LORNA BOWMAN

My friend Lorna made this amazing butterfly for me before I left Sheffield as a parting gift! She has made a lot of interesting Jewellery with wire and beads and it seems to be her private passion so I felt like asking her more about it...

Are you working on any Jewellery at the moment? No I’m concentrating on my Creative Art Practise BA at the moment.

What was the piece you worked on? I’m in the middle of a bracelet.

How did your interest in making jewellery develop? I’ve always, always, loved jewellery, I’m fascinated by how it looks on people. I always notice Jewellery and wonder where it came from. So I‘ve thought ‘I’d love to know how to make it’. I finally looked into it when I moved to Sheffield and had the time.

What about when you were little? I didn’t wear or make jewellery; I wasn’t given the chance. I was never a girly girl.

Have you made any for yourself? Yes I did, but I ended up giving them away (chuckles). I’m planning to make a necklace for myself.

Do you use references when you are working? I have often seen designs that give me ideas.

Would you like a career in Jewellery? Yes I’d love one. I used to think about opening a jewellery shop. We’ll see.

Would you ever collaborate with others in your Jewellery making? Maybe for a specific piece, but not as a rule.

Would you develop your Jewellery into sculpture? Yes, I may do this because on the Arts degree I’m on I am taking Jewellery making and silversmithing workshops. This should see my work develop in new directions. I’m really enjoying sculpture classes at the moment. The two mediums will intermingle in the end.

Have you ever been on a Jewellery making class before? No, I’ve only worked with wire & beads before, but now with silversmithing I’ll be able to take my ideas further.

Are you interested in selling your work? I’m very keen to set up an Ebay shop very soon.

Describe your favourite kinds of beads… Crystals. They are transparent but coloured beads.
They’re very beautiful when they catch the light, they show different colours as the light catches them at different times.

How important is colour? Really important, colour says a lot about a personality. Some people will be vibrant red, others may be like a deep green or some people will need to be a mix.

Do you find yourself looking at Jewellery people wear when you are out? ALL the time. Constantly, it’s the first thing I notice.

Do you think ‘oh they’re wearing the wrong piece’? Lol! Yes often.

How long does it take to make your Jewellery? I can make a necklace in 20 minutes, but bracelets can take days. It depends on what you are making.

Would you like to add anything? Jewellery says a lot about a person. It can reflect their personality. People should take as much thought with what jewellery to wear as they do in what clothes to wear.

SARAH E

Sarah is a friend of mine I’ve known since I was a teenager. She attends Tewkesbury Baptist Church, where my mother Lesley Guy is also a member. I am interested to find out why Sarah has recently joined in with the praise & worship teams practices.

I’m aware that attending the practises means a lot to her personally. I’ve played the keyboard in a praise & worship team in a different church and I’m always impressed by how passionate & dedicated the singers can be & hope that Sarah will expound more on a worship singer’s motivation.

You have just begun joining in music practises with a church group, is that right? I’ve been going for about a month now. It’s been going well.

How many practises have you been to? 3 or 4

Why did you join the group? I’ve been thinking about joining for a little while. I wanted to get more involved in church life. I’ve always loved singing ever since I was little. I thought it was about time I did something that I’ve wanted to do for a while.

Are you enjoying it now? Yes, I’m really enjoying it. I still have to get more confident with it & get used to singing in front of people which is a challenge because I’ve only ever really sung in a choir & although I’m not going to be singing solos in this group, it will still involve more singing in front of people than I’ve experienced before.

You mentioned you’ve sung in a choir before, can you tell me about that? Yes. Ever since Primary school I’ve sung in a school choir. For as long as I can remember I’ve been in a school choir, throughout Secondary school I’ve sung in the choir. I really enjoyed the Christmas concerts, singing in Tewkesbury Abbey.

Please describe the music style in as many words as you like… modern and lively, up to date worship songs, there are no traditional hymns. The musicians play Electric Guitars & Drums and sometimes Keyboard. You have some slower songs too.

