Chair of Leeds Song's retiring message: 'Music has the power to connect - let it speak to you'

“I knew instinctively that he was something special,” recalls Kathleen Evans with an affectionate smile. “It affected me deeply back then, and it still does, all those years later. It just grabbed me – I didn’t know what on earth he was singing about, but I knew that it was beautiful. That happens a lot – you can be totally ignorant of the language, but the feeling will come through, shining. Music had entered my life.”

Kathleen was born in Otley, and the family then moved to Preston, where she attended the local convent school. “Boy, was I lucky,” she smiles today, “because music there was particularly important, at all levels, and with specialities like a Gregorian Chant Choir. I still enjoy that genre to this day. My father was an exceptionally good singer, so there was music in the home – he loved pieces by people like Ivor Novello, who was very popular at the time.”

Kathleen has been a mover and shaker at Leeds Song festival since 2008, and retires as Chair (a post she’s held since 2017) later this year. This year’s event runs from April 11 to 18, and in tribute to Kathleen the festival has commissioned a major new song cycle by composer David Hopkins, which is based on some of the poems by one of her favourite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins. The work gets its world premiere on the closing night, an evening called Kathleen’s Songbook.

It’ll be at Leeds Conservatoire, and will see Leeds Song patron and long-standing supporter Dame Sarah Connolly and Festival Director Joseph Middleton perform some of Kathleen’s favourite music. "I’m well-known for sitting as close to the stage as I can manage, to appreciate the performances of whatever I go to,” the 79-year-old says. “But on this occasion I think I might well sit over to one side, because I just know that I am going to be so very deeply moved, and no-one wants to see me weeping, do they? It’s an incredible honour, and I truly wonder if I deserve all of this?”

She joined Leeds Song after many years with Opera North, but she recalls that, as a young woman at school, music was not thought to be her career path – well, not by her family, at any rate. “I really wanted to be a professional,” she recalls, “and I learned the piano and had singing lessons. But my father decided that the law was for me, and off I went to London University.

"Was I any good? I was hopeless. In the end, I joined the Civil Service, in Newcastle, and was part of the Land Commission. I still sang, and played a lot, and I joined just about every choral society that I could – as I did when we moved again, to Epsom.”

For many years, Kathleen was a valued member of the prestigious BBC Symphony Chorus and sang (with her colleagues) under the baton of internationally-famed maestro the late Bernard Haitink. “It was a wonderful experience, one of the best of my life” she recalls, “The Mahler Symphony No, 2. I loved every second of it. That and the Mahler 8 are two of my favourites.”

Another of her fondest memories is being asked on stage to assist at a Manchester recital given by one of the great sopranos of last century, Dame Isobel Baillie. She had her accompanist, but there was no-one to take on the vital job of turning the music – until Kathleen was asked, and readily agreed.

She believes that talent is not quite enough, that there must also be humanity and compassion and feeling behind the music, and especially behind the lyrics as they are sung. “Haitink had it, Baillie had it, Kathleen Ferrier had it, Dame Janet Baker had it and still has it…..there are so many more.

"They all engage completely, and before anyone says, ‘What about today’s music?’ there are a lot of them who must be admired as well. Some pop music is just wonderful.” Her grandson Kes keeps her au fait in that field. “As long as people engage with music,” she says, “let it speak to you!”

She’s deeply troubled about the state of music (or the lack of it in many instances) in schools. To counter that here in Yorkshire, Leeds Song have thrown themselves into educational projects in many of our local schools – as have Opera North – and the results are inspirational and encouraging. “Free of charge,” says Kathleen, “no fees, no barriers!”

People become “fully rounded” she believes, “by so many factors. Physically. The sciences, sports, and the arts and music. Sadly, funding for music in schools has been whittled away over the years, and I’m deeply saddened to think of all those cupboards crammed with instruments that just sit there, gathering dust, and unused. And let’s not forget how music is used in the treatment of dementia – it triggers memories, people respond to it. Music has the power to connect, and to affect people across all sorts of genres.”

Kathleen still sings, and she hands over as Chair to the singer Michael Chance. “Michael will offer an entirely new perspective on things, which is always good, isn’t it?” But it won’t be farewell, because she promises that “I’ll always be there to help. Sitting at the table selling programmes, where-ever I’m wanted to lend a hand, to volunteer, or may be needed.”

She will definitely not, she emphasises, “be sitting at home in Roundhay, just watching and listening the birds, much as that’s something I love to do...music means so much to my life. Being without it is just unthinkable.”

Leeds Song runs April 11 to 18 at various venues. Visit www.leedssong.com