Phil is a musician who hasn’t been able to play to live audiences during the pandemic.

Phil’s story

Phil’s story
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Phil Veacock is a musician and music teacher. Unable to play live during the pandemic, he has started baking and working for a bakery delivering bread.

Phil got into music at a young age, playing the recorder, clarinet and later the saxophone. He studied music at university and then formed a successful band called The Larks who were in the charts. Phil now plays saxophone for Jools Holland and is also musical director of Holland’s Rhythm and Blues Orchestra. Before the pandemic, he toured with the orchestra as well as having a big show on BBC TV every New Year. Phil also teaches music in a primary and a secondary school.

Phil lives in Charlton with his wife who is a ceramicist, and his daughter who is studying music. As well as his bread delivery, he continues to teach music online.

'A live audience, that’s actually communicating something to other people. And everyone I know in music has …. been talking about this: you don’t get the same thing when you’ve been doing things online, you just don’t at all'

Phil’s chosen object

‘This Ipad… that’s like my window onto the world so without this, I wouldn’t see my friends, but also I couldn’t work either… I wouldn’t be able to teach and I wouldn’t be able to perform online things, so this little square, this little black mirror is definitely the most important thing from this lockdown’.

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