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If we can’t afford the basics in life, then
we cannot go on supporting the industry.
I am staggered with the lack of support
from our own trade unions.

Music feels like it needs to be reborn.
We need to get back to a place of
discovery, a place of value for everyone.
When I was 15, I had a job delivering
medicine for the local chemist. I saved
the money I earned and bought
recordings of music. As I write this
piece for Winds,

I have one of the first CDs I bought on
my desk: Palestrina’s Music for Maundy
Thursday performed by Musica Contexta.

I can still relate to the feeling I had when
I first heard it. I don’t just value this
music, I treasure it. And over 20 years
on, I now understand that I supported The new work for woodwind orchestra BBC Philharmonic and many British
the artists and everyone involved in the will be the thirteenth work to be cathedrals. In 1983, she joined the
production of that album. commissioned by Shea Lolin as BBC Singers for whom she became
Music Director of the Bloomsbury Composer in Residence in 2004.
People haven’t stopped consuming Woodwind Ensemble. Shea Lolin She has written 15 pieces for them,
music, but they have stopped paying writes: “Judith Bingham’s and four works for the BBC Proms.
for it. The lockdown as a result of compositional voice is unique and Judith Bingham was awarded an
Covid-19 has damaged what was already distinctive. Her harmonies are bold Honorary Doctorate by Aberdeen
fractured and unstable industry. I am not but not abstract. She writes phrases University in 2017, has won four
prophetic enough to know what the which are so naturally contoured and British Composer Awards and was
answers are to these problems but in coloured with those daring and appointed Officer of the Order of
the meantime, I just hope we can get sumptuous harmonies. It will be a the British Empire (OBE) in the
back to some normality. great privilege to work with a 2020 New Year Honours for
composer of such prominence on my services to music.
Maybe we can take a leaf out of the lifelong fascination and dedication to
amateur musicians’ book: not only do the woodwind orchestra.” The Bloomsbury Woodwind Ensemble
they support professional musicians, but is an amateur woodwind orchestra
they receive something back which can Born in Nottingham in 1952, Judith comprising flutes, oboes, clarinets,
be treasured. Bingham studied composing and saxophones and bassoons. The new
singing at the Royal Academy of work will be performed as part of
Shea Lolin Music in London, where she was their 2021 season of concerts.
www.shealolin.co.uk awarded the 1971 Principal’s Prize. Further details can be found at
www.bloomsburymusicgroup.org.uk
Her commissions include works for
King’s College (Cambridge), Sarah
Shea Lolin has commissioned the British
composer Judith Bingham OBE to write Connolly and Tenebrae, the King’s
a new work for the Bloomsbury Singers, the Sacconi Quartet, the
Woodwind Ensemble.

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