Staying well, being well, making music.
Lea Cornthwaite directs choirs. Lea Cornthwaite directed choirs. Now that this coming-together-to-make-a-joyful-noise has stopped, we spoke about the impact on the health of communities and what the future might hold.
Who are you?
I’m Lea. I am a singer, a choir leader, an animateur, and dog controller. Well – was. Until recently.
Why do – did - you do what you do?
Singing? Well, it’s a nice thing to do, isn’t it?! It’s a pleasurable thing. I went to music college, I did bits of performing - opera, song, that kind of stuff. I didn’t do a great deal of that after I left, because you needed a fair bit of money to carry on doing that and I didn’t have it. Eventually, I started doing work that was with other people - which I actually enjoyed far more than singing myself. I do enjoy singing. I quite like singing in a group – singing in a choir or an ensemble – more than singing solo. But I got a bit more out of working with other people, to help them sing. So, I went from singing myself and gradually got into working with kids. I did a lot of work in the opera world for the major opera companies, working with non-professionals, children, adults, preparing them for staged productions, mostly. In the last few years, I’ve been MD-ing choirs of various kinds, from people with mental health issues (in the community and in a secure hospital) as well as “London’s coolest choir” ™ - Some Voices. I’ve worked with them for five years and done several of their gigs. They are amazing, doing their own arrangements of mostly pop, funk, hip-hop – all sorts of stuff. I get a great deal of satisfaction in helping people get to where they want to but don’t necessarily have the background to do it. That’s what I’ve mostly been doing for the last twenty years, really.
Here we are in a pandemic. What are you doing now?
That’s a good question. Nothing, really, is one answer. When it dawned on us that the whole thing was going to stop, it just seemed obvious that there would be nothing for a while. Everyone started trying to think of ways around it and the only thing was the whole zoom thing and the only way of performing was recording separately and someone trying to mix it all together. The lockdown was announced and immediately, all of the choral stuff that I was doing (working towards three gigs in London and Newcastle) just stopped dead. I did some sessions for Some Voices on zoom, but they stopped pretty quick – it just didn’t really work the way we wanted it to. I did a project with Garsington Opera, which was working with stroke survivors and also with the Garsington Adult Community Company, who I’ve worked with for about seven years now. We discussed how that might work and we ended up doing that over zoom. It was good for the participants, I think, because it got them to see each other. In the end, we put together a piece (it will be a film, I think) but it meant they all had to record their parts separately and I took the tracks and mixed them into something. It was a lot of work, in that respect.
For me, on the musical side of it, the thing that’s wonderful about being in a room of people is how they grow and develop and bring a performance to life. That’s just not there. It’s just a bit like screaming into the void. The way we were having to work, you’d have to mute everybody. You can’t hear them sing. You can’t feel the power of the sound or have the satisfaction of hearing them hit a certain harmony. You can’t hear any of that. It’s almost like you’re performing the “teaching”. You can’t really teach anything. You can go through it but then you have to stop and ask everybody individually how they got on with that. It’s not feasible in an hour or an hour and a half session. You can’t hear them. You can see them. There’s no way of knowing how people are getting on. If you’re a workshop leader or a music director, you’re constantly reading the information that’s being given to you, in real time, so you can see and hear what’s going wrong, what they need to look at. On zoom, you can’t see any of that. I found it a colourless, slightly depressing thing to do. I get that it is really important for the participants and I think they got something out of it. I didn’t get a lot out of it, myself. It did make me realize that it’s important when you’re leading something, that you get something out of it, as well. But the virtual thing - you’re not talking to people, you’re talking at them. I’ve not seen any of the films that we made, but I’ve seen a lot of the same kind of things that were produced. There’s no difference between watching that performance and any old video. There’s nothing special about it. There’s no live-ness about it. And it allows people to hear themselves singing together (even though they weren’t). It’s got something, but it’s a very, very different experience to actually singing together, in a room.
I did a few of the zoom things, but it’s not for me, really. Hell! What am I going to do?!
What are you going to do?
