The Glasshouse

John Wilson: The Glasshouse is a miracle. It’s a symbol of what is possible when you put your mind to it. It was impossible in my childhood to imagine that this would exist, and here it is. The sound I would associate with The Glasshouse and particularly the spot that we’re in now are those bird calls. Are they kittiwakes? I’m not sure.

Frankie Jobling: Yeah, I think they are, yeah.

John: But they’ve been a part of my life since year one, and so whenever I hear that, I’m firmly rooted here.

Frankie: Hello and welcome to Music Lives Here, the podcast from The Glasshouse which celebrates the eclectic and endlessly versatile music scene here in Newcastle and Gateshead. I’m Frankie Jobling, and in each episode it’s my pleasure to invite artists from all genres to share the stories behind their relationship with music and their connection to the North East. Today I’m here with a local boy done good. Gateshead-born, he taught himself music from the age of 5 before going on to found his own orchestra at just 22. He’s since come home as one of The Glasshouse’s Artistic Partners. My name is John Wilson.

Frankie: Nice to meet you. So John, what are you here for today?

John: I’m here to do your podcast, Music Lives Here at The Glasshouse, because this place is very special to me and I’ve been working here as a musician for the best part of 20 years now. It’s one of the great concert halls of the world, but the fact that it’s in my hometown, the place where I grew up, where I lived for the first 18 years of my life, is extra special to me.

Frankie: Great, shall we go inside? I’ve brought us some bagels actually.

John: Oh nice!

Frankie: Oh, it’s nice and warm in here.

John: It’s still a really magnificent space, this, no matter how many times you’ve been here or how familiar you are with it. You know, the orchestra have been here a few times. Last night, a few of us were over the other side of the river having dinner and looking out at this place, and it feels like one of the wonders of the world almost.

Frankie: Yeah, definitely. It still blows me away. Like, I just started working here like 3 years ago teaching music, and I still can’t believe it every time I walk through and I’m like, “Ah, look, yeah, that’s really cool.” It’s wonderful when they do something like this and they get everything right. Yeah.

John: It not only looks wonderful, but it sounds amazing. Not only when you’re on stage, but when you’re listening. I’m gonna follow you now.

Frankie: Yeah, it’s a bit of a maze down here.

John: I don’t think I’ve ever been down this side.

Frankie: Oh, have you not?

John: No.

Frankie: So this is the Foyle Music Centre. So this is where all the music tutoring and sessions and workshops happen.

John: Where do you want me?

Frankie: Here, if that’s all right.

John: Thank you.

Frankie: Born and raised in Gateshead, John’s unpretentious style and extraordinary ear, built on working-class roots and borrowed library scores, have carried him from Newcastle College to stages all around the world. At the time of recording, just 2 days ago, the Royal Philharmonic Society have named him Conductor of the Year. So we’re extra lucky to have him with us today. Famously not snobbish when it comes to choosing music to conduct, John is as passionate about Broadway as he is about the classics, which explains why he’s so loved here at The Glasshouse. I can’t wait to get into it. John, it’s really nice to have you here. Welcome to Music Lives Here. You were conducting last night, right? Yes. Yeah. How was the concert?

John: Wonderful. I’ll remember it for a long time. Very special, actually.

Frankie: I’m glad you had a good time. So The Glasshouse is quiet today. It’s a weekend and it feels like we have the place to ourselves, a far cry from the energy of last night’s performance. The whole building seems to be lazily reflecting a chill Saturday back at Newcastle on the other side of the Tyne. John, I think you’ve spoken elsewhere about your passion for the byways of music, those more obscure corners of the musical world. Which is exactly what The Glasshouse was built to bring people, that northeastern niche and breadth. But this place wasn’t around when you were growing up, was it?

John: No, I mean, this whole area wasn’t really developed. It was a bit of a wasteland. There was a market on a Sunday on the other side of the river, which I went to regularly, but it was very much a kind of functional market. You would buy things that you needed rather than things that you might desire. But whoever had the idea that the city could be regenerated or given a new sort of perspective by building a, basically an art centre, a concert hall, is the person we have to thank for the rest of our days. Because here is this magnificent building with an acoustic to rival anything in the world on the banks of the Tyne. I still can’t believe it exists, but there you are. It’s been here 20 years now.

Frankie: Yeah, it’s pretty special for a special city as well. So this podcast is all about music and most importantly what music means to the people that we get on to chat to and to you. So I was just wondering what music means to you and what music means to you here in The Glasshouse.

