Audio File
Beatrice Rollins
Northern School Of Music (NSM)
2020

Fae Jones praises the impact that studying at the Northern School of Music has had on her life.

Fae: Yeah, well I mean the whole point of me giving this talk was that I, you know, to the Elgar Music Society was about a piece of Schubert piano music and sitting outside the studio stairs on the first floor to listen to Beatrice— To wait for my lesson with Beatrice Rollins. There was a woman next door - if it was a woman I don’t know - playing one of the Moment Musicale and it just struck me as the most exquisite thing I’d ever heard and it really gave me the encouragement to, you know, to carry on and… I really do remember that moment. But you see, after I went on to be an organist, I did all sorts of stuff after that. So, it laid a wonderful foundation for me.
Heather: What then— What inspired you to go on to do those different things? Is it… Was it for a job or did you just—
F: No, just because I— You know, I felt I’d been given that wonderful opportunity to train for that short period of time in that junior school. I just felt I wanted to… You know, to justify it, really, and do it. I remember one time I was… My mother got a chance to have a harmonium at home. We didn’t live in a very big house and we had a harmonium in the… In the… Well you would call it the front room I suppose in those days. And… You know… I remember having that and the joy of learning how to do that because I don’t know the harmonium. Whether you know, but you have to press it with you feet, your knees have to go in and out to work the bellows and you’ve got two keyboards and all the stops—
H: A lot going on.
F: Yeah, there’s a lot going on but it was—It was a wonderful… When you've had that level of teaching and that level of… inspiration you just want to go on, don’t you. It laid a wonderful foundation for me, it really did.
H: The kind of teacher you get makes such a huge difference it seems.
F: Yes it does. Yes.
H: The school seems to have done that for quite a lot of people so that’s really nice to hear.
F: Yes, yes. Yes it has, it was wonderful. Truly wonderful.

Part of the #NSM2020 project "A 20/20 Legacy: the centenary of the Northern School of Music" supported by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.