our Christian foundation and the inspiring tradition of the Senior Choir’s role in our school and Abbey services, I have never really thought about moving anywhere else.
The building of our new performing arts centre, The Merritt Centre, in 2019, has been transformational. It is a wonderful place to work in and has been a huge boost for the School and girls. It has provided a space for them to perform on a professional platform and has raised the standard of our concerts and recitals to an even higher level.
There have been so many standout performances over the years, there are too many to list; however, I have always been inspired by the large-scale concerts with the Choral Society: Elijah, the Mozart Requiem, Elgar’s The Music Makers and Bach’s St John Passion (with Sherborne Old Girl Lucy Cox’s divine singing of the soprano arias) in Sherborne Abbey, and great works like Messiah and the Verdi Requiem (which I had been longing to conduct since I first heard it in Bristol Cathedral at the age of thirteen) in Wells Cathedral.
Musical stage productions have been great fun, too. I have enjoyed directing Dido and Aeneas, Coram Boy, Guys and Dolls and Evita (which cajoled me from my comfort zone!).
On a more intimate platform, we have given countless Madrigal Society and chamber music concerts in churches in Dorset and London. I always tell the girls what a very special role they have to play in providing music for the all-important occasions in people’s lives, and it has been a privilege to do that for numerous weddings, funerals and memorial services. I eventually got used to Sherborne Old Girls texting me on their wedding night to say how much they had loved the girls’ singing at their marriage service)!
The overseas musical tours we have done have been memorable – the Symphony Orchestra to the Czech Republic in 2001, with Cloe Loo playing the Schumann Piano Concerto, and, more recently, fabulous Madrigal Society trips to Malta, Italy, Budapest and Vienna. I have loved seeing the girls singing in The Bach Choir’s annual St Matthew Passion in the Royal Festival Hall over the last twenty-five years, and playing in the major national orchestras such as the NYO and NCO. I am so pleased to be passing on to my successor a current cohort of fine instrumentalists who have done so well in recent competitions and festivals.
It has been very rewarding to see several girls leaving School to embark upon musical careers, winning choral scholarships to universities. However, I think the main aim is to give all our pupils the opportunity and encouragement to have music as a vibrant part of their lives, regardless of their chosen careers. I believe that music, in one or more of its many forms, is a vital ingredient in a complete education.
When I arrived in Sherborne in January 1992, I was immediately struck by the kindness and friendliness of the girls and the staff who made me so welcome. This was further reinforced when I came to spend twelve years as the first resident pastoral tutor in what was then the new Mulliner, witnessing the warm family atmosphere of a Sherborne Girls’ boarding house and the way in which the girls cared for and supported one another. This seemed like something genuine and humane in the School’s DNA, and I hope it will still be there in years to come.
Having been passionately involved in music for some sixty years, the best part of which has been sharing its joy and power with children, young people and grown-ups, I can’t see myself existing without it in some practical way. I have been offered some orchestral conducting engagements and I will continue to run summer school courses and play the organ occasionally.
Since 2008, I have been working with a choir and orchestra in the Dordogne, giving two major concerts at Easter each year. After two years of unavoidable lockdown, I hope that they will restart their activities next year. I am looking forward to spending more time with my family – I have ten great-nephews and -nieces whom I have seen little of during the past few years and family in New York who are long overdue a visit. European travel is a favourite pastime, and I am thinking about learning to cook properly as death by food-poisoning remains a constant threat.
