At the age of 16 I experienced a psychotic episode during a drug overdose that resulted in a suicide attempt, and the following morning returned to boarding music school in Manchester and didn’t speak about the previous day for decades.
Some 35 years later, during an ayahuasca ceremony in Brazil (amongst others, Sting and Gabor Maté have documented their experiences at this kind of ceremony in some detail), I had a kind of recapitulation that left me terrified, but inspired me to finally seek help to deal with what had happened as a teenager.
Light Stories is an attempt in music to tell that story of trauma and recovery – and how it placed music so deeply in my heart and my life.
As a confused teenager, music was my medicine – as I think it might be for many a confused teenager. Music was my safe place in a world where I didn’t speak to anybody about what was actually going on in my life.
I was blessed to have some talent and Chetham’s School of Music was just the right place for me.
The vibrations of music, the way sounds collided into and through my body, brought me a peace and joy that nothing else could, order in a disordered world. This cocoon of music began to help my heart to open and my nervous system to relax.
Maybe more importantly I was away from the dangerous crowd I had fallen in with in my hometown of Sheffield.
Music may have saved my life – of course we never know “what might have happened if…”, but I do know that it gave me a focus, a purpose, and it filled my heart with un-nameable longings and an understanding of what love sounded like.
I became a collector of music: anything I could lay my hands on that resonated, and it didn’t matter if it was Beethoven’s Pastoral Symphony or Weather Report, Brian Eno, Bob Marley or Joni Mitchell.
Meeting violinist Viktoria Mullova – with whom I fell in love and married – took me deeper into the world of music through a series of intense and demanding collaborations.
In 2019 I was at the ceremony in Brazil (where drinking Ayahuasca is common and legal), and, as I have said, experienced a very frightening recapitulation of my teenaged suicide attempt which left me deeply shaken. I discovered that the psychotic episode I suffered, and the subsequent suicide attempt, had left me traumatised on levels I simply was not aware of until this moment. This mysterious psychedelic brew seems to heal in much the same way as a lot of therapeutic paths – it makes you feel (although I imagine a kindly bespectacled therapist in Islington would be gentler). It is somehow able to unlock hidden parts of the psyche and bring things (carefully chosen words) to light.
So, after all those years I was finally feeling what had happened to me. It took several months of trauma therapy to integrate the parts of my body that had shut down as I dissociated when faced with expected death. It’s very hard to describe, but was so palpable, and for the first time in my life I was feeling whole, as though I was all there in some new way. Another of the consequences of this was that quite suddenly I found myself more connected with music and my cello. I was somehow able to hear better what I was doing from a less-stressed nervous system, and to make music more deeply and joyfully than ever before.
During the lockdowns I began to realise that I could make art out of my experiences and thereby create another healing step of understanding and feeling what I had been through.
So I created Light Stories.
I had just read The Seven Basic Plots by Christopher Booker which fascinated me with its illuminations of the seven types of stories that humans have been telling each other for hundreds of years, and the plot of Voyage and Return especially resonated, in which the protagonist sets out on his journey full of confidence and ambition, and through a series of adventures and the inevitable brush with death, is healed (often in spiritual realms), and returns home to share stories and wisdom gathered during the time away. I listed five main parts of this ‘template’ and fifteen detailed headings, looking for pieces of music to fit each one and flesh out the musical narrative according to how those parts of my own journey felt. Where I couldn’t find a piece in my repertoire I decided to compose something to fit which was a whole new undertaking. It’s the first time I have composed and has brought with it equal amounts of trepidation and exhilaration!
The album is now out on Signum Classics on all streaming platforms, and I have premiered the live show with great joy and satisfaction.
Creating this music has been an adventure in itself that has brought a great deal to my life, and I’m grateful to all I met along the way, especially to Vika, to whom Light Stories is dedicated.
Light Stories was at the Cardiff Music City Festival on 3 October and is available now on all streaming platforms. More live performances to be announced.