Transcript
Well, hello, everyone. I am really, really, uh, so excited and honoured to have today’s conversation with you, Nigel. We’ve known each other for a very long time, and I, I get a sense in the little bit of preparation that we did beforehand, that we will probably cover a lot of ground intentionally and unintentionally. And I think that’s fine. So Nigel, why don’t you introduce yourself to everyone? Thanks Annay. So, uh, I’m Nigel Linaker and I think that I’ve been thinking about life and what it is and what a good life might be.
For a long time, through a commercial career, um, that led on to coaching and some Work with uh with a charity and now some artistic and musical work too. And I love how you’ve always woven into each other, this, this deep thinking about life. Actually about many topics. And I would say from, from what we know about each other, that, that’s kind of a central theme, right? In life and all its manifestations from maybe if you want to talk a little bit about, well, boring or the leadership work you did.
And then, obviously, very, very personally, your son. Um, thanks, Annay. So yes, I think there’s a, a, a wish and urge on my part to get to the fundamentals of whatever it might be. Um, to try and really understand it, to really get into it. And when we got to know each other, the work, as you mentioned, was around leadership, which is, which is really substantially about being, as others have said, and an integral human being, being together, connected with self, with others, with purpose, all of that.
And I thought hard about that, and developed some kind of a a model thing. And then that gave on to work with, well, boring. Which is a water charity, as you know well, which gets safe water to rural schools, mostly in in Kenya. Um, and yes, the the the the the fundamentals, even when awful things happen in life, how can we how can we navigate that? Mhm. And yeah, and if we then come to something awful, which, you know, I’ve been. Very privileged, as I say, to, to watch from the sidelines.
Uh, do you maybe wanna share with everyone a little bit about how your grief opera work has um actually come about and evolved? Yes, so, um, a, a really terrible thing happened 3 and 3/4 years ago. We lost our youngest son. Hm. And, and he was a musician. Um, Who, who died by his own hand and I didn’t see it coming. So the shock was off the scale, the pain, uh, almost unendurable. Um, and, and I started to write about George, um, And about my conversations with him, I was trying to remember them.
And, and, and about my grief. And, and I imagine that would become a book. Um, as you know, I’ve written a few books in one way and another, and I thought a grief memoir, but then the words, the grief opera just came into my mind like in capital letters one day. And I worked with a musician, a wonderful jazz and classical composer and pianist, Vladimir Miller. And we created, we created the grief opera, um, and it, it, and it now exists and, and, and we perform it and I, and I sing in it.
Um. And tell us a little bit more because I think that it’s, it’s that story of creation and evolution, but I think there’s also a lot about a community of people who take part in the reef opera. Yeah, well, yes, right. So, so there are um 10 of us, it varies slightly from performance to performance, who, who we are. Um, but, but most of us have lost. Um, a son, in one case, a daughter, in another case, a brother, um, in another very close friend. In another, in Vladimir’s case, a bandmate.
We’ve almost all lost someone close to suicide. Uh, and, and, and that’s kind of brought us together and, and some of the people who play in it, there’s, there’s cello, there’s violin, there’s clarinet, the bass as well as piano and vocals. Um, have experienced some kind of catharsis in, in working through our grief musically and in And in performance. And you know if if you If you imagine a a a a funeral, I don’t know, procession from. Thousands or hundreds of years ago, you might imagine wailing, even singing and whatever.
So, music and grief. Can go together beautifully, there’s a real history. And and music can be more fundamental than mere words. It can resonate. And, and that’s what happened for audiences as well. Um, people who don’t know. Really huge grief. I kind of a bit shocked by it, but people who know great grief, it’s like, yeah, there it is. I have words, I have words for my grief. And can you talk a little bit about the creation process? I mean, how did you originally create it? I mean, I know you’ve said to us, you were writing and then You try, the, the words came into your head and so on.
But, but what was that creation process like? And then, I think not only the creation process, isn’t the performance process every time almost a re-remembering or re-experiencing? Yes, it is. So, So I was in shock when I started writing the reefer, you know, what, what, what can I do? My, my, my, my sons died. Uh, there’s only so much work to do with the funeral, um, and so I just sat at my desk and I try to remember conversations and what we said. Yeah. And then, um, Then, uh, my elder daughter and surviving son, we’ve been blessed with 2 sons and 2 daughters.