Which do you prefer, the upbeat lively songs or the slower ones? I like both. I suppose I enjoy more the songs that I know. I prefer ones that I know mean something to me. Whereas when you are trying to learn a new song, when you don’t know the tune, it can be difficult. It can depend which mood I am in as to whether I prefer a lively song or a slower more reflective song. But generally I like both.

How do you feel when you’re singing in the group? I enjoy it. I’m in the early stages of gaining confidence with it. The great thing is I can feel Gods presence & him helping me.

Do you sing much when you’re on your own? Oh yes. I practise whilst I’m driving in the car to work & back. I have worship CD’s I can sing along to. Before the group practices I usually have a little warm up. Sometimes I sing in the bath or the shower. Years ago somebody in a choir advised me that the steam can helps to free up your voice, so it is a good tip for anybody.

How soon do you think you’ll be singing with the group in church? I’m still finding my feet with it. I don’t want to be really loud person leading, I’d like to be a backing singer. I’ll be happy with that until I know what its like & people know me & my voice more. I’ll wait until I’m asked.

Which musicians do you admire? Worship singers like Cathy Burton. Matt Redman and Tim Hughes have written a lot of the more modern songs. I still do really like Delirious & Casting Crowns.

Do you have any favourite songs? A cheesy one would be Bon Jovi’s ‘Living on a prayer’. ‘Love came down’, ‘Everything’ and ‘Hungry’are really good worship songs.

What is your favourite colour? Purple

How important is to relate well with the others in the group? It is very important. Naturally you get to know other, becoming more comfortable around each other. It is good that we can go for drink, chat & be sociable.

What drives you? That I am singing for God. That is the main driving factor. I don’t think that I would have joined any other music group at the moment. It has involved giving up my time, to do something not necessarily easy for me.

It’s a confidence issue, where I have to trust in God. I want to get to a point where I can sing to my full potential. I may take lessons to learn more about breathing. I want people to feel stirred, as I have been stirred when I see others singing to God. I think it’s important to appreciate Gods stillness, to be patient with myself & to progress in God’s time. Being patient.

LESLEY GUY

Interview with Lesley Guy, about her time in the New Philharmonia Chorus 1968-1972

Lesley is my mother. I am curious to find out about her evident passion for singing & music.

Lesley Guy, aged 27 in the 1970s. She is wearing heavy black glasses, a ginger bakerboy hat & a very short dress underneath a very short ginger & cream coat. An Irish lady made her the outfit. The lady in front of her in the photograph was an architect.

Every January there was a concert in Madrid. This photograph is from a calendar dated 1970.

Herr Pitz, German chorus master.

How old were you, what year when you joined the The New Philharmonia Chorus? 1968. Aged 27.

How long were you in the choir for? 4 years

What were your motivations at the time for joining the choir? It had been a dream of mine for many years to get into a first class European choir. This one was considered the best in England and had a very high reputation abroad, not only in Europe but also in America. One member of the choir went to America and just on the strength of having been in this choir with Herr Pitz (a reputable German chorus master who flew to London every week for our rehearsals, director of Bayreuth festival) she was allowed to join a world famous professional opera house chorus.

I’d tried to get in twice and they were very fussy. At the first audition I was very nervous and I sang a piece by Purcell. It was in the Ghandi Hall which seemed huge with an elderly pianist at one end and me at the other. The pianist was a very fine professional accompanist in fact. I didn’t succeed in getting in.

The second audition, one year later, was in a smaller rehearsal room. You could hear noises from other rehearsal rooms down the corridor of bassoons, violins and all sorts. I’d chosen a better piece and that time I was accepted straight in. That was a year later, so remember to never give up! Within a year of that I had another audition with Herr Pitz to be accepted into the semi-chorus. That time he didn’t bother to let me sing the exercises. I had chosen another piece by Purcell, 'Sweeter than Roses' which is very taxing both musically and technically.

