On Identity in (my) Music…

I am in the very fortunate position of having a recording of my organ music soon making its way to all good record shops and streaming services, which is all very exciting. However, it was in the negotiations with the record label about the artwork for the recording that I noticed something: all of the recordings of my music have moody pictures of the Lake District emblazoned on their front covers in varying shades of darkened hues. Nothing wrong with that per say, but my website is also full to the brim with similar pictures and many of my scores (self-published of course) carry similar depictions of my homeland. Now, anyone who has met me will know I am proud to come from the picturesque area of lakes and mountains in Northwest England, just below the border with Scotland, nestled between the Pennines and the Irish Sea – this is no secret. But it got me thinking about why are the pictures on the recordings? Why is it mentioned so fundamentally on my website? Why am I writing about it now? Basically, it got me thinking about identity and what it means to me and my place in the wider musical world, or even the increasingly small part of contemporary classical music where I ply my trade. What is musical identity?

This becomes a little thornier when you consider I don’t actually live in the Lake District; in fact I haven’t lived there since 1998 when I left for university. Sure, my family still live there and I’ve spent substantial periods there in the past nearly thirty years, but I haven’t actually lived there for a long time. Does that matter? Maybe not, but the pictures of the Lake District that suggest a link between composer and area on the recordings are perhaps telling a certain story. Of course I don’t have to live in a place to still call it home, or to take influence from the landscape and culture – it certainly didn’t stop Vaughan Williams and Howells writing about Gloucestershire whilst living in central or suburban London – but it maybe seems a little disingenuous. I’ve spent more of my life away from the Lake District then in it, and most of my musical endeavours have been in other places (or even countries) in the years since I left. But I still feel more comfortable having a picture of the place I spent my childhood then the rich arable land of Scotland where I currently reside.

I feel this sense of identity (or maybe mis-identity) is compounded by the fact that none of the music on any of these recordings is actually about the Lake District (if it is possible for music to be about anything). Some of it was written there, but those pieces with words are about very different people, places and ideas then the scenery and customs of my birthplace. There is no On Wenlock Edge or In Gloucestershire amidst the Elegies, Epitaphs and Laments that characterise my music. Again, a sense of identity doesn’t have to be as explicit as naming a piece after a mountain, lake or local hero, but it does confuse things for me and the artist I am trying to be. The music is definitely British (I think), English as well, maybe even Northern (but that would be equally hard to define) but I’m not sure if anything about either the instrumental or choral works would be easy to understand as from the Lake District.

A former colleague of mine was proudly Northern English, but when quizzed about this decreed that ‘Being Northern was being anti-establishment’ or maybe really ‘anti-London’ and there was something about this which chimed with me. He didn’t live in the North of England (though he does now) but his identity was entirely bound up with this sense of being from somewhere away from the financial and cultural centre of the country. I don’t think that applies to me (the Lake District despite its farming and provincial heritage is largely a place of wealth and tourism) but the idea of a birthplace still dictating your outlook decades later does have resonances. I think my sense of identity has been challenged being in Scotland for thirteen years, a country I am very fond of and deeply committed to, but a place where I live rather than calling home. Some of this is undoubtedly due to historical issues and other national identities, but some of it is not wanting to tamper with another nation’s culture and heritage. I have written pieces taking influence from Scottish culture, but I have always felt like a well-meaning onlooker rather than someone tapping into a rich seam of national inspiration.

I guess none of this really matters - you can be who you want and reinvent yourself as and when – that’s the beauty of the modern world. I could theoretically be from the Lake District, Scotland and other places I’ve lived, or say my identity is Greek (which certainly didn’t stop John Tavener). But something deep down gnaws away at me, and it’s more than just CD covers and website photos. What is my identity? What is anyone’s identity? And is all of this really just looking for a USP to try and have a sliver more success. Hopefully not.

PAC