SE CHRONICLE 684

26 ST EDWARD’S CHRONICLE

work, you can’t get through many grades in five years. But if you’re driven, the sky is the limit. It’s just a question of pushing yourself. Be ambitious. Set yourself a target, see what you can do. Over the past 10 years we have got so much better at singing together in Chapel as a community, we can raise the roof and feel really proud of the kind of sound we can make. What do Music pupils at Teddies go on to do? All sorts of things. We have those who come out to become major session musicians and those who never touch music again, going on to do something totally different, having gained transferable skills. Many of my university friends with music degrees ended up in finance or the City, though music will always be a hobby or an interest for them. Teddies pupils have also become classical singers in major choirs or professional groups. We’ve had a couple of conductors come through in the last 10 years and three or four DJs. I love to follow them on Instagram, seeing what they are up to and which tours they are on at the moment! The boys from Low Island were here in my first year teaching – I knew they were alternative and quirky and brilliant, but they really have come into their own. I’m also proud of those who have gone into the theatre world – theatre music or theatre tech – and are now working on musicals or touring with different groups.

Seb Williams in a piano masterclass in the Weston Recital Room with celebrated pianist Diego Benocci

What challenges do you think young musicians today face? If you want to be a performing musician or a composer, you need not just to be good, but very good. You need to be driven to be the best you can be. That means taking every opportunity, taking every gig. You can only be as good as your last gig! You need to take every chance to collaborate with other people to develop your style. So, if you’re a composer, don’t be happy that

you have got the right message and the right character to bring to it – collaborate with others. See how your style can change and how it can modernise or develop itself. A lot of the time it’s going not just the extra mile, but the extra two miles and actually trying to see where you can go. Equally, it is important to have a breadth of skills. Don’t just aim to be a big band drummer, for example, be a drummer who can also teach, do readings for albums and be a session musician who can play with small quartets as well as bands. You need to know how to broaden your skills so you can attract the greatest number of concerts and engagements you can. What additional skills do pupils gain from playing a musical instrument? The discipline involved in learning an instrument or learning to sing is immense. I think about choristers coming to Teddies from some of the cathedral schools. The training and experience they have got from the age of seven is absolutely astounding. They have benefited from the rigour of singing daily services at a professional level. When they arrive at St Edward’s some of them want to sing more and some of them transfer those skills to learning an instrument. I think the same goes for a pupil leaving Teddies at 18. If we’ve done five years of good work here, you often find that they’ve gained the skills to be brave, to be good sight readers, to have a really good ear to listen to

Zaki Beere and Debbie Wong performing Howard Goodall’s Eternal Light Requiem with the St Edward’s Orchestra in February