Welcome to episode 12.
This week my guest is Emma Hughes. Emma is the choir coordinator and director at Soundabout (Listen to Ep 7 with Clare Cook) and was instrumental in developing their work and delivery over Zoom during the Pandemic Lockdowns. Emma talks about the organic growth of her roles at Soundabout and particularly choir leading and setting up the tech.
When I first contacted Emma, she was out on tour and I finally got to ask her where, what, with whom.
Emma reveals that for the past 11 years she has been the live Bass player for Kate Nash and had been on tour with Kate in Germany. The portfolio career model is truly alive and very well. Emma talks about how she got the gig with Kate whilst an undergraduate studying performance and writing her dissertation on Music Therapy whilst on tour. Through working as a TA in SEN schools, Emma's interest in this area grew and she began to build her music practice over the ensuing years.
Emma talks about the upcoming program at Soundabout and then we talk about Emma's journey into community music, the organic nature of this. We talk about music in society and how as working practitioners we begin to unpick formal training and develop new ways of thinking, playing and teaching through our work. Emma touches upon Christopher Small's idea of 'Musicking' and how all of the people surrounding music, the bar staff, the venue, the ticket seller, for example, all play a role in the activity of making music. I'm sure we can all resonate with this idea.
As this episode goes out, Emma is on her way to Glastonbury Festival to perform 2 shows with Sam Brookes.
I look forward to catching up with Emma in the months to come as I'm sure that her career in music will only continue to be a fascinating one.
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