JUSTIN HARMER
That’s me. With the hair… (missing), and the wonky trampoline by a right shoulder. Born at an early age and educated in London, studying piano, composition and Arcadia as an exhibitioner at Trinity College of Music Junior Department on Saturdays, and raised by wolves at a propaganda centre in SW1 during the week.
Before scraping into university, I dodged a few decades in purgatory by doing instead a season as a freelance repetiteur with the Royal Academy of Dancing.
English and Music at York University as an undergraduate were very enjoyable by contrast, and I managed to snag a performance prize with the music department. Then was dragged south again afterwards, by the inevitable professional London-tractor-beam of post-graduate study at the Royal College of Music, as a Senior-Exhibitioner in the vocal department.
(Amusing anecdote insert: I made my Royal Albert Hall debut whilst studying at the RCM, leading Christmas Carols, astride the main stage in the.. ahem… staff canteen, alongside a “close personal friend… lot of good work for charity etc etc”: classmate, Alfie Boe).
I was a part-time repetiteur for the Royal Ballet School Junior Associates for 10 long years, (if you know the line from (talking of) Les Mis: “I know the meaning of those 19 years”, you’ll get where I’m coming from here). The Chapel Choir at the Royal Hospital, Chelsea was a very different 10 years though - many, very happy memories from that decade.
As a piano and singing teacher, I’ve held posts in pre-primary, primary, secondary and tertiary education, and in the private and public sectors, having also taught at Norton Rose Fulbright and Macquarie Capital with City based Music in Offices. Never again. I would happily again though play at the Albert Hall Elgar Rooms for the Kitsch Lounge Riot… (Hey: JB… call me… let’s do lunch. And no need for Reg’s red piano this time either).
I made my professional vocal debut in 1991 and have appeared with Bampton Opera; Co-Opera Co; Gower Festival; Mitte Europa Festival, Jerusalem Early Music Festival; Chelsea Festival and with the London Handel Orchestra; Northern Sinfonia; the Royal Ballet Orchestra with National Youth Music Theatre, and in Italy; France; Spain; the Czech Republic; Austria and Switzerland, and on television in France and Spain. All good stuff. Apart from the makeup and never being able to see the conductor.
(There was this keyboard player moment at a fledgling 1990 MOBO awards, but hey man, who knows!? It was the ‘60’s (or the ‘90’s?) and everything was back to front and upside down at the time.)
I was on BBC and Sky News in 2017, - in a good way - accompanying soprano Milly Forrest in an article filmed at the Wigmore Hall. As a baritone soloist, there’s been warbling at St John's Smith Square; Queen Elizabeth Hall; Covent Garden Piazza; Edinburgh International Festival; Edinburgh Fringe; Royal Albert Hall Elgar Rooms; Westminster Abbey; St James's Piccadilly; St Martin in the Fields and Snape Maltings.
I stood on stage alone at the Royal Opera House aged 18, but forgot to sing a note. There was no one there in the auditorium at the time, but had I thought to blast out, say… some Guns & Roses, I’d have been able to write here that I sang a solo at the ROH aged 18. This would have been entirely true and untrue at the same time. (Bother!) In a similar vein, I’ve indeed danced at Sadler’s Wells, but for a packed audience, and for multiple performances. This is entirely true and also very, very misleading.
In 2017 I accompanied "The Voice of Assisi", Friar Alessandro Brustenghi, at St George's Roman Catholic Cathedral, Southwark. He was a lovely man and has an amazing voice. It was a real privilege to work with him.
My sync album “News: up to the minute” was published in 2018 with Basstone Music. Those ongoing IP royalties are still proving elusive though. That year, my music featured in The Gorgeous Georgians - as part of the Horrible Histories tour with Birmingham Stage Company at Hampton Court Palace. I contributed music to their 2018-19 UK tour, in The Awful Egyptians, which played around the country. My Gorgeous Georgians contribution appeared in Barmy Britain on tour in Southern England and in the West End in 2021. (Thank you JPC: it was a good gig!)
There was some Acting Director of Music of Medici Choir going on from 2018-19, and I’ve nearly recovered. I premiered many compositions by their late Director of Music, dear John Baird, as baritone soloist.
Organist at St Ann’s, Kingston, from 2011-2015; Organist at St Mary's, Clapham, from 2015-19, and Director of Music at St Michael's, Stockwell, from 2016-19, where I founded their STMAF arts festival in 2017. Ostensibly, because Charlotte had cluttered up our small flat with dozens of wonderful paintings, that proved very popular with a number who of people who wanted to clutter up their big houses with them.
That year, I accompanied Soprano Katherine Watson for a selection of Simon Russell Beale’s “Desert Island Hits” music choices. He was knighted shortly afterwards, which is - of course - entirely coincidental. Just saying.
Having fled the capital, being tired of life crime, commuting to teach the piano with a 30 lb bag of music on my shoulder, tube-billboards, golden-arches, and streets paved with false promises, I was Organist at Holkham Hall from 2022-23. Cheekily, two audiobooks were recorded in a cupboard/studio at home before we left town, available on Audible and in no good bookshops: “A Peek at Bathsheba” the second part of a life of King David by Uvi Poznansky; and Julian Chitta’s life of Emperor Constantine: “Peace be with you!”
Currently, I’m repetiteur of Fakenham Choral Society, and MD of Creakes Chamber Choir and The Walsingers Children’s Choir. I was the Cantor at the Roman Catholic National Shrine of Our Lady for 5 years until 2024 and occasionally return when my arm is badly twisted by dear Eleanor the organist, and she’s got something on me.
Together with Charlotte and the local Village Council, I help run the “Walsingham Winter Weekend”, With other local parents and artists, we put on exhibitions, plays, events and concerts regularly in the village and at the Old Bakehouse.
CHARLOTTE HARMER