I don’t know! Being a music director, working with people - especially working with kids (but not just working with kids) – takes an awful lot of energy. That’s another thing – I found zoom sessions, even though they were much shorter than an actual rehearsal, were far more exhausting, for some reason (I’m not quite sure why that is). I found them very, very draining, without any of the boosting energy you might get in a live rehearsal, when things are going well. I’ve been thinking about how I might move on and whether it’s in a musical direction or not. I’m in a fortunate position in which I can take some time to think about what that might be. Also, I’m not twenty-four, anymore… In the last twenty years, that’s all I’ve done. Lots of different aspects of it, but nothing else but music and it might be that that’s not really sustainable. Even if things go back to normal, whatever normal is, the future is very cloudy, how it will all turn out. Professional opera singers might go back and perform. They might be performing live, online, which to me as an audience member – you might as well just watch any YouTube video. And why is that different to the other 7,000 other live recordings? I don’t understand that, but that’s just me. I’ve just worked pretty solidly for twenty years, so suddenly stopping also meant – “ahhh – I’m just going to chill a bit. Because, you know, it will only be for a few weeks, before we all start again…!”
Now we know that it’s not “for a few weeks”. And now we know that, of all live performance, singing is the one that is, potentially, the most dangerous.
Singing and specifically, “amateur singing”. Professionals can go back and sing in their socially distanced – whatever. Until the middle of August - the government changed the rules to allow, potentially, non-professional singers - of which there are many hundreds and hundreds of thousands in the country (people like the London Symphony Chorus to the smallest group who meet in the church hall – ten people) to meet. There were very onerous guidelines about risk-assessments. And then, in just the last couple of days, they’ve given new guidance, which has thrown it all up in the air again. It’s damaging to what is a very strong and important tradition of music, of community music. And that’s the kind of music that I’ve been involved with, as a professional, for a long time. I’ve seen, over the years, many people rely on those groups for personal expression and also social activity.
Years ago, I was involved with a choir that was explicitly built around well-being. In recent years, research has suggested that the social aspect of being with other people is, at least, as important as making music. It was very important for a lot of people. Some never sang. Some would just come and be in a room with other people. For them, that was a massive step and a very important thing. To suddenly take that social aspect out of it means it’s not going to work for a lot of people. The social aspect of that sort of community music making, especially for people who might suffer from bad mental health or are isolated… I’ve heard so many times “if I didn’t come here to this session, I wouldn’t see anyone else”. And that’s not just in choirs that are based around mental health. We’re social animals and that aspect of music is about being with other people. It’s really important that that’s not left out. And it has been left out. The quality might not be the same as the BBC Singers, but it is important to the musical life of the nation. It’s important to the people who are making the music. We’re not made to just be consumers and passive listeners. We’re musical people. Everyone is, to some extent. That part of the nation’s musical life has been devastated. Just shut down in one go. No clarity about when it might start again. It’s hard to see football matches going ahead and team sports going ahead and not their own thing. It’s more than just a hobby for some people. it’s actually helped them stay well. That’s being taken away.
Singing with other people can really boost your confidence. “Oh, you’ll be alright. You’ll be back to your lovely hobby at the end of six months…” No.
What can we do to get back to some version of this social experience?
This might be one of the big problems. There’s very little that we can do. I’ve seen on social media a lot of choir directors scrabbling to try and make something happen for the people they work with and trying to get their heads around the every-changing guidance. It just makes everything that much more difficult. When you’re having to do a risk assessment for ten singers, masks, covid-secure – it just becomes so joyless. I can’t see, within the strictures of the present laws and the willingness of local councils, how any of this will change. So much is out of our control. There is concern for people like me, who lead the groups. But I don’t think there is concern about the people who do it.
If that comes back, some of it might be the same. I imagine it’s going to be a lot different to how it was before. I’m not sure I want to be involved with that new, different way. You see lots of posts of people saying “yeah, we’re going back to our choir rehearsals”, all wearing these special singing masks. Up to thirty people. I don’t want to be standing in a room, faced with that.
You’re not interested in working in this way.
