Hello!

My name is Anna, I’m a clarinettist, and I’m one of the musicians supporting David Horne’s group during the upcoming Sound And Music Summer School. It’s great to be asked along again – a few years back I was a musician for Alison Cox’s group and have many wonderful memories from that week!

Having spent four years as a student at The Purcell School, it’s always weird and wonderful to come back to these buildings. Full of practise rooms and great facilities as well as large fields and natural surroundings, it’s the perfect setting to be inspired and get the creative juices going. Time seems to flow differently as well as with this extra physical space of rooms and fields there seems to be more hours in the day too … so despite the course being one week, so much takes place and there are many inspiring classes, tutors and colleagues.

One of the memories I have from the last SAM course with Alison was when we spent a day recording everyone’s pieces. We used the brilliant recording studio facilities, but after a couple of hours it felt claustrophobic and the pieces seemed to be endless. At one point something in me snapped and I couldn’t stop giggling, so we took a short break and I did a lap of the field. The rest of the session continued smoothly and I learned an important lesson: when stressed, don’t try to force your way through it, find a way to breathe and open up the head-space.

By this time next week we will all be mid-way through the course, and many new and wonderful pieces will be materialising – I can’t wait to see and hear the results! See you all soon!