They said they were going to do the eulogy at the funeral. So, OK, so I’m not. So what can I do? So I wrote up a a poem came to me about George. And and who he was, and, and And then more language talking with his bandmates. He, his band stopped playing with lockdown and um, I think George thought his musical career was over, that was something that really Uh, uh, was, was hard for him. And uh we, we managed to include some of George’s rhythms in the music.
Uh, Vladimir did that, so George is in there as a as a co-creator of. Grief opera Um, and, and I, I once had the idea of the reef opera, I rewrote some of my narrative in verse, as it were. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve, I’ve been writing poetry for about, about 10 years. So, so, so it, it just, it just started. And then when it comes to performance each time. It’s actually really hard. And it’s getting harder in a way for me because, um, because I’m going back to, I’m reinhabiting the state I was in when I wrote.
When I compose the lyrics, I’m going right back to there. I can do it. I know what it was like, I’m back there. But at the same time, It for me it’s thrilling hearing professional singers and musicians perform this. This thing about George and grief and and love and love actually because because the the subtitle of Grief opera is Love Goes On. Mm. But I think Nigel, the, what is also absolutely interesting for me is that. You said that, right? A lot of some people who’ve experienced grief can really deeply identify.
But I was recently reading a book by, and I can’t remember her name, the, the lady who wrote Quiet about the, the power of introverts. She’s also written a book recently called Bittersweet. I think her name is Susan. I have to look it up. But, and she was writing about this, this phenomenon that humans connect with Music that sometimes is a little bit sad, and we don’t, we all don’t know where it comes from, but it’s almost, primal and it because it reminds us of, basically what you said at the beginning, living and dying, and that we all are, Here, but only, you know, for a short period of time and we’ve all experienced it.
So the power of music is really, really, um, I mean, it’s such an important part of our lives, but now the grief opera has been turned or has been turned into A movie. Yeah. Well, tell us a bit about that. Well, um, So the grief opera is about an hour and a half long intermission as well, whatever. But we’ve got, um, about half of it anyway, into, into a film. Where we are speaking and singing and and interacting our way through. We wanted to make the reef opera available to more people than we can reach in single shows.
And, and we thought that a film could also help people get a sense of what the grief opera would be like before they perhaps decide to come along and and experience it. Yeah. People who’ve seen the film and been to the show. Um, say that the show is, uh, uh, much more powerful than the, but the film at least provides, provides a weigh in, um, and I think has some dramatic. Uh, power in and of itself. I, I also want to say that the music you, you were mentioning music just now music for me is, which is created by Vladimir, um, is, is just so beautiful and, and lifts us, sometimes amplifies the sorrow, sometimes lifts us out of the pit of Of, of despair, even of hopeless momentary hopelessness, um, and makes the whole thing.
Endurable and helps to make it ultimately. Uh Uplifting, I think opera, um, and I, I think without the music it would just be. It would just be too hard. Yeah, yeah. And the. Yeah, I think that just, I’m, I’m looking across here. So the book is called Bittersweet by Susan Cain. I actually think you would so enjoy reading it. Um, so, yeah, and if, if anybody wants to come along and experience the Grief opera, or connect with you, where could they do that? And as well, we’ll, well, why don’t we start with while boring, because that’s also an inspiring initiative that you’re involved with.
So if people want to find out more about well boring, where do they go? So, well boring.org. OK, great. And, and I am Nigel at well boring.org. Wonderful. And then for the Grief opera, where can we go? The grief Opera.org. That’s quite straightforward. But you also mentioned to me there’s a performance in London in December. Yeah. So, uh, Tuesday, the 2nd of December in Paddington, London, um, and you can link through from the grief Opera.org. Um, it’s our, it’s our London show for the year.
Um, love people to come along and experience it directly. It is really emotional. We, we sometimes say it will be the most emotional show you’ll experience this year. It’s not easy. Um, but, um, but I think it can even be transformatory. And if we want to broaden our sense of, you know, you, what you mentioned just now and me, so, you know, his life and his death, whatever, whatever life is and whatever death is, um. But, but experiencing a bit more of. Of, of, of how we might approach death and and how we might work with and through grief can itself be really.
Really powerful. Wonderful. So, Nigel, thank you for taking the time today and, um, wishing you all of the, the very best of luck with both while boring. And, you know, may, may the grief opera go from strength to strength in terms of just spreading its message, and many other people experience it. Thank you so much, honey. Thank you.