John: Well, that’s a question that will take a lot of answering, but I’ll try and dissect it. In terms of The Glasshouse, to be here with an orchestra that I’ve created myself is a dream come true, and that is not to overstate things. You know, it was a dream for me to build an orchestra from scratch with players that I really, really admired and respected. But for that orchestra to then travel up and down the UK and to play here and to be given a residency, an artistic partnership here, is, it really is a dream come true. As to what music means to me, it’s so enmeshed in my, every fibre of my being that I don’t remember a time in my life when music wasn’t central to it. I don’t come from a musical family, but music was around in those days. I was born in 1972, so you turn the television on, there would be an orchestra, there would be a music quiz. If you turn the radio on, in those days, there was a kind of universal classical music that everybody knew. There’s this old programme that’s being repeated at the minute on BBC 4 called Face the Music, and that was on sort of tea time, and millions of people would watch it.

There would be questions about Beethoven and Mozart and Rachmaninoff. And so classical music wasn’t so much of a niche thing then. And of course, Even if you watched a quiz show, if you watched Blankety Blank, or if you watched Michael Parkinson interviewing somebody, or if you watched any light entertainment thing, they’d all have an orchestra. So orchestras were very much around, and I eventually started to get into listening to classical music on records and borrowing things from the library and going to, you know, saving up to buy LPs. And then when I started playing instruments, you know, I learned instrument school, I became part of the, the whole kind of amateur music-making scene here. And I don’t think there’s been a day in my life when I haven’t made music. So it’s— what does it mean to me? It’s my first language, is what it means to me.

Frankie: I love that. It’s just everything. You live and breathe it. It’d be great to circle back to what The Glasshouse means to you in a little while, because I do want to hear more about that. But off the back of what you’ve just said, it’d be great to go even deeper into your motivations and inspirations. John’s versatility as a conductor, the complete lack of arrogance and pretence in what music he chooses to bring before an audience marks him out. He conducts with the precision and gravity of his classical training, but also with the warmth and personality and sheer joy of someone who grew up loving musicals, brass bands, and jazz. I want to know where this quality came from, what process he undergoes when he’s preparing his orchestra, and how he’s able to get an audience to really feel the music he gives them.

John: Well, I suppose my deepest musical need has always been the sound of an orchestra, whatever form that may take, whether it be a big orchestra, small orchestra, whether it be on the stage, whether it be in the pit of a theatre, whether it be a band that people are dancing to, that concept of people playing together has always fascinated me. From the moment I became aware that it was possible to play in an orchestra, I would be about 11 or 12, I wanted to know how the orchestra worked and it was kind of self-motivating in as much as that, you know, some people like to lift up the bonnet of a car and try and fathom how it all works and how it’s all put together. I used to like to look over the rails of the orchestra pit at the Theatre Royal in Newcastle or look on the stage at the old City Hall and see what everybody was doing and that fascination, that endless fascination, has basically been carried on into my professional life. I’ve never ever grown tired of working out what is going on, how do I make it better, what does the composer who’s written this piece mean by these notes on the page, and how do I lift these notes off the page.

There were more direct inspirations in terms of experiences, so obviously I had a couple of teachers at school, music teachers, who showed me the way and who opened doors for me as to what was possible. You know, have a listen to this, look at this, come to this concert. And I would spend one night a week going to the concerts at the City Hall in Newcastle where the visiting orchestras came and there were kids’ concerts with the northern sinfonia as it then was, pre-royal, and there was a lot of amateur music making. Brass bands in particular, I loved. I was a percussion player and I played in a few local brass bands, the Felling Silver Band and the Ever Ready Band, and that was a big step up in— professionalism for me, particularly when I got to play in the Ever Ready Band, which was in concert, which was a championship section brass band with a famous conductor, Major Peter Parks, who’s arguably the most famous conductor in the whole sort of brass band scene. And I was terrified of him, but I, I was— that was my first exposure to a real conductor. And then I would say that period between 1983, when I was 11, and 19 ’90 when I left to go to the Royal College of Music, there was barely a kind of form of amateur music making that I wasn’t involved in, whether it be amateur theatricals, choral societies, brass bands, amateur orchestras.