He put me straight into the semi-chorus which is a small hand-picked group of the best voices in the chorus. That really felt like a feather in my cap!

What are your earliest memories of wanting to sing or singing? Always sang a lot. I was very carsick as a child. At weekends people used to go for rides in their car. To take my mind off my sickness the family all sang rounds, 'London’s Burning' etc to stop me from feeling ill. My Dad had a beautiful Irish tenor singing voice, as also did my Grandma and Mum sang well. I learned piano, developing my interest in music. I continued a bit with that after leaving school but I really wanted to sing in a good choir and became more interested in Oratorio.

I met your father a few years after joining the choir. I didn’t meet him in the Philharmonia, but at Chiswick Music Centre where I had studied singing in previous years. I was also in a small motet group called The Chandos Singers which was to put on a performance of Dido and Aeneas by Henry Purcell (again). The conductor, PhiIip Irwin needed more tenors so borrowed them from the Chiswick Music Centre where your father was studying singing at the time. Your father actually was given a solo part in the concert and later joined the Chandos himself. After that I suggested he join the Philharmonia, which he did. He had previously sung in the Birmingham City Choir, another very excellent choir.

Within a year we became engaged and then married.

How important were radios or record players to you? A lot of our performances were on the radio or Television. So we’d rush back home or to our hotel rooms, if we were abroad, to listen to them after the concerts. Unfortunately I missed actually performing in one of the hardest pieces to learn because I contracted 'flu on the night. The choir had spent months learning to sing in Czech Janaceck's 'Glagolithic Mass'. I was very disappointed to have to sit at home, listening to the performance from the Festival Hall on the radio. People listened to the radio more in those days. I learned the music in the choir, not so much from previous knowledge. I have a record of our choir singing.

How important were choir masters to your artistic development? Well Herr Wilhelm Pitz was the best and he used to make us sing one row at a time as Sopranos if he suspected someone was singing off key. ‘If you cannot sing, sing not’ he’d say. He’d walk up and down the rows of ladies to hear which of us was flat. It was scary and if you knew that it was you, you simply wouldn’t sing. He was a very fine, strict trainer, the very best; since then I’ve not been taught by anyone like that, since getting married and moving to rural Tewkesbury.

How many times a week did you have to practice? Well it depended on how near to a concert we were. Usually it would be twice a week. Concert schedules could be hefty. Then near a concert there would be a quite a few more rehearsals to attend. There would be a considerable amount of studying music at home. Everyone would need a piano at home.

Is the narrative, the story of a song, the words themselves important to you & how far? At the time it wasn’t except when we did Brahms' 'German Requiem, the Verdi Requiem and Haydn's 'Creation' sung in German; also Bach's 'St Matthew Passion'. I now realise much was straight out of the Bible. Nowadays, as a born again Christian I find it wonderful but even then I found the words very inspiring, especially The Messiah, Handel although the Philharmonia never performed this as it is written for a much smaller choir, but over the years I have sung it many times with other choirs – the Chandos and local choirs. As a soloist, singing locally in later years, the words of art songs (as opposed to oratorio or opera) were very important. Songs by Schubert, Schumann or Wolfe told often very sad or romantic stories. I particularly love English folk songs arranged by Benjamin Britten.

Apart from your husband were there any other lasting friendships or creative relationships came out of that time? Yes, Janet was a very good friend at that time with a wonderful soprano voice, also in the semi-chorus. She involved me in her local choir with solos, duets etc

Any unusual memories? I went to Barcelona one time and my room-mate and I stayed in a horrible hotel with cockroaches & beetles. Well we overslept the morning after the concert and the coach arrived at 6.15am to take us to the airport. The whole coach was waiting and we boarded the coach, half dressed, no make-up, thoroughly embarrassed and very dishevelled having packed our luggage in two minutes' flat!

