Travels with 2MBS Fine Music Sydney and Tom Forrester-Paton
Tom Forrester-Paton talks all things music and travel
First Class Magazine’s Nicole Lenoir-Jourdan sits down with 2MBS Fine Music Sydney’s Tom Forrester-Paton to talk all things music and travel.
Tom has been a volunteer with 2MBS Fine Music Sydney since 2011. He hails from Bradford in West Yorkshire, UK. The son of a fine mezzo soprano, Tom was always going to be musical. He said, “Mum did her warm-ups every day, and throughout her pregnancies, so I probably had music in my life from before birth. Put simply, I can’t imagine life without it.”
Tom’s most celebrated musical destination was London’s Albert Hall, where his choir sang a Mahler 8 at the opening night of the Proms. However, he fondly remembers, as a schoolboy trumpet player, visiting nearby parishes to play the Last Post and Reveille on Remembrance Sunday. Tom visited many churches during these trips but it was the church at Heydon which stood out to him as it was “preposterously quaint” like the village it served.
Tom still sings in a choir. He sings as a bass in the Sydney Philharmonia Choirs and is a classical presenter at Fine Music FM.
On presenting he said, “I’m constantly being required to present music I’m unfamiliar with, often by composers I’ve never heard of – it’s challenging, but that’s part of the reward.”
On volunteering, Toms aid that it gives him the opportunity to connect with other music lovers. He mentions a few of his Fine Music colleagues who attended the Townsville Chamber Music Festival siting that it’s a festival he’d love to go to in the future.
Tom contends his favourite musical destination is a toss-up between Tobermory on the isle of Mull, Vienna and Rome. In Tobermory he polished off the best mussels of his life at the Mishnish which were accompanied by a local choir and in Vienna he listened to Mozart’s Requiem in Karlskirche. However he says Rome wins out on musical performance where on a balmy evening in the surrounds of the Teatro di Marcello he heard a piano recital and also found out that for a few handful of Euros at lunchtime, in any space that could be used to perform music, an hour of music of a very high standard would be played.
Tom’s tips for these destinations are as follows:
“If you’re going to the West Coast of Scotland, expect the scenery to be beautiful and the weather to be terrible, and you may be pleasantly surprised!
If you’re going to Vienna, visit Beethoven’s house, but watch out for the stairs – the timed light went out when we were halfway down them, and my wife fell down the rest of the flight!
If you’re going to Rome, go at the ‘shoulder’ of the summer, or you won’t be able to move for, er, fellow tourists.”
At home in Australia, Tom’s favourite destination is one where he sings as a member of the Sydney Symphony Chorus and that is the City Recital Hall in Angel Place which he says has unbeatable acoustics. He said, “A few years ago, the pianist Stephen Hough did a world recital tour, performing Schumann. Of the may venues he performed in, he rated Angel Place the best.”
In terms of holidaying in Australia, Tom loves the Settler’s Arms in St Albans. This historic Georgian Coach Inn was built-in 1836 from convict-hewn sandstone. The rooms are quaint and the bar is cosy. There’s a restaurant featuring an open fireplace which crackles in the cooler months. Full of bush atmosphere, the Inn is surrounded by mountains and is nestled alongside the Macdonald River in the tiny village of St Albans.
The destination that’s high on Tom’s list to travel to is Bilbao home to the Guggenheim museum and Jeff Koons’ ‘puppy’.
When asked which three musical performers from history or modern times would Tom like to have dinner with and where would you have that dinner, Tom replied, Beethoven, Beecham and Eric Satie. He said, “As to a venue, I’d always choose a curry house, because I already know what I want to eat, so I wouldn’t waste time dithering over the menu. And the best curry house I know of is Monty’s, in Fulham Road, London.”
For more information on 2MBS Fine Music Sydney visit 2MBS Fine Music Sydney
