Kevin Bull, BA (Hons), Dip. Mus. A.L.C.M.

Kevin Bull, the Invicta choir’s talented accompanist writes that:

 “I started piano lessons at the age of 8 – my first piano being a plank of wood, on which I marked out with keys.  It was rather crude and would only play diatonically (and silently) but it got me started.  (It was marginally better than some pianos that I have played subsequently, which would have benefitted enormously from a silent option!)  After a couple of weeks of practising in the back garden, my parents bought me a piano and I started my musical life.

I took up the violin about a year later, but by the age of 16 I had put it down again and the musical world remained blissfully unaware of either.  In between I played in the school orchestra – at one time I shared a desk with a contemporary who prepared to play by rubbing soap on his bow – again, the musical world was spared another unhappy concatenation of catgut and horsehair!

Away from the fiddle I occasionally played piano works with the redoubtable school orchestra – Gershwin’s “Rhapsody in Blue” among them. After leaving school and starting work I re-commenced my piano lessons with Mr Anthony Calladine of Hastings, who got me through an A.L.C.M. diploma in piano playing.

I took up the role of choirmaster at All Saints Church, Lydd, in the early 1980s and we had quite a large membership at that time as we had a pretty active youth section which helped to keep up the membership in the trebles.

In 1995 after being made redundant from Prudential Insurance I took up freelance music teaching in a number of Folkestone Primary schools.  A few years later, I set up a musical production company with my wife.  I also worked as a ballet pianist at a local independent school.

More recently, I have been doing more accompanying and as well as working with Invicta Singers I have played for the Shorncliffe Military Wives Choir and the Agape Gospel Choir (as well as being pianist in the Agape Jazz Band) which has broadened my musical experience. I continue to teach piano and regularly submit pupils (both old and young) for examinations.  I think of my piano as a life-support machine.  The piano is my forte – so if you want to try and make it yours, I always have room for one more pupil!”

Past Accompanists:

2012: Gillian Lines

1993: Duncan Finn

1991: Charlotte Coles