There is a simplicity and calmness about Edwin Fawcett and he doesn’t have the angst or the ego that you almost expect from someone as talented as he is. Part of the secret perhaps lies in his background which is rather unusual for someone who has grown up in the consumerist fragmentation of times today.

His parents, who are both highly creative themselves, converted to Catholicism when Edwin, who is the second of their nine children, was four years old. “I was baptised when I was about five,” he says. Rather than sacrificing their children to their careers or their art, the couple instead decided to make a priority their family life and faith and organised everything around this.

Home schooled

The family left the capital when Edwin was about four and moved to an isolated old farmhouse in Wales. They began home schooling the children in 1995. “It was a radically creative background,” he says. “We had no television so everybody read a lot and played an instrument of some kind – guitar, trumpet, flute, cello, violin, piano - and we did a lot of spontaneous communal singing and harmonies round the piano in the evening.”

With home schooling, lessons can be very flexible and the children were encouraged to develop their talents as well as do formal course work. Edwin comments, “I planned my own studies to some extent and did a lot of correspondence courses.” Having started to learn to play the piano when he was five on his grandparents’ piano, by the time he was seven, he was already beginning to compose music. He comments, “Of course they were only childish little tunes but only the other day I was having a look to see if there was anything of interest that I can develop now.”. He remembers, “I did have a piano teacher for a while when I was about 11 who also taught me composition, but I found it a bit stressful having to create to order and my parents stopped it.” Thus although his other siblings had formal lessons, he is largely self taught.

Fervent Catholic Faith

Key to the whole family ethos has been their fervent Catholic faith, and with all the children at home in a more enclosed environment it was no doubt easier for the parents to establish a pattern of prayer. Edwin recalls, “We began each day with morning prayer. We would light a candle, look at the readings for the day, say some set prayers and present our petitions.” In the evenings the family would say the rosary together. As the years went by and the children’s personal timetables became a bit more chaotic, with music lessons and drama groups, the rosary tradition continued, with those not at home saying it in the car together.

He says he did go through a few difficult years as a teenager, but looking back he realises how supportive his unusual background has been for his life as a creative musician. He comments, “Although we were at home, we weren’t cut off from others or isolated. Apart from being involved in local drama groups, other social activities and the parish, there is a big Catholic home schooling network where we would get together with other home schooled kids”. Edwin originally applied to study for a Maths degree while at his sixth form college, but following a retreat at the Beatitudes in France, he realised that it was obvious his calling was music and this is what he should pursue.

His faith took on a new dimension when he was 17. He remembers. “I was at a Youth2000 event and had just been to confession, where God had given me the grace to really open my soul. At the healing service afterwards I was suddenly overwhelmed by an experience of the love of God that left me crying on the floor.” He adds, “I have always had a strong Catholic identity and knew what I believed and prayed. But this revelation changed me. I realised my faith was all because of Jesus. The reason for it all was love. This helped me to relax a bit more and flourish knowing that I was loved for who I was.”

Faith and Music inextricably mixed

His faith and his music have always been inextricably mixed and afterwards he spent a year with the Youth2000 mission team going round the country helping give Youth2000 retreats and leading the music. By this time he had decided he wanted to study composition at Trinity College of Music in Greenwich. It was while he was working in a piano shop and waiting for the course to begin that, together with his friend Tillie Callaghan (who died tragically in 2006), he wrote the musical “Rock of the Anointed”. He remembers, “Tillie and I had both been given the task by Youth2000 to look at tools to evangelise young people. Tillie was very interested in drama and music was my interest and she suggested we do a musical together. I had already set some of the psalms from the Grail translation to music, so I suggested that we do a musical about the Life of King David, and so we could incorporate stuff I had already done.”

Within a couple of months, the work was ready and they had a date and a venue for the first performance. The cast, mainly other friends from YOUTH2000, however, lived all over the country so weekly rehearsals were not an option. The pair got round this by sending a CD of the words and music to the cast to learn by themselves and then arranging an intensive week of rehearsals just before the performance date in London. Among the cast were five members of Edwin’s family, including his sister Hermione, who has a fabulous voice and who was studying performing arts at the time.

Rock of the Anointed

Edwin remembers, “It was quite a week. There were about 30 of us including a few helpers. CASE(The Catholic Agency for the Support of Evangelisation) very kindly put us up at their HQ in Hampstead and there were bodies all over the place sleeping on the floor.” For the cast the musical was not just a theatre production but a way of proclaiming their faith, and the whole week became something of a spiritual retreat too with daily Mass and a healing and reconciliation service half way through. The first performance was in July 2004 at the Holy Apostles Church in Pimlico but it has been performed several times since, including at World Youth Day in Cologne. Edwin comments, “We did it in a theatre in Cologne and also a reduced version in the diocese to an international group of young people. There were about 2000 of them. Most of them were Italian and they couldn’t have understood a word, but they were all cheering away and afterwards wanted the cast to sign their T shirts with the names of their biblical characters.”

