I was introduced to music at an early age. My grandmother played the piano professionally, but my father revolted against it so he didn’t! Despite this, I played the piano and that was the start of my ‘musical career’.
As far as singing was concerned, I could always hold a tune and did sing with the school choir. But I had quite a broad midland’s accent as I was growing up and my piano teacher, who was also a singing teacher, said my singing was no good because of my accent!
Consequently I didn’t do much singing for years. Then quite recently I had more time and, when volunteering at Wimpole [National Trust Property], I joined the Wimpole volunteer choir at Christmas. I enjoyed that - remembering all the carols - and then I volunteered to sing in the church at Wimpole – a cappella [unaccompanied] with members of the public – not as scary as it sounds and good fun.
On the back of my Wimpole experience, I decided to get back into singing. I live in Royston and knew there were several choirs in the area. The evening rehearsals for the Choral Society suited me and I wanted to try something a bit more serious, having done some classical music years ago.
My first performance was Brahms German Requiem and that was a baptism of fire! It was hard work but I really enjoyed it – I survived and was buzzing for weeks after the concert. I’m not a singer of old who’s come back to singing, I’m a person who likes music and has decided to do more singing.
I enjoy the communal aspects of the choir – it’s very friendly and I’ve had a lot of support. I was a little nervous at first when I started but it was all fine in the end.
I’m looking forward to our next concert [Sea Pictures by Edward Elgar, and works by other English composers] and I’m enjoying it a lot. The music is very expressive and there’s lots to get my head around – I like that it’s so different from the Requiem.