p18-26_covers 03/08/2020 11:00 Page 18
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Kathryn Rudge Making a difference with music - by Simon Hart For Kathryn Rudge, the day-to-day has been markedly different since the onset of COVID-19. With a career built around performing, the mezzo soprano from south Liverpool now finds a big blank space where her itinerary used to be. ‘For performing arts and the arts in general it’s brought everything to a standstill,’ she affirms. ‘A lot of the work I had booked in has had to be either cancelled or postponed. For me it’s a massive change as I’m normally on the road quite a lot. I don’t think I’ve been at home this long for a long time so in many ways I’ve really appreciated the time to have a base and be settled for a good few months as normally I’m preparing for something else.’ If the comforts of home have been a blessing for this parishioner of St Ambrose’s, Speke, the biggest downside of this period is the loss of that connection with audiences which is the essence of any performer’s existence. “With music the point is sharing it for
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me,’ says the 33-year-old. ‘It’s the connection with the audiences and the people you’re working with and nothing recreates that. We try over the internet to do little bits and pieces but that connection is the closest thing I find to prayer – I consider it a real privilege to be able to communicate something that brings through emotions and connection with people, and I really miss that.’ The impact of the COVID-19 lockdown on the arts sector has even left a question mark against the future of the Royal Albert Hall, a venue where Kathryn has sung several times – most recently when performing Mozart’s Requiem with the BBC National Orchestra of Wales and BBC Singers during the 2019 Proms season. ‘When I was younger, I saw it on the television and thought, “It must be amazing to perform there” and it seemed very quickly to happen and actually when I got in there, it’s such an intimate atmosphere. It looks huge on the telly but it’s a really special place.’ That was just one milestone for a singer named by The Times as a ‘rising star of
classical music’ during her final year at the Royal Northern College of Music and who was one of Radio 3’s chosen New Generation artists from 2015-17. For all the fine venues she has graced, though, there really is no place like home. ‘I honestly feel the concerts I do at home are my favourite,’ she explains. ‘Probably rather than the venue, I relate most closely to the people who are there. If I perform at the Philharmonic Hall and I look out, I can almost see friends in the audience and it means so much. So I’d say on a personal level it is in Liverpool because that’s coming home for me and I really love that.’ The same goes for singing at St Ambrose’s parish church. ‘The people there have all been like a family – they’ve seen me grow up and it’s a pleasure to come back and share what you’re doing with them and to be able to be a part of the community,’ she says. As a child who ‘enjoyed getting up in front of people’ – initially to make her family laugh with her impressions – the
