The Errollyn Wallen Song Club

It’s not easy to be a mover and shaker in London. Everything’s been done to death with a backroom plan to bleed us dry before we scuttle for the last tube home. So, when something of value for both pocket and soul comes along, Londoners are quick to take note.

Something of value is happening now in Soho. The two octave hands of celebrity composer Errollyn Wallen are beckoning us in to The Green Carnation Rooms. This Oscar Wilde-esque location for The Errollyn Wallen Song Club is where, supported by Wallen and Special Guests, the first eight arrivals can get up and perform their own songs.
Aware of my limitations for belting out a number I toy with a line from Groucho Marx , “I wouldn’t want to belong to any song club that would have me as a member” but the rug is gently tugged from under my wit with Wallens assertive belief that anyone can write and perform a song.

She sees the creation of good song as being an efficient feel for atmosphere that over rides technical context or complexity.  It’s refreshing to hear that one of the world’s most exciting composers is open about what works in music but then again, part of her mission is to de-mystify the assumption that composers are “dead men in white wigs”.

Wallen couldn’t be more opposite to that image. Black, young, beautiful and with a flair for style that would make Sarah Jessica Parker crawl under a stone Wallen’s achievements are an impressive back up to her modernism.
Recently awarded an MBE for her services to music an eclectic CV reads like a shopping list for food street: Operas and Ballets, mass community projects, West End shows, solo and co-albums with Bjork and Sting, countless chamber works, concertos for The Proms and Symphonies for leading orchestras.

“Out there” springs to mind. She’s even written a song with an astronaut as he orbits the earth.
Houston. We’re in safe hands! This gun-ho approach to having a go hits today’s pulse and after the lackluster contestants for the recent general election, not to forget Britain’s Eurovision entry, I’m inclined to see The Song Club as a good template for trying our hand at things our instincts presumed were beyond us.  I have a jolly good idea, London. Let’s adopt this concept and allow the first eight in the queue see if they can run the country with charm and brains, create an effective school system that doesn’t make the exams easier each year or (tricky) win the Eurovision. “Who’d of known I could do that, innit”?

The standard at The Errollyn Wallen Song Club is high but not threateningly so and this supports Wallens belief in our potential.
Maybe I’m getting older and going mad or simply learning to laugh at myself but I am excited about getting up on a stage in Soho. The results won’t kill me and I might even be good at it.

In any case, a star like Wallen is spurring us on for a ten quid entrance fee and the outcome is an abnormally great night out in London. Errollyn Wallen MBE? They should make her a Dame.

The Errollyn Wallen Song Club is on Thursday June 24th (8pm) and every last Thursday of the month at The Green Carnation, 5 Greek Street, London W1D 4DD
For more information check out www.errollynwallen.com