Another time we went to Madrid and I had a Cuban (married) friend who was living in Madrid. He insisted that I and another of my friends meet up with him and his friends. Well we were in a hurry to get back to a concert in the Teatre Real after meeting them but these Cubans were ‘manana manana’. They took us to a beauty spot in Segovia and arranged to meet us back there later that afternoon to take us back to the opera house in Madrid. We were waiting there at this aqueduct for them for over an hour and a quarter. We had only 45 minutes when at last they arrived to get to the stage at the Teatre Real, Madrid. We did get there in a real panic and the men drove like dervishes!

Also one time we were singing in Bath, at a place called the Forum. We were excited, anticipating that it would be a place of beautiful architecture. It turned out to be a corny cinema with very few changing rooms. The facilities were totally inadequate to house a full choir and a large orchestra, the Philharmonia Orchestra. It was very amusing. The acoustics of the old cinema however left much to be desired.

At the Edinburgh Festival, my first season with the choir, the organisers forgot to include me in the seating arrangements and there was no seat allotted to me on the tiers at the back of the orchestra in the Usher Hall. I had to sit in the aisle, so I stuck out like a sore thumb! On the journey there we slept in sleepers on the train. There were parties in the sleeper units and it was great fun.

Did you achieve your dream? Yes and more.

Any regrets? There was one strange performance of Holst's Planets where the American conductor, Lorin Maazel wanted to create an eerie sound. We had to walk off stage and sing as we walked to the back of the stage, up some stairs, to where it was dark and peculiar. I was ashamed because it was difficult in the dark and I didn’t do it well.

The good thing about a choir is… it can be professional. You are treated as such. Not as a bunch of amateurs. I was very proud to sing with this famous choir. The massed sound of singing is amazing.

The most important thing for me about that time was… when singing in that choir all over Europe it was as if all the rest of my life was just existing out there. What mattered was that I was living, this was me, true, deep me, now, just singing. Something deep inside of me could come out. It is similar now when I sing at church in worship in a different way. Every bit of you is involved, the way you stand and the way you breathe.

DAVID BOSWELL

David Boswell ('Boz') is a musician, and a friend of mine, based in Sheffield, UK.




Boz sings and does some crazy things in the pop-band Hiem (Crosstown Rebels/ Eskimo).
Boz is a super DJ/remixer & he also writes songs & releases tracks as Bozzwell (Society/Eskim/Kompakt/Firm).




Watch out for a November release from Bozzwell, links are at the bottom of the page.

I'd call his music '80's techno bass poetry'. But what do I know about it? Not much! I do like the sound of it though. That's why I want to interview him.

For more background, Boz has been on Top of the Pops & in the past has worked with Jarvis Cocker, notably in the 'All Seeing Eye' project. He also collaborated with Roots Manuva last year.

It is a Saturday afternoon in October & we are chatting on the phone...

How are you? I'm playing on my Xbox, winning Derby county by 2:1.

Hiem, Bozzwell, Bozzwell, Hiem, which do you enjoy the most? Both for different reasons. With Hiem its good to do live shows, be at the front of a band playing to a cross over audience including indie kids etc. With Bozzwell its great to go out DJ-ing. Both are as good as each other in different ways .

Please describe your music style in many words. EMOTIVE- AGGRESSIVE- MELODIC- MEATY- BEEFY

Do you have musical heroes? Not Cliff Richard even though I do like Cliff. I'd say Iggy Pop, Kraftwerk & Gram Parsons

Any musician you would love to work with? Iggy Pop, Paul McCartney

Why Paul? He’s pretty amazing, what a musical mind.

Who has been the best to work with? Rodney Roots Manuva. Because I ‘d never worked with a rapper before. He’s so interesting. Suddenly he'll start spitting out rhymes as if he’s talking.

What is your favourite all time song? Hickory winds, Gram Parsons. Or Digital Love by Daft Punk. It is a perfect marriage of Pop & Electro.

What is your favourite colour? Black! No not really because Black is not really a colour. Red for Revolution, blood & life.

