Harpist Lesley Magee on Joseph Tomelty, Johann Strauss and Judy

Coleraine harpist Lesley Magee is a graduate of Ulster University where she studied Music and her PGCE in Teaching before taking up a post in the former Coleraine High School. She then became pianist/harpist/choral director on cruise liners including Page and Moy Cruises, Fred Olsen and Voyages of Discovery.
By Community Reporter
Published 4th Dec 2020, 05:10 BST

She is now a harpist, singer and pianist, performing for various charities around the UK as well as weddings and corporate events all over Ireland.

Q. What is your favourite song/album and why?

A. There are so many albums of differing styles which I love to listen to. If I go trecking back to younger times then it will be things like ELO’s Out of the Blue album with Mr Blue Sky - what an uplifting track. Or then there was Simon and Garfunkel Bridge over Troubled Water with amazing tracks like Mrs Robinson and The Boxer.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Next up is I Went To A Marvellous Party by Noel Coward. I love his work but this song - half spoken, half sung - gets me every time. Then there’s the whole classical genre and things like Rubenstein’s many performances of Chopin’s piano pieces or Baroque albums of Vivaldi and Bach, especially The Bach Double Violin Concerto (second movement) That really is one of my faves!

Q. What is your favourite film and why?

A. Everyone knows my favourites are The Wizard of Oz and Meet Me in St Louis with its amazing Christmas scene of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas! I am a real Judy Garland fan through and through. Then there’s Little Women and my favourite is the one with Wynona Ryder. Don’t you just love those Christmas old time scenes? Or fast forward to Jude Law in The Holiday or my total crush of Colin Firth in Bridget Jones...melt......

Q. What is your favourite piece of classical music and why?

A. I’ve already mentioned a few in the writings above but keep going back to Johann Strauss and his lieder, specifically Morgen. It’s not an in-your-face, obvious piece but go and listen to it and also listen to his Wiegenlied too. Magical stuff. If you want romance, then Chopin’s Piano Concerto No 1 and the Larghetto movement. Truly beautiful, the stuff that touches hearts!

Q. Who is your favourite artist (eg van Gogh) and why?

A. The Irish artists really have my interest with Markey, Vallely and of course Graham Knuttel, and it’s all the more exciting that Graham is alive and I can talk to him. I have to include Rosella Watton-Austin, who is a personal friend and Irish artist and I have several pieces of her work. If I visit the National Portrait Gallery in London then I always go to have a look at the portrait of Wallis Simpson, which is intriguing and then there’s the very old portraits of the Tudors - amazing to think they have been painted 500 years ago. I’m also fortunate to have viewed Da Vinci’s The Madonna and Child, which hangs in The Hermitage Museum in St Petersburg. It intrigues me that some of the up and coming artists of today can paint a black and white portrait to look like a photo and you are always asking is it a photo, is it a painting? That is true talent.

Q. What is your favourite play and why?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A. My total favourite play is ‘Is the Priest at Home?’ by Joseph Tomelty. I saw it years ago at The Riverside Theatre in Coleraine and it remained etched in my memory. Such great humour and, of course, great insight into the quaint ways of Irish tradition.

I know it’s not really a play but The Nutcracker Ballet is a firm favourite and I have an annual visit to the Royal Opera House, Drury Lane, to watch it, with my friend, Gary Avis as Drosselmeyer. This signifies the start of Christmas for me every year.

Q. What is your favourite musical and why?

A. One of my top favourites has to be Scrooge the Musical. It’s available on DVD with Albert Finney but I did see it in the West End with Tommy Steele and met him afterwards. Great tunes to sing along to! It’s not often that the main character remains on stage for a chat after curtain, but he did just that.

Q. What is your most special moment in the arts and why?

A. Personally, I’ve had a few amazing moments in my life as a musician and I guess a highlight was to have performed in St Paul’s Cathedral. I was positioned to play beside the tomb of The Admiral Lord Nelson. Another was to perform in the House of Lords for St Patrick’s Day and later as I waited outside for my taxi, a film crew came along and we had an impromptu performance beside the statue of Emmeline Pankhurst!

Q. What ‘classic’ just doesn’t do it for you?

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

A. I seriously cannot think of a single classic that I have not enjoyed! From Thomas Hardy to Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte and Charles Dickens, give me more, more, more! Of note is A Pair of Blue Eyes by Hardy. Not well known but such a fabulous little book, with a few laughs for measure.

Q. What have you been reading/watching/listening to/revisiting during the Coronavirus period?

A. As a professional musician locked down, I could not be silenced. I decided from the onset to keep performing online during this time. I read the letters of Jane Austen, which in places were totally hilarious and of course informative of lifestyle during that era. I put pen to paper and have composed some music, influenced by the loss caused during Covid. The one thing I learned from the virus is that the arts will always journey our minds in a positive direction, somehow always making life seem brighter.