In Harmony

Welcome to In Harmony

In this edition, we bring together the voices, stories and talent that make our musical community so special.

We introduce some of our key ambassadors, including Lynette Carveth, Tom Middleton and Ollie Jones, whose continued connection to Truro School is helping shape the beginning of The Ode’s journey. We also shine a spotlight on recent leavers among our Old Truronians, whose journeys show just how far a Truro School musical education can take you in a short time.

Truro School is also pleased to share plans for the transformation of Epworth House, the former home of the Music Department, into a new, multi-functional wellbeing hub. Old Truronians from further back will remember Epworth as a boarding house between 1934-2003.

This edition also introduces the School’s Chorister Programme, and asks whether any Old Truronians would be interested in starting an Old Truronian choir of their own.

The Ode

Truro School is thrilled to share with you the official name of the Music Centre building – The Ode.

The name draws its inspiration from a poem called “Ode,” written by Arthur O’Shaughnessy in 1873. The poem is often known by its first line, “We are the music makers,” and is an exuberant tribute to artists of all kinds. We hope the name honours the importance of creativity – and we share the poem in full in this newsletter.

Where has music taken you?

Thank you to all the Old Truronians who have responded to our musical survey.

If you haven’t yet taken part, there’s still time to share your story, click here to spend a few minutes telling us where music has taken you.

Wherever your own musical journey has taken you, we hope you enjoy reconnecting with the stories and people who shaped it.

This newsletter is created and edited by Amanda Forde (Development and Alumni Relations Officer). For any enquiries about this newsletter please contact [email protected] