MH: What was your experience of music when you were growing up?
LS: None of my family was involved in music. I'm where I am today because of three music teachers. My primary school teacher, Mrs Gladding, was a music specialist. She saw that I had a talent and a passion for music, and would always encourage it. Then Mrs Dolby, my first peripatetic music teacher who taught me oboe, and backed me when I later switched to bassoon. And my A Level music teacher, Victoria Wells, in Birkenhead; when I decided I wanted to go into music, there was a real gap in my knowledge and she helped to fill this.
MH: The oboe isn't an obvious thing for a young child to take up, even less the bassoon. What was your entrée into these instruments?
LS: I had a real passion for music when I was young. The local music service came to my school and did whole-year pitch tests; the people who scored highest could pick an instrument – I chose the oboe and I fell in love with instrumental music. I was fascinated by the idea that an individual making a particular type of sound could contribute to something even bigger in an orchestra. One day, in the local library, I saw a picture of a bassoon and thought, ‘I really want to try this instrument.’ In those days you could pay 20P to use the library's PC for half an hour; I got the Encarta 95 disc and listened to all the instruments and decided on the bassoon. I was too small then, and had to wait till I was 16.
MH: How did you come to take up the instrument professionally?
LS: I went to a summer school at the Royal College of Music and discovered you can actually play your instrument for a living. I went to Birkenhead Sixth-Form college, where I did my A Level. I was thrust into playing in orchestras and ensembles. I remember the first day going to an ensemble and thinking, ‘I don't know how to read music!’ But you just have to learn very, very quickly – it was sink or swim. I hated the feeling of being behind everybody else, but it never felt like hard work to catch up. I played in lots of ensembles run by the Wirral Schools Music Service – it's gone now, the Council sold it to a catering company; but it was thriving then, across the Wirral. Then I got into the Merseyside Youth Orchestra, and then the Royal Northern Junior School. At school I was advised to join a management trainee programme for a local supermarket, but I decided to try for music college, and went to the RCM. When I left, it was a natural progression for me to go back into the Music Service and teach.
MH: You were a peripatetic teacher for a decade. What did you learn from that experience?
LS: I taught classroom music too, so I was teaching from primary up to the age of 80! It forces you to examine lots of things that you have done very naturally as a musician, to examine not only technique but also innate musicality and how you pass that on. And how do you differentiate for a class of children? How can I draw the best out of an individual? But also, I thought, it would be really great if I went back and did some of the things I'm telling the kids to do! So it taught me how to practise. You only see your teacher for 20-30 minutes a week – the rest of the time it's up to you. You have to be a bit of an investigator, thinking about where you want to be with a piece and how best to get there. If you find it tough, you have to break it down and ask, ‘What is it that's tough? Is it because the air won't go from one note to the next, or are my fingers not moving properly, or is this particular move over the break really tough?’
MH: People sometimes say, ‘Those who can, do; those who can't, teach.’ I've always found that quite insulting.
LS: Music colleges don't celebrate the breadth of jobs that you can do coming out of music college. I was taught that success is sitting in an orchestra, and yet none of us as an orchestral freelancer would be anywhere without having been first taught by our teachers. There's also an assumption that if you can play your instrument well, you can teach well too, and that is not the case. I think sometimes the best teachers are great practitioners who have stepped away because they have the passion for teaching – they don't just do it on the side. And people who aren't that great a performer can still be amazing teachers. It's all about the passion for how you draw the best out of somebody else, and that has nothing to do necessarily with your own skill.
MH: It was unusual that you had a music specialist in primary school. Could you comment on the state of music education in this country now, and where you'd like to see it in 10 years' time?
LS: I always felt really lucky that we had Mrs Gladding. She was warm, patient, and a fantastic teacher and musician. She would nurture a passion for music.
In my final years of teaching, it felt budgets were being constrained in music education and the focus seemed to have become more about being fiscal. The freedom and space to think and deliver creatively had been replaced (out of necessity, I suppose) by budget bureaucracy and utilisation efficiency monitoring. I didn't stop teaching because of that, but I moved away to London and my teaching dwindled.
I wish everyone could see how enriching music is. We're in a world that feels so divided. Music can bring us all together in so many ways, whether it's a rock band or a choir or an orchestra, and it has a power that transcends language. We have a fantastic education structure in the west, but I wish we had more appreciation for music and the arts and what they can do, and how much it helps mental health to be able to go and spend time and bond with people while doing something challenging together.
I think it starts with us, the people who have a passion and a love for it; we just have to convince those in power that it's worth it. We can't change everything, but we can keep doing what we're doing. It's the little things you can do that matter, whether it's teaching the flute or playing a piece of Florence Price in the car on the way to school so that your children are exposed to it. It doesn't matter whether it's Mozart or the theme from Game of Thrones, as long as it sparks an interest in a child to listen and get passionate about music. We should never, ever shame a child for finding a way in that isn't through a more sophisticated style of listening. The piece I remember falling in love with, before I knew about classical music, was ‘In the Hall of the Mountain King’, because I heard it every time on the Alton Towers advert.
MH: You're an ambassador for BBC Ten Pieces. What do these offer children and teachers?
LS: This year's Ten Pieces are all by women composers. We don't hear enough of their music, yet they've been composing since at least the ninth century, with Kassia. It's like having a history book with half the pages missing. Bringing all of this music by women composers to the floor means that we have a fuller history of what composition and music throughout time looks like.
[The BBC] has worked closely with a lot of organisations to produce new SEND resources as well, and they've gone to specialist organisations for arrangements for adaptive musical instruments for people with varying levels of disabilities; so there is a great range of resources available. It's a joy to see, even though I'm not a teacher anymore, because I know that so many kids will have that door opened for them to fall in love with music.
MH: Tell us something about your activism for a broader representation of different groups of people in music, especially women and people from ethnically diverse backgrounds.
LS: I came to social activism through my own experience of being black and queer, which are often the subject of microaggressions. Usually you're with people who have similar experiences to yourself, but then you meet someone with entirely different experiences, and you've never even considered they might be experiencing things in a different way – people with disabilities, women, migrants.
There is so much injustice and imbalance specifically in the music world. As you get into the profession, you see things like sexual assault, or issues to do with pregnancy, childbirth, and miscarriage – things I will never experience myself. There are so many people doing good things, but there's a lot of injustice that goes under the radar. It's become a real passion for me, like I have a calling to do something within the music world. It complements everything else that I do.
I can't change the whole world, but it's one thing I can do with my life and my time that will hopefully make a difference for other people.