How old when you knew you wanted to be a musician? About 6. I saw the Rubettes on TOTP & drummer span his stick, dropped it & picked it up. In 3 months I had a drum kit.

What is rhythms place? Without it we’d me in a motionless world. The tides rhythm effects us all. The way the world works, the seasons, the planets move in ryhthm, trains create rhythm. It is everywhere, affecting us all. Without it we’d be lost. Rhythm is cool.

How important were music teachers in school to your artistic development? I hated all my teachers. Losers the lot of them. I could play many instruments BUT this old git was such was a bore. He used to write on my end of year reports ‘Boz is interested in pop songs & not the classics so therefore he is a t**t. There were girls at school who could read music & would play Eastenders on the Piano. So he’d spend time with them & ignoring me when I was creating some pretty good stuff.

Also at Uni I felt the same. The teachers weren’t good musicians. They could teach but they couldn’t write or play music well. Music education totally confuses me. When you think about it all the best artists, mavericks seem to leave college anyway. Leave and be a rock & roller!
Today though, kids are a lot better off with drumkits & guitars in school etc. It has changed so hopefully it is better.

Did any lasting friendships or creative relationships came out of Music College? Not really! I lost it, I thought my HND was a joke. It was like the college in the late 90’s was operating as a business at that time.

Are the words & the narrative of a song important to you? I think they are VERY extremely important. In a club situation with strange substances being taken it can work but techno & house music can be strange & loopy & words get overlooked. I want to inject it back in. I’m not Nick Cave or Leonard Cohen or Byron but I’d like to think I use words well & I know they are important.

Would you describe yourself as a very imaginative person? Yes, but with that I get all the wrong thoughts too. There is a bleak place inside Boz’s head. Bleak or great. Pretty calm waters most of the time until something upsets me then I can get crazy.

Describe for me your dream perfect show. I’ve done some great shows. In a dream show I get my music so much over to audience so much that they understand perfectly what you were doing & responded back. It’s a two way thing.

Do you ever have dreams about shows or music? No, music never enters my dreams.

Do the fans input your creative process? No, we just do what we do. We write for ourselves, not for people. We get the odd fan email. A marriage proposal & a Swedish fan wanted to send us Elk droppings.

Ha ha! How do you first write a song? Words first or tune first? It changes, I tinker about maybe on the keyboard. Maybe Nick will come up with a story, idea or a bass-line & we collaborate.

What music would you never involve yourself in? I've never quite got along with Reggae, or Ragga.

Is it hard for you to be disciplined? Well being disciplined is not in the creative process. It’s about spontaneity, throwing things to the wall & seeing what sticks. In the studio everything is everywhere, It’s not posh with a plant in the corner. Boxes, wires, ash all over.

Is it important to have an element of chaos? Kate Jackson came in to sing vocals for a new track & I thought, we better clean up, we like Kate & she’s a girl so we better clean up a bit. So we tidied up. We try to cater for girls.

Have you achieved your dream? I don’t do it for money, sometimes it’s there, mostly it’s not. I’m not bothered about being a massive techno producer really. Me & Nick sing from same hymnsheet on this, we’re content, most dreams realised, I make music because I think that’s what I’m supposed to do.

What is the role of hand symbols in the band? That’s something I nicked off Jarvis (Cocker). I’d been in shows with him in the past so I kind of just copied him. You’ve seen him make strange gestures on the telly! I’m just trying to be cool! Failing miserably. No-one understand what I’m doing anyway, I just act like a plonker & people seem to like it. In my plonkered plonkerness it seemed to work in a strange twisted kind of way. Not that I do hand symbols all the time! Its only now and again you know.

Links for more of Boz...

http://www.hiem.net/
http://www.residentadvisor.net/dj-page.aspx?id=2717
http://www.samurai.fm/hiemradio
http://www.spunoutagency.com/
http://www.myspace.com/bozzmusic
http://www.myspace.com/hiem1