There has already been interest by other groups in putting on the musical and Edwin is in the process of getting it into shape so that schools and parishes groups will be able to do it. Edwin comments, “The fruits of the Rock of the Anointed were as much for the cast as for the audience,” and he sees participating in choirs and musicals like this as a way that young people can be discipled and grow in their faith.

St Patrick’s Gospel Choir

He has seen this in practice, as a member of St Patrick’s Gospel Choir where he sings every Sunday at the 5pm Mass. He comments, “ The choir at St Patrick’s is made up of a variety of people, not all of them Catholic or Christian, but they all love Gospel music. Some are busy professional people but they like to sing and have been attracted by the quality of the work we do.. Its quite incredible really.

These people are serving the church. If it wasn’t for the choir probably the only time they would enter a church would be for marriages and funerals. It’s a great way for people to experience community and we have a laugh together at rehearsals. And because of what we are doing there are often discussions about Catholic things with non-Catholic members about what is going on. Then there is the drip drip of homilies and the atmosphere and the relationship with the choir members who do believe. Who knows? If the choir folds, in the future some of them might even get nostalgic about the faith content of their choir experience. One lady who had been away from the church for a long time has now become a regular Mass goer in her own parish.” Another member of the choir has been inspired to start another choir for homeless people as she has experienced the power of music and belonging to transform people’s lives. Edwin comments, “I went to a performance of this choir and there was a guy there giving witness, not a Christian witness, but simply telling how he had been a drug addict and how being part of the choir and singing had helped him stop taking drugs and find meaning and purpose in his life.”

Music a bridge to the culture

Since finishing his music degree course, where he got a 1st class honours, he has been taken on as parish youth co-ordinator at the parish of St Anthony of Padua, Forest Gate, East London. Here he has started a youth gospel choir to sing once a fortnight at the 10 am Mass. There are about 20 people in the choir of whom about 6-8 usually show up for Mass. Edwin comments, “I have seen that music is a way that can speak volumes to people. It has near universal appeal for most people whatever stage they are at. With these young people in the parish I am wanting to create a layered approach to catechesis and discipling them. First you have to create a point of interest – a reason for them to come together – which in this case is the gospel group. They then have an opportunity to experience community and fellowship through being in a choir, and then because of the content of what they are singing, you can speak about faith in a natural way., and through your personal relationship with them things can develop”.

“Hopefully through all this they will start to hear God’s personal call to them rather than it just being on the level of a social activity. If you advertised a talk about God, they probably wouldn’t come, but this way, you gradually introduce them to the deeper aspects of faith.” His work in the parish, although paid is only part time and his plan is to get freelance work in the music world to supplement his income. Various opportunities for this have come up through the St Patrick’s Gospel choir, who have participated in various fund raising events, and smaller groups of them have performed at weddings and other events. Edwin is also recording a CD of some of his work which will be ready by the summer. Although currently a lot of his work is more on the gospel, pop side, and he is doing a gig at the 606 Club in Chelsea showcasing his recent work he says he doesn’t want to lose sight of his more orchestral work. For his degree recital, he received special permission from the Vatican to set one of Pope John Paul II’s poems, called “Shores of Silence” to music.

He comments, “I have been very influenced and inspired by Pope John Paul II’s “Letter to artists” (pub 1999) and his call to create “new epiphanies of beauty”. The words for Shores of Silence are not outwardly religious in content but they are asking deeper philosophical questions which not just Christians are asking. In this way I feel the arts can be a bridge to the culture helping them to reflect on the big questions of life.”

He is something of a visionary from a musical perspective. He comments, “I am interested in the whole way music is performed and accessed by people. Christian music tends very much to simply copy secular trends, so we have Christian CDs, Christian festivals and Christian concerts. But I ask myself, “Is there a new way? Is there anything out there that hasn’t happened? What is the most effective way of preaching the gospel using music that is totally different and not just copying what the secular world is doing and adapting it for the Christian context? Couldn’t God inspire us to start something new. Maybe there is a new channel which hasn’t been discovered yet?” The key to discovering this, he says, is listening to God. “It’s not just about being efficient and effective,” he says, “but being faithful to God’s calling to me, which means I have to listen in prayer so I will know what he wants me to do and then do it!”

Edwin will be performing with members of St Patrick’s Gospel Choir at a fund-raising event for Life, the Pro Life Charity, on 1st May 2009 at St Vincent de Paul’s Church, Altenburg Gardens, Clapham Junction, SW11 5XN at 7.30pm. For more details contact 07890 028154. Also see
www.myspace.com/stpatricksgospelchoir and
www.edwinfawcett.com