Lucy Haigh
Solo Cornet
Lucy started learning the piano and violin at the ages of six and seven respectively. As a teenager, she discovered a love of brass playing, gaining Grade 8 on both trumpet and tuba. She joined Thames Vale Youth Orchestra and also Oxfordshire County Youth Orchestra with which she toured Germany and the Channel Islands and played in the Schools Prom at the Royal Albert Hall.
Lucy has always been a keen singer and formed The Hildegard Choir (an award-winning girls’ choir, specialising in early music) at the age of eighteen. She read Music at Durham University and became a full-time choral director and singing teacher, based in Oxford.
In 2006, she relocated to Perth, Western Australia to become Head of Choral Music at St Hilda’s Anglican School for Girls. While in Perth, she was also an alto lay clerk in St George’s Cathedral Choir.
In 2010, Lucy returned to the UK to take up the post of Cathedral Choral Director for the Diocese of Leeds. She directs three of the Leeds Cathedral Choirs and has been involved in numerous television and radio broadcasts. She also teaches 20 primary school singing classes and chamber choirs each week as part of the Diocese of Leeds Schools Singing Programme.
Having moved to Yorkshire, Lucy decided to fulfil her long-held ambition of joining a brass band, despite hardly having played since leaving school in 1991. In 2014, after a short spell with Wetherby Silver Band, she joined Lofthouse Band where her cornet playing improved rapidly thanks to the help and encouragement of MD Andrew Whitaker.
In her spare time, Lucy produces music shows for Skylab Radio and is a voracious reader.
Years playing: a total of about nine years playing brass instruments, with a huge gap in the middle
Position in the band: third man down
Instrument: Besson Sovereign, inherited from our dear departed bandmate Bob Hick
Occupation: Cathedral Choral Director
Favourite food: curry
Favourite drink: hot chocolate
Favourite non-brass band: The Smiths, Belle & Sebastian, Blur
Most embarrassing banding moment: a badly stuck valve during a concert performance of Cornet Carillion