Hugh Boyde
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One
of my biggest musical moments occurred around the age of 21 when listening to
a recording of “After You’ve Gone” by the great gypsy jazz
guitarist Django Reinhardt. By the time the track
was over I knew that I wanted to play that music, more than I wanted anything
else. I
spent the last year of college practising guitar obsessively, and since then
have started up no less than four bands directly inspired by Django’s music. I have long since given up on
actually trying to sound like the great master, but it has led to a lifelong love
of all kinds of fretted instruments, and a career teaching and playing them.
Apart from all the performing, my working life can emcompass
anything from teaching a whole class of nine-year-olds how to play ukulele
(in my day job for Cambridgeshire
Music), to writing delicate mandolin solos published by Astute Music. The
mandolin obsession came much later, but with just as much force, when I
bought a lovely instrument from Cambs luthier Richard Bartram (I still have it and it still plays
beautifully, many hundreds of gigs and recordings later). I was still in the
grip of mandolin fever when I met Bert - Cafe Mondiale
was the result and we started rehearsing, arranging and gigging almost
immediately. Since
then I have also started up a mandolin orchestra – the Moonlight Mandolins, which has
grown from an initial six players to around twenty today. And in 2011 I
started Ringing Strings, a
new freelance teaching project offering a tuition in a variety of fretted
instruments to adults and children in Cambridgeshire. Other current playing projects are Shakey Breaks The Ice (a swing jazz band also featuring Bert in the line-up) and Skibboo, a new and as yet virtual band which has come together to record a CD of my own Celtic-inspired folk tunes. |
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