Annabel
What's your music guilty pleasure?
Just completely obsessed with John Martyn. Go and listen to Bless the Weather.
What song/piece of music makes you cry?
Benjamin Britten’s Canticle II (Abraham and Isaac), and Philip Langridge as Peter Grimes - very sad I never got to see this.
Apart from singing, how do you like to unwind?
Taking the time to make things from scratch. I love making pasta and breads. I sew my own clothes when I can, and I’ve recently started knitting too. There’s so much to value in process.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
I’d just like to be in the background of Mackenzie Crook’s Detectorists. Endless slow days in the sun on the Suffolk coast.
Anne-Marie
What's your music guilty pleasure?
I love electronic dance music. Particularly melodic trance. My playlists are very eclectic.
Apart from singing, how do you like to unwind?
I love animals and plants. My house is full of house plants, and I have an allotment for vegetables. I also have a Bedlington Terrier called Henry, and five cats. Three of those cats were foster fails - my study/music room is usually inhabited by foster cats or kittens. At the time of writing I've rehomed more than 50 cats so far, including to fellow Lea Singers!
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Aragorn from Tolkien's Lord of the Rings. He's kind and strong and has oodles of integrity.
Barry
What is your earliest musical memory?
I came across a cassette tape(!) at my mum’s house last year. It has a recording of me and my brother age 4 and 6 respectively, singing Little Donkey and other Christmas songs. We recorded it to send to our cousins in Paris who sent something back. My mum obviously kept the recording for posterity!
What’s your favourite bit of music trivia?
I ran the Lea’s lockdown quiz during COVID so I should have lots. But really I just did some googling and looking at old Leas programmes to put together some entertaining questions!
What’s your music pet peeve?
The snobbiness of the classical music world. Music should be able to speak to all people. It can be frivolous and ‘corny’ or meaningful and moving but should be enjoyed for what it is.
Charles
What's your music guilty pleasure?
A really good film score: 633 squadron, Pirates of the Caribbean…
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
I once taught music appreciation to Julian Lennon. Does that count?
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Biggles.
Charly
What's the best thing about being a Lea Singer?
The welcoming atmosphere and the understanding that choirs who socialise together sing better together.
What's your earliest music memory?
Going to an art exhibit where they had 40 speakers in a circle, with each one playing a different part of Tallis’s Spem in Alium. I was hooked from then and told Mum I was going to sing that piece one day. I’m lucky enough to have sung it three times so far 🙂
What's your music pet peeve?
Alto parts that are either incredibly dull (three pages of Fs in Handel’s Heiligmasse... kill me) or parts that are clearly an afterthought filling in the gaps on the harmonies so the line makes no sense.
Chris
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
Having been tormented by Stalin for years, Prokofiev died on the same day as him.
What song/piece of music makes you cry?
Strauss Four Last Songs / Parry Songs of Farewell / Elgar Dream of Gerontius. Bit of a theme there!
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
One of my tenor colleagues plumped for Stephen Maturin. As a fellow fan of the Aubrey/Maturin books, I’ll have to go for Jack Aubrey!
Dan
Where do you hail from?
I am a Pompey boy. (Portsmouth for the uninitiated)
What's your music guilty pleasure?
Musicals! There might have been some singing from Oliver! with my 9 year-old last weekend…
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
As a pathologist, finding out the way composers died. Lully died due to a foot injury sustained with his staff-like baton!!
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Stephen Maturin from the Patrick O’Brien Aubrey/Maturin series: Doctor, early naturalist, spy and cellist! (He couldn’t sing however!)
Emer
What's your music guilty pleasure?
I have so many. Quite partial to a bit of Usher!
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
Mariah Carey has a five-octave vocal range.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Not a film or a book but I would probably go for Phoebe in Friends.
Emily
Fran
What's your earliest music memory?
Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree sung by my Mum starring as Cinderella in a panto in Zambia, where I grew up.
Apart from singing, how do you like to unwind?
Gardening, yoga, stroking the chickens.
Easter, Halloween, Christmas or New Year?
New Year. I like to look forwards…
Jasmine
What's your musical guilty pleasure?
A definite guilty pleasure is finding new and interesting harmonies to my favourite pieces and songs, so much so that I think a lot of friends would describe me as ‘harmony-obsessed’! There's nothing I love more than a crunchy chord, a circle of fifths or a fugue!
What was the name of your childhood toy/teddy bear?
When I was little, I won a raffle at a FestiveLea concert and was lucky enough to bring home ‘Woofy’ the dog. He quickly became a firm favourite although unfortunately, not much imagination was used with his name...
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
I would be Rosie from Mamma Mia because she's very sarcastic, and there are a lot of iconic ABBA tunes to sing and dance to. Julie Walters looked like she had a lot of fun playing the role!
Katie
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
The longest running performance won’t end for another 617 years. (If my maths is right…!!!)
What song/piece of music makes you cry?
She Chose Me by Randy Newman really gets me, or any of Jacob Collier’s more mellow songs 🙂
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
I would love to live as Coraline for a bit… Ideally I’d get to experience the quirky and enchanting aesthetics of the ‘other’ world, but skip past the terrifying skeleton mum 🙂
Louise
What's your earliest music memory?
Listening to my father play the piano.
What's your music pet peeve?
Passing note in Born the King of Angels.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Mary Poppins.
Maddy
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
Jack Black, singer in Tenacious D and star of School of Rock, is the son of Judith Love Cohen, who helped finish the Apollo 13 Abort-Guidance System whilst in labour with him!
What song/piece of music makes you cry?
God Only Knows by the Beach Boys.
Easter, Halloween, Christmas or New Year?
S'gotta be Christmas, right? Think of the descants.
Matt
Michael
Miriam
What's your music guilty pleasure?
Singing loudly on my own in the car.
What's your music pet peeve?
Talented musicians living in garrets on bread and water, while talented footballers earn megabucks.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Mrs Weasley.
Nick
Penny
What's your earliest music memory?
Mum singing Momotaro san to us and Dad taking me to my first opera, La Traviata with Josephine Barstow as the lead. It was so sad at the end.
What's your music pet peeve?
When the conductor wants the sopranos to sing high notes pianissimo and there are 10 of us!
Apart from singing, how do you like to unwind?
Cooking, crafting, being outside, anything other than lesson planning!
Phillipa
What's your earliest music memory?
Listening to my grandmother play the piano to me every Monday when I went round to tea at 5 years old, and my parents playing string quartets downstairs every Tuesday after I was put to bed.
What song/piece of music makes you cry?
Schubert string quintet – loads of memories and connections.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Paddington Bear.
Rebecca
What's your favourite bit of music trivia?
At the age of 12, Julie Andrews had a vocal range of over 4 octaves, a fully formed adult larynx and an upper whistle register that beckoned dogs when she sang!
Apart from singing, how do you like to unwind?
I’m a keen cruciverbalist (ie cross-worder), reader and crafter.
If you could be a character in a film or book, who would you choose?
Mulan or Elizabeth Bennett