Catrin busking with her clarinet in Stroud

It seems to be ones of those synchronistic times.

Yesterday at my market stall I chatted to a couple who told me they were visiting Stroud en route between engagements in Cardiff on Thursday and Nottingham today. They seemed to like my cards. Whilst chatting the man’s wife mentioned that her husband was a musician, which prompted me to recount a story of how some years ago a customer had bought one of my pictures of a ‘skylark ascending’. He’d been drawn to my card because his favourite uncle, the late Hugh Bean, had been the solo violinist on an early recording of Ralph Vaughan Williams’ ‘The Lark Ascending’, in the presence of the composer, on a still much admired version conducted by Adrian Boult.

The couple I was talking with then bought the skylark card. The man said he was a violinist and Leader of a (nationally renowned) orchestra which had just played in Cardiff the night before, and that he often played ‘The Lark Ascending’. He said he would now keep the card in his violin case. I was suitably chuffed.

Today I read a music review in The Times’s newspaper’s Saturday Review titled ‘What larks: the man (and the songbird) behind the masterpiece’. As the UK celebrates Vaughan Williams’s 150th, Lev Parikian chirps for his beloved Lark Ascending.
It was accompanied by photos of Vaughan Williams, Nicola Benedetti at The Proms and a photo of a skylark, although it was still firmly on the ground!

Today a man came up to the stall and after a couple of seconds I recognised him. We met about two months ago when he accompanied his granddaughter to Stroud where she wanted to busk on the High Street, playing her clarinet. I had then gone to see her play and they gave me permission to blip her.

I then corresponded with William H., who is an academic at Cardiff University, and sent him some pictures to pass on to Catrin. In my email I mentioned that I’d done a bit of research and seen that an article she had submitted, called ‘The Magic of Music’, had been successful as a runner-up in a competition run by The Oxford Scientist, a student run science magazine for Oxford University.

Catrin is a student and about to sit her A–level exams this summer, but her love is music which she wants to study further. Today William brought her back to Stroud as she had enjoyed busking on the High Street so much last time. 

When William came to my stall today he came to thank me for not only sending them the previous pictures, but also for informing Catrin about the competition result. Apparently no one had told either her or her school that she had been the Runner-Up. It is a good job I did some research. I thought her article was excellent and you can read her article, called ‘The Magic of Music’ for yourself here.

I thought it fascinating that two music related stories came to be aired at my stall today, both via Cardiff. I do love when synchronistic events become apparent. It was really good to see William and Catrin again too.