There were a few, you know, great ones. I even formed one when I was at Newcastle College in my sixth form. I formed an amateur orchestra called the Newcastle Symphony Orchestra. I mean, this audacity of youth. And we did quite a lot of concerts, and it lasted well into the ’90s when I was a student, because I had the energy to— the energy to do all of that came from that same place, that fascination of bringing musicians together. And I suppose now, you know, the old— I hadn’t thought about this till you asked me the question, but the business of bringing musicians together has probably been this sort of central pillar to my professional life.

Frankie: It sounds like you were just so immersed in it all from sort of day dot. Just circling back to something you said about the fascination with bringing people together, but also with like lifting the music off the page. What is the process of that? How do you get this piece of music and then convey it to an audience?

John: Well, of course, over the years, my methods have changed and adapted a bit. You know, you refine what it is that you do the more knowledge you acquire, and I’m still trying my best to get better. I think I never want to stop learning, but I’ve definitely never wavered from my belief that what the composer has written is the last word, and I’m not really so much interested in putting myself into the mix. I mean, you have to have some of yourself into the mix to relate, to get the music from, to give it this kind of human conduit from the stage to the audience. But I like the idea that the music on the page is perfect and that you can’t really get in the way of it, but you have to somehow get behind the notes, dig for the truth, and then through technical means, rehearsals, making sure that everything is together, making sure that everything is at what you think is the correct tempo and the dynamics and all of those slightly mundane technical things to then deliver the emotional message of the music to the audience. I mean, and that’s a lifelong occupation.

It was André Previn, the conductor, who said that when you’re dealing with great music, your final goals are always out of reach because every performance you give of a piece will never be as good as the piece itself. The piece will always be greater than any performance you give of it. But what I do love about working with Sinfonia of London, my wonderful orchestra is that we’re all in the same boat. We’re all thinking that way. We’re all thinking the same of, you know, how can we get this as good as we possibly can? And for us mere mortals, that’s a really satisfying prospect. Gets you out of bed in the morning because you’ll never get to the end. You’ll never have a sort of— your final goal won’t be reached.

Frankie: That’s lush. Thank you. So I think you’ve quoted Barbirolli before that conductors aren’t made, they’re born. Did you always know this was what you were meant to do?

John: I did not. I didn’t really think about conducting until I was kind of thrown in at the deep end, which was in Gateshead at the small community centre in Swalwell, at the, Swalwell Amateur Dramatics. And they were doing a production of a 1920s musical called No, No, Nanette, which was a huge hit in its day. It ran for years on Broadway, and suddenly unfortunately they were without a conductor and I’d been playing the piano for the rehearsals and so they said, well, you’ll have to do it. And I was like, well, I can’t, I don’t know what I’m doing. And I had a friend who was a trombonist, Gavin Sutherland, who’s now a very distinguished professional conductor, but he’d done a bit of conducting. So I went to him and I had some very rudimentary lessons. And even though I was absolutely hopeless, the moment I started I thought, oh yeah, this is what I’m meant to do. Way back in the, when that was, in the late ’80s. I thought, this is what I have to now devote the rest of my life to. And it’s funny, you know, many, many years later in 2016, when I conducted a proper opera for the first time at Glyndebourne, I conducted a Puccini opera, Madam Butterfly, and I had the same kind of experience, saying all of these years that I’ve been working have suddenly led to this moment when I’m now in the opera house.

And that felt absolutely right for me. But I do think, Barbirolli said, conductors are born and not made. And I know what he means. I’m sure, I’m not so sure it’s cut and dry as that because of course you can learn anything, you learn to conduct, but there’s something about that inner compulsion. I do, even if I’m not very good, I do feel I’m a conductor from my head to my toes, even if I never do it again. It’s just like, you know, an apple tree is an apple tree, or I feel the same about composers. You can learn to write music, but there are composers who just music pours out of them. So I feel it’s a fundamental part of my being. The crucial thing is that I watch myself. I watch— somebody sent me a link to the concert last night and I watched a bit of it and it’s like, I want to get better. I don’t like what I’m doing there. I’m, you know, I always try to sort of— self-critical. I just want to keep doing it and keep, keep getting better.

Frankie: Well, it certainly sounds like, you know, you are just so passionate about it and definitely born to do it. And I think like artists as well as conductors— like, I’m— I sing and perform, and I think it’s like your best and your worst trait when you’re self-critical in a way, because it always pushes you to do better, but you’ll always kind of be you, your biggest critic as well.

John: And yeah, But that’s the price you pay, I think.

Frankie: Yeah.

