Joffy Girling and Andrew Bourbon mastering the “Risen!- The Musical” CD at the London College of Music.

“There’s More Than One Way of Saying I Love You” featuring Lucy Stimpson- Maynard with the Mustard Seed Soul Band from the album “Uplifted” recorded and produced by Bob Ross

So how have we managed to get a professional cast to perform in Risen!- The Musica.l Friday November 6^th– Saturday November 7^th at the New Theatre Royal Portsmouth? Well quite simply God has opened the doors.

Joffy Girling, an ex- Crofton student has been working with me on Risen!-The Musical for four years- basically I sing the songs in my head to him and he transforms them into music. He is the perfect person to do this as he is a multi- instrumentalist with a  Ist Class Honours Degree in Sound Engineering and Production from the University of Birmingham.

When we were considering who to use to master the Risen! double CD Joffy thought of his ex-Lecturer from Birmingham, Dr Andrew Bourbon – who is  now a Senior Lecturer at the London College of Music (LCM) in Ealing – part of the University of West London.  Andrew agreed to meet Joffy thinking it was just a catch up with his old star pupil. However he agreed to take on the mastering project not really realising how long a job it would be- 38 tracks! It was during the mastering process that he began to love the music so much so that he talked about it to his friend who is the Head of Performing Arts at LCM. From this another Lecturer from the department, Niamh McGuckin became interested and I met with her during a mastering session at LCM.

I had a plan by which I was looking for students of Musical Theatre to learn the Risen! songs in order for them to perform Risen! in concert format at the forthcoming Coventry Pentecost Festival.  I also had in mind that the same group, having learnt the songs,  could then  be involved in a summer vacation workshop with a view to Risen!- becoming a stage production-  hopefully at the New Theatre Royal Portsmouth scheduled to re- open in the Autumn after two years of extensive refurbishment.  As my conversation unfolded with Niamh I could see that she was really interested -she had heard the music and gave me the impression she would like to take part in the production herself. In the end I bit the bullet and asked if there was any chance of making the proposed Coventry concert, not a concert but a full stage production – and even though there was little time left  to rehearse  the answer from Niamh was an emphatic “YES.”

And how the next episode unfolded I will share with you next week.