I don’t think so. All of the things that are a personal interconnection, that is the bedrock of any kind of choir group, any musical ensemble - all of these barriers are being put in. For instance – the rules that you’re not allowed to mingle in any way – that’s such an important part of being human, especially as a musician of any kind, from the top professionals, down. That interpersonal thing. I don’t think that would be for me. It would be like a zoom session in real life. All of of those things would be the focus, rather than the people in the room. But that’s just me. I’ve got no desire to go into that kind of situation.
Then what will you do?
I don’t know. Before I did music, I did a lot of things that are really lovely but are useless to make a living out of. Before I did any music, I did a foundation and a BTEC in art with the intention of going to art college and not making a living that way! I was probably much better at doing music in the end, because I managed to make a living out of it. Not doing it is not something I’ve even considered for more than a nanosecond in fifteen years. It would take some time to just think about what I can do that will to pay the mortgage. I think it will end up being more of a mixed thing. I’d still like to keep some of the artistic relationships I developed over the last few years, like Garsington and places like that - places like that who really understand the importance of working with the wider community. They absolutely get why it’s important and what they and people get out of it. Things like that, I would definitely consider continuing. Things like commercial choirs (by ‘commercial’, I mean people come and pay to be part of it), I’m not sure how that will pan out in the next year or two. It’s hard to make any plans.
You spoke about the ‘mingling’ - would you miss that?
I would. I do. Before the lockdown happened, I was in London, doing stuff with the choir there. We were gearing up to a performance, it was a good deal of fun. The sessions are normally full of good vibes. A lot of people are there because they want to be somewhere, do something, they’re learning, the arrangements are great. I do miss that. I was gutted for them (and for my income, of course. Let’s not pretend.) when that suddenly stopped. And also, it does make me worry about the long term effects for those organizations. You know, the Southbank Centre – yes, they’ve lost this, that and the other, but they always get their central funding. The Royal Opera House – the same. But all of the dynamic, ‘roots’ organizations, they don’t have that luxury. So, what the arts scene will look like – the music scene will look like – in two months’ time, is anyone’s guess.
Yes, I will definitely miss that aspect of it.
I quite like ‘making’ stuff. I’ve always made things. I’ve sewn things and painted things. So – there may well be something there. It will be a mixed economy. I’m quite happy with my own company, my own thoughts. I enjoy being with other people. I also don’t mind being stuck in a room, in front of a frame or a canvas. The big answer is – I just don’t know. I’ve got the luxury of not having to rush too much to find out. Maybe I should have spent more time during the lockdown thinking about that. But – I didn’t. I’m enjoying the days and the garden and the little front yard and the flowers that are blooming and hearing the birds. Simple things like that. It sounds like a cliché. Like a lot of people, we don’t know what’s happening now. I might be pushed financially. Of course I will be. But hopefully I would have thought about it by then. I could probably go back to all the stuff I’d been doing, but there’s no guarantee that that’s going to happen. If you work in opera – especially community projects – they’re all planned for years in advance. As far as I know, I’ve still got stuff ‘happening’ next year and, obviously, I’ll keep all of those. But there’s no guarantee as you get towards three weeks before it’s supposed to happen, there’s another local lockdown. It’s impossible to plan your life in that.
Are you okay not planning anymore?
We live in our diaries. I’ve not even looked at a diary for months. Everything that was in there has gone. I was supposed to have done some corporate stuff but, because people are changing the way that they work, I don’t know if any of that will ever happen again.
You might find me in a year’s time on the checkout. I doubt I’ll get the job, though because they’ll say “you’re over-qualified.” Or too old. Or not quite old enough. I’m guessing I’ll be doing some of the long-term musical projects that I’ve been involved with. And some ‘making’ of some kind.
So – who are you?
I don’t spend a lot of time living in a space thinking that because a part of who you are depends on the day.
Who are you today?
I’m just someone who is enjoying company. And someone thinking “so what am I going to do with the rest of my life?” I’m the same person as I was before the pandemic. And will be the same person up until the day I die.