Musical match

Double celebration for Newbury composer

NEWBURY composer Fiona Bennett has more than one reason to celebrate at the moment. She has just released her new album The New Lady Radnor Suite, the follow up album to the hugely successful A Country Suite. Three tracks from her first classical album were voted into this year’s Classic FM Hall of Fame Top 300 chart earlier in the year. “I am so grateful to all my friends and supporters who voted for me,” said Fiona. "I could never have achieved this without their help.”

The second reason for celebration is that Fiona was married to her old Guildhall School of Music and Drama colleague
John Heritage on Friday, July 24, at Shaw House. John was born in Newbury and Fiona is from Cardiff and they met at
music college in 1980. “John was the principal trumpet in his third year,” she said. “We first year students didn’t really mix with the third year students much but John and I got along very well and shared the same two trumpet teachers during our time there, one of whom was world famous soloist Crispian Steele-Perkins. John left just as I started my third and final year and we lost touch but thanks to Facebook we became friends again in 2010. In April this year, we both realised the other was single and began dating.
When John proposed, I immediately accepted and we are both looking forward to sharing lots of musical experiences together, including singing with The Cecilia Consort in their 25th anniversary concert at Douai Abbey on November 14.”

Between getting into the Hall of Fame, releasing her brand new album and meeting up with John again, 2015 has certainly been a year to remember for Fiona.

The New Lady Radnor Suite is available to download and on CD from both Amazon and iTunes.