John: You know, it’s not a comfortable existence, but at the same time it’s an absolute privilege because I get to spend every day of my life with these amazing geniuses of the last thousand years. And they change your perspective on life because it’s— what record of a civilization is as reliable as its great works of art? And the cultural life, the artistic life of a country, of a nation, whatever, is the beating heartbeat. So to be right in the middle of that is a privilege and a massive responsibility because these are, these important works of art, you know, some of them are masterpieces, like some of the pieces last night are absolutely bona fide masterpieces. To be a custodian of one of those is a huge privilege and responsibility. So you do feel the weight of it. Yeah. And it is responsibility, but I wouldn’t have it any other way. It’s a wonderful feeling to engage with these pieces. As I say, it’s been the thing that’s given my life the most meaning from day one.

Frankie: Yeah. The payoff is amazing, it sounds like.

You’re listening to music ‘Music Lives Here,’ recorded on location in The Glasshouse. I’m with the local legend and conductor John Wilson. He’s telling me why this place means so much to him.

Frankie: John, your music has lived in this building for a long time, and now it has a permanent home with your Sinfonia of London becoming a Glasshouse Artistic Partner. What was it like coming back to play in a building that wasn’t even a concept when you were growing up?

John: Well, I’ll never forget the first time I came here to conduct the, as it then was, Northern Sinfonia, now Royal Northern Sinfonia, and I couldn’t really quite take it in that the building I was standing in, the magnificent hall, the wonderful acoustics, the auditorium, the stage, the café, the whole building, I couldn’t believe that it was actually where it is, on the banks of the Tyne, in my hometown. It’s spectacular on the outside and on the inside. But to then do a concert with the audience and to then be able to bring this music to an audience of locals, you know, friends in the audience, relations in the audience, people I’d known for years, felt incredibly special. And that’s only deepened as the years have rolled by. And since that first occasion, I then took my old orchestra, the John Wilson Orchestra, on tours here many times. It would sell out so quickly we’d have to put a matinee on. And I feel as if all of that has led up to this amazing point where we’ve been made artistic partners in this most amazing of cities. And a really lovely thing happened last night with Kantorow, Alexandre Kantorow, the solo pianist in the concerto, who’s one of the great pianists of the world.

He said to one of the players, “Oh, I love coming here.” He’d never been before. He said, “Because the people are so nice.” And it was such a lovely thing, a lovely thing to hear. And that warmth which North Easterners are famed for is often really apparent in the reaction you get from the audience. People really love music here.

Frankie: That’s lush. I always love hearing that. That’s the kind of takeaway people who are not from the city think about Geordie’s. I actually had a little question. What kind of makes it so distinctive here and what makes the audiences different in Newcastle compared to around the world?

John: I’ve always felt that the audiences here are really serious about music, that they’re actually discerning. And you know, I’ve done a lot of what was called light music, whether that be, you know, show tunes or film scores or dance band music and all of that. Great American songwriters of the first half of the 20th century, George Gershwin and Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, all of that means an awful lot to me. And if you look back the history of music making in the North East, in the 1950s for a whole decade, there was a man called George Evans who had a resident band 8 nights a week, 8 shows a week rather, at the Oxford Galleries, the facade of which still exists in Newcastle. And that was one of the great dance bands of the era. They recorded for Decca, and if you listen to their records now, it’s astonishing to think that there was a band that great here, resident in the North East, you know, professional. Now, the reason I mention that is that reverberated throughout the decades, even though that band folded in 1958. When I was a kid learning in the early ’80s, there were still players from that band who were teaching, and that carried on a tradition where people were serious about light music, about popular music of the day.

And I’ve done a lot of that repertoire here, certainly 20 years ago when the place was first built, a lot of the audiences were people who’d been around then. Less so now, because I think, you know, to have remembered that first time around, you’d be over 100 now, and they were quite, they were getting on a bit back then. So you had to deliver the goods to satisfy those audiences, because they remembered those great bands, particularly George’s band from the ’50s. They remembered how good it was, and if you didn’t come up with the mark, ‘You know, we wouldn’t really buy it.’ So I’ve always felt a bit of pressure to deliver, and now here with Sinfonia of London and this partnership we have, I feel we have to earn our keep. I feel— I’ve always felt that if people are going to leave the house, get the bus, drive in, park their cars, buy a ticket, come to a concert, you’ve got to give them their money’s worth. You can’t just turn up and do, you know, it’s not a day at the office. You’ve got to really play for your lives, and I know that everybody in my orchestra really, really feels that shares that view with me, that you must care and give everything that you can.

And I say, I do think that the audiences here respond to that if you really give them your best.

Frankie: Thank you. I would agree. The music scene here is certainly changing and has been constantly. Do you think there’s anything that’s still missing that makes it harder for Geordie talent?

John: Well, I don’t know specifically Geordie talent, but you know, things were easier when I was a kid because you didn’t have to leave the Royal College of Music with a massive student loan, and there were peripatetic music teachers in droves everywhere. They still have a really good music hub here, you know. The friends of mine still, who I’ve known for 40 years, still teach in, in the region, and it’s amazing the work that goes on here in this in this building. But the fact that Gateshead Council paid for my education made it possible for me to become a professional musician. And I really lament the fact that is no longer the case because talent isn’t just given to the people who can afford it. It’s random. You know, some people have got talent for athletics, some people have got talent for music, and they’re the people that should get the chance to pursue it because we need musicians. Imagine a day when they turned all the music off. You know, being out on the telly, they’d be out on the wireless, it’d be all— I don’t understand. There was something I read, it was on the news about, you know, Rishi Sunak making sure everybody did maths or whatever. I was like, Jesus, what about the important primary human impulse of singing and dancing and the things that we’ve been doing since we were cavemen? You know, music’s a very primary human impulse. We have to sing. Singing should be compulsory in every free school. I’ve been saying it for years, everybody’s been saying it. It’s been proven to be massively beneficial, and yet still there’s this, uh, upward struggle. That wasn’t the question, if I’ve just gone off on a bit of a rant, but it’s a necessary one.

Frankie: I’m ferociously nodding along like, yes, I agree so much. It leads us quite nicely on actually, because being inclusive and making sure everyone has opportunities and support and emerging talent in the North East is so important to us here at The Glasshouse and obviously is to you as well. Your partnership with The Glasshouse involves working with the Make Music team, which I’m actually part of as well, to help young talent improve, be seen, be heard. Could you tell me a little bit about what that looks like in practise?

John: So I spent the morning conducting the Young Sinfonia, and it was fascinating and thrilling in, in so many ways. And my approach was no different to how I rehearse Sinfonia of London. I wanted those brilliantly talented kids to feel as if they were in the profession. And so I didn’t really talk down to them, because I didn’t feel as if there was any need to, because they’re so good. I didn’t adapt what I do, I just went at it the same way I always doing. Of course, they responded brilliantly and were making sounds that possibly they haven’t made before. And Helen, who conducts the orchestra, you know, said, you know, it’s amazing to hear them sounding like this and responding. But we need to be doing this on a much, much wider scale. It’s brilliant, the work that happens here, but every single young person needs to be exposed to music. As I said just now, singing in school, playing instruments, that’s where it all starts. And we reap so much from doing all that gives us so many dividends are paid.

Frankie: Yeah, I totally agree. And it sounds like such an amazing opportunity for the young people here to be conducted by you. It’d be cool to go along and watch that, I think. So before we let you go, there is a line from a conductor that I’ve seen you quote a few times that I really, really like. It’s an old Simon Rattle line about conductors only really hitting their stride after 60. You say you’ve been conducting for over 30 years now, so maybe you’ll be hitting the starting gate soon.

John: Well, I’m 54 and I honestly feel as if I am approaching the starting gate, um, but I still feel like a student. As I just said, I watched a bit of the live stream from last night and all I did was look at what I was doing wrong. And even to the extent I’m gonna like send the link to my teacher from college who’s a great mate of mine and say, look, give me some tips for this, that, and the other, because conducting is, uh, it’s a funny old thing. You’ve got to have knowledge from a few different directions, you know, knowledge of the instruments, knowledge of the composer’s style, knowledge of the piece, technical knowledge of how to make an orchestra sound and all that. So it’s— I’ll be, you know, extremely elderly before I get the hang of it.

Frankie: And speaking of still feeling like a student, when young people see you here on stage commanding an orchestra, and they’re so inspired, and then you speak and you sound like they do. What kind of advice would you give them if they were wanting to go on the same journey that you’ve been on?

John: I think the hardest question we ever ask ourselves is, what do I want to do with my life? What do I want to be? And so it’s always going to be a bit of trial and error. Try everything. Try a few different instruments, you know, try singing. I went— when I was doing the session the other day with the Young Sinfonia, I said, “Does anybody want to conduct?” And so a couple of them said, “Yeah, I want to.” And, you know, they will have taken something from that. It might have just lit a flame. So there’s so much in music to try, listen to everything, you know. When I look back, I think I borrowed every record in Newcastle Central Library, whether it was the Beatles or Pink Floyd or the Hallé Orchestra, you know, Barbirolli, my hero. I just was— had this sort of, appetite for devouring everything that was in. Then eventually you’ll start working out what it is that— what’s your thing. You narrow your pathway to the thing that— I think I’m still doing that in a funny sort of way.

Frankie: So is there any musical scratches you haven’t itched yet then?

John: Yeah, I don’t know what they are though. I mean, there are certainly pieces which I love which I haven’t conducted, and I’ve got a list of those, and I’ve actually even got a list of them on my phone. It’s like things that I want to start learning, scores that I’m going to buy. I just delivery of a load of scores of Sibelius that I want to really get my head around. But then people, people send you stuff. We’ve never— it’s never been so easy as it is now to get your hands on music. Somebody sends you a link on a phone, you click on it, and you’re hearing a piece that you never even knew existed. Ah, and so of course I’ve got a network of colleagues who share stuff with me, and in some respects that’s the most exciting thing of all— the stuff that you don’t know. Yeah, the stuff you don’t know exists.

Frankie: So finally, what comes to mind in terms of something that really helped you when you were starting out?

John: Let me think about this carefully. Good people were around when I was a kid. Good people who could see that I was this kid from Gateshead who was obsessed with music, with either teachers or amateur musicians. There was a local vicar who used to give me his concert tickets. If his wife didn’t want to go to the concert, he would give me her ticket and he would drive me there and I would watch the concerts. You know, my parents couldn’t afford to buy the tickets for the concerts. He would take me. Those individuals who had nothing to gain themselves but wanted to see me flourish, that was my great good fortune. And you know, if you’re, you’re a kid and music’s your thing, there are always going to be good people in good organisations who will help you flourish. Seek them out. Come here, go wherever.

Frankie: Yeah, thank you. I totally agree. It’s been so inspiring to hear you talk, so passionate. And yeah, it’s great. I feel like I’m inspired. So before we let you go on your way, I know listeners will be excited to know what is What’s next for you?

John: Well, here at The Glasshouse in this artistic partnership, it’s a big thing for us because, you know, we’re bringing 70, 80 musicians at a time to come and do concerts on the stage here. I’m taking my orchestra on tour around the UK, we’ve got stuff abroad, lots of records to make, so it’s a pretty rich time for us, so there’s a lot to be excited about there.

Frankie: Sounds amazing. And finally, what is next for you right now? What are you on your way to do after this?

John: Immediately after this, I’m gonna go and spend some time with my ma, and then I’m gonna get the train to London to rehearse a brass band for the regional competition, the area finals in Stevenage, I think it is, with a group called Zone One Brass, and there are a lot of friends in that, so it’s a thing we all do for the fun.

Frankie: Sounds really fun. Can we walk you out?

John: Sure, you’ll have to give me a new microphone, this cable isn’t long enough.

Frankie: I love talking to John, and it was so inspiring and interesting to hear all all the things he was saying from growing up in the North East and the journey that he’s been on with his music and the things he’s achieved and how he still feels like there’s a way to go and there’s things for him to learn and develop on. It was amazing to hear him speak so passionately about music education and music being this primal primary need for humans that should be taught from a young age and nurtured. And it was great to hear the storeys of of the great people in his life that nurtured his fascination and talent and helped him get to where he is. I think it’s really eye-opening that it could be anyone with the right help along the way.

I’ve had a blast and I hope you have too. If you have, tell your friends and send us a like online, and don’t forget to subscribe so you never miss an episode. Once again, thanks to the incredible and inspiring John Wilson. Music Lives Here is brought to you by The Glasshouse International Centre for Music. A home for music lovers with gigs, concerts, and classes every week in Gateshead Quays, out in communities across the North East, and online. Anyone can join us in creating and celebrating outstanding music. Music lives and grows here.

I’m Frankie Jobling. The producer is Jacob Dabb, and the executive producers are Debbie Kilbride and Jo Rowntree. The gorgeous music behind me was composed by Chad Rogers. This has been a Loftus Media production. And until next time, gan canny.