In March 2020, when lockdown started, my neighbour Julie Schwarz came up with the idea of offering online concerts to our local community, as a voluntary venture. All around us, musicians were having concerts and tours cancelled, their working lives suddenly swept from under their feet. At the same time our friends, families and members of our community had lost opportunities for live musical experiences. Musicians would be properly paid, (a sadly rare occurrence in this period) by crowdfunding, and our community would be brought together through the shared experience of a live performance.

Julie shared the idea with me and my husband Adam, knowing that our daughter, Gemma Sharples, is a professional violinist, a member of the London Mozart Players and the Gildas Quartet, and violin teacher at the Junior Academy of Music. We liked the idea and put it to Gemma. She leapt at it. At this early stage, there was very little happening online and it seemed as if musicians were still reeling from the shock of Covid, frozen into inactivity by the horror of watching bookings being cancelled one by one. Gemma agreed to be the musical force behind the project, curating the series and booking musicians to take part, as well as being one of the first musicians to feature in one of our concerts.

Julie, Adam and I are complete amateurs; we have never put on a concert in our lives; we love music but are neither music buffs nor Music Society stalwarts. We had nothing to draw on but our own initiative, enthusiasm and experiences from other aspects of our working lives – and of course, the expertise that Gemma could offer. We’re so glad we gave it a go. Thanks to the generous support of our audiences, we have now had seven amazingly successful evening concerts, attracting audiences from as far afield as Israel, the USA and New Zealand. The extent of the reach has been one phenomenal outcome of the venture – with performers thrilled to be able to invite friends, family and fans from across the globe. Our 24 featured musicians have included Simon Blendis, leader of the London Mozart Players along with his wife Saoko and son Aki, Sebastian Comberti, LMP’s Principal Cello, viola player Jenny Lewisohn, cellist Gemma Kost, French Horn player Nicholas Ireson, leading jazz pianist John Turville, singer Lotte Betts-Dean, pianist Anyssa Neumann, harpist Olivia Jageurs, as well as Gemma herself. Our membership of over 200 households has loved the intimacy of the recitals, the format (in which they hear two different performances in an hour’s concert) and the sense of being there in a room together. Some members have attended every single concert.

One fantastic spin-off from the venture has been that we have helped musicians kick-start their own online music-making, particularly in the early stages of lockdown. Our growing expertise in getting the best sound of out Zoom has allowed us to pass on great tips to musicians, whether it be buying a new ethernet cable, re-positioning their router, following a particular sequence in entering Zoom using an ipad or changing the settings on Zoom. The experience of Home Concert Clubs has also galvanised several musicians into putting on something similar themselves. Both Simon Blendis and Sebastian Comberti are now offering Zoom concerts of their own. We’ve been thrilled to see these new initiatives emerging.

Over the period when children were locked down and unable to go out or attend school, we also ran three-weekly family concerts in the afternoons, with audiences of parents, children and even grandparents, who were able to share a musical experience together. The concerts were deliberately varied and eclectic – everything from Rosanna Ter-Berg playing flute music from across the world and her sister Francesca Ter-Berg performing Klezmer, Breton and other folk tunes on the cello, to Lettie Stott introducing children to a range of horns, from her French horn to a Roman cornu, a lituus and a cowhorn. Electric Voice Theatre ended our series with a join-along musical show about female women scientists, an adaptation of an Award-winning show at Edinburgh Festival.

Our next concert on Wednesday September 9 features Gemma’s quartet, the Gildas Quartet, playing a solo piece, a duet, a trio and even a full quartet, following social distancing rules. This will be their first live performance together since lockdown.

Home Concert Club's next concert is on Wednesday September 9 - to book, or to find out more about Home Concert Club, visit: homeconcertclub.com