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St. Vedast's has always had a rich musical tradition, and
today that is still as true as ever, mainly due to the work and efforts of
Organist and Director of Music Joanna Paul. Singaporean Joanna - organist,
teacher, soprano soloist and choral conductor - has held these positions at the
church for ten years, and has formed a versatile children's choir known as the
'Bayswater Blasters', and area from which may of the members come. However, the
choir, which includes a child as young as six, draws its members from a wide
area of London and just beyond. Joanna brings them all to St. Vedast's for
special occasions, and once a month to sing at the Sunday Sung Eucharist. in
1999, the choir sang Mozart's Spatzenmesse at the Solemn Mass to celebrate the
ter-centenary of the rebuilding of the church by Christopher Wren after the
Great Fire of London.
Joanna's career began during the 1970s in Singapore when she
won several competitions as a pop organist and played on radio and television
shows. However, Joanna first played in church at the age of twelve, when, with
no notice, she was pulled out of Sunday school to stand in for the regular
organist who had fallen ill. The organist never came back, and Joanna never
went back to Sunday school! In England, Joanna, while at the Royal College of
Music, played at London's Farm Street Church under her professor, Nicholas
Danby. Earlier she had been a trainee singer with Derek Stevens at St.
Stephen's Gloucester Road, where she soon learned about the rich variety and
opportunities in London's many churches; it was at Gloucester Road that she
first came across sixteenth century church music.
After a period back in Singapore as Organist and and Choir
Director of St. Andrew's Cathedral, Joanna returned to Farm Street. Soon
afterwards, in 1988, she became a regular deputy organist at St. Paul's
Cathedral, playing the Sunday recital before evensong. Whilst at St. Paul's,
she also sang and played with the Wren Consort of Voices under the directorship
of Nigel Beavan. One of the concerts, on the eve of the war in Kuwait, had an
audience which included the Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. Joanna also sang
with the Consort at the Dutch Church in the presence of both the Queen and
Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands. Meanwhile Joanna, who also sang at cathedral
weddings, had become the music teacher at the cathedral school, where she
directed the St. Paul's Day Boy and Probationer Choir. She has given organ
recitals in St. Paul's and Westminster Abbey, and while abroad has appeared at
Cologne and Altenberger Cathedrals. She was invited to play during the recent
Lambeth Conference service in Canterbury Cathedral. In August 2000, her
'holiday' began with a dash to nice to appear with the All Souls Orchestra, and
forty-eight hours later she was back in London to prepare for a trip to
Singapore, East and West Malaysia, where she had a number of engagements before
visiting her relatives.
In 2001, Joanna hopes to see the launch of a Bayswater
Blasters CD. It will be a great way to express the hard work of her pupils both
in London and at the Royal Masonic School for Girls in Rickmansworth, whose
Director of Music, Leonard Smith, is an active supporter of the choir. Joanna,
who has a reputation for being able to bring out the best in the most unlikely
pupil, has mixed-ability children who all learn piano and singing. She believes
that anyone can sing if given a sympathetic opportunity.
The Bayswater Blasters have given charity concerts
for UNICEF, a Bulgarian orphanage, the Christian Children's Fund and the London
Infirmary. Joanna feels that these events have given the choir members the
ability to progress a lot and to know that they too can contribute to society,
with whatever amount of talent they have, even though they are still at a
developing stage. The Blasters performed at the recent St. Vedast carol service
(December 2000), after a host of Advent engagements; London Link described the event as 'one of the most popular and
unusual [carol services] in any City Church'.
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