Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields' SoundWalk shows London's familiar streets in a new light

Stand at the top of the steps of St Martin-in-the-Fields church in central London on any weekday and look out over Trafalgar Square. You will be confronted by a buzz of activity: there might be an orchestra rehearsing in the church behind you for an evening concert; an ambulance sirening its way through queues of traffic; political demonstrations vying with buskers in front of the National Gallery; a party of schoolchildren chattering excitedly as they are shepherded across busy roads. Almost certainly you will see a homeless person hunched against a wall, collecting cup by their side.

In addition to normal services and a rich cultural programme that includes performances by the Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields chamber orchestra (ASMF) and many other individuals and ensembles, the church has a particular mission to the homeless, inspired by its patron saint, Martin of Tours, a Roman soldier turned bishop who is remembered for giving his cloak to a beggar. Dick Sheppard, Vicar of St Martin’s during World War One, offered what he called ‘an ever-open door’ to soldiers on their way to France, and a Social Service Unit founded in 1948 grew into The Connection at St Martin’s, which cares for around 7,500 individuals who are experiencing homelessness each year.

Academy of St Martin-in-the-Fields has it's home in London's bustling Trafalgar Square © Clare Stevens

The chamber orchestra has been associated with this important aspect of the church’s work since 1999; ASMF musicians regularly work in collaboration with day centres and frontline homelessness organisations to create and perform new pieces of music. This year’s celebrations marking the centenary of the birth of ASMF’s founder, conductor Sir Neville Marriner, include a composition project that not only showcases the creative results of such collaborations, but encourages visitors to St Martin’s to explore the area, see it through new eyes (and hear it through new ears) and make connections with some of the people who call it home.

A City Full of Stories is an immersive SoundWalk created by people experiencing homelessness, supported by instrumentalists from ASMF and students from the Royal Academy of Music and facilitated by composer and percussionist Jackie Walduck and writer Hazel Gould. A sequence of ten new pieces of music inspired by the area, its landmarks and inhabitants has been installed at various points between Trafalgar Square and the old Covent Garden market. Visitors are invited to pick up a leaflet describing the project from the information desk in the crypt of St Martin’s, download a free Echoes.xyz app to their phone, and follow a circular route around the surrounding streets, pausing on the way to listen to individual tracks.

The pieces were created during writing and music workshops held at The Connection’s day centre across the road from the church, whose red door is pointed out as walkers set off along the route. As in all ASMF’s work with The Connection, professional musicians, students and people experiencing homelessness came together and shared their talents and skills to form a creative ensemble, explains long-term collaborator, composer and workshop leader Jackie Walduck: ‘All ideas are welcomed, every voice is heard, and artistic outcomes are created jointly through improvisation and co-composing, reflecting the dynamic aspects of chamber music, or playing in a jazz or rock band. Musical confidence grows as ideas are shared between everyone in the workshop.’ Workshop leader Hazel Gould points out that many of the ‘amateur’ participants brought a high level of skills and experience to the project, such as one young man who was a very fine developing writer and would bring a substantial body of work to share at the sessions each week, while others could play the guitar or find their way around a piano.

‘Circle exercises that seemed simple encouraged everyone’s skills as musicians – starting and stopping, taking turns – that might be someone who plays the violin beautifully in the orchestra, and then someone with a shaker, but we gave them both equal airspace,’ she recalls. ‘What was really brilliant about the way Jackie led the sessions was that the professional and student musicians were also following the lead. When we started an improvisation, they did such a beautiful job of supporting, doubling, echoing rhythms, and extending tunes and fragments that came from other participants.’

Illustrator Ruby Wright was commissioned to draw the improvisation sessions where ASMF musicians and RAM students worked with participants from The Connection at St Martin's. (Image courtesy of ASMF)

This process continued in the recording sessions for the SoundWalk, says Walduck, when two group members recorded a melody they had created together on glockenspiels. ‘A third member arrived with yet another song they had written during the week, and it is testament to the mutual trust and creativity within the team that we were able to realise this song beautifully, within a short window of studio time, conducted by a fourth group member.’

The result is a commentary that brings to life the imagined stories of this historic area of central London, encouraging visitors to look up and around. The bricks and windows of the mansion blocks and public buildings are older than any of us – what have they seen? Who are the strangers who find themselves sitting next to one another on the benches in the tranquil garden of The Actors’ Church? Where have they been and where are they going? Who are the creatures that share the city with us? Gould says that inviting participants in the writing workshops to see the area from the perspective of a fox or a pigeon enabled them to describe and reflect upon experiences which they might not have been able to discuss from their own points of view. One of the most vivid moments of the whole process for her came on launch day when everyone walked the route together and one of the writers delightedly recognised their own words, read by actor David Ogundare, as they passed through the space.

Guided by a specially-created app, SoundWalk audiences take a circular route around St Martin-in-the-Fields' local area, passing ENO's London Base at the Coliseum ©Clare Stevens

Taking the SoundWalk myself, I found contrasting memories of the area bubbling to the surface as I navigated familiar streets and courtyards in a new way. Performing Handel’s Messiah in St Martin’s, a church that dates from the composer’s residence in London, to a particularly appreciative audience with bags of Christmas shopping packed around their feet; attending a protest concert in The Actors’ Church years ago in support of the chorus of English National Opera (ENO) when it was under a previous existential threat (the walk passes both The Actors’ Church and ENO’s Coliseum home); my only experience of Jury Service, when the case focused on a fight between rival criminal gangs outside a nearby nightclub, and we found ourselves studying a map of these same streets as we examined the evidence.

Undertaking the walk on a busy day when the streets are thronged with cars, delivery bikes, locals who know exactly where they are going – and meandering tourists who aren’t quite sure – can be slightly hazardous, I have to admit; I found myself accidentally walking across the path of another pedestrian as I made a beeline for one destination and stepping off a pavement without looking as I headed for another. But most of the locations are in out-of-the-way corners where you can sit or stand still and listen to the songs and instrumental music they have inspired.

Like everyone who has ever worked central London, I have always been aware of the countless people who spend their days on the streets and shelter in doorways on rainy evenings. This project is a salutary prompt to imagine what it might be like to walk in their shoes – and a reminder that some of them are musicians and writers, just like me.

A City Full of Stories is available free of charge to the public until 15 October. The individual tracks can also be accessed on Soundcloud via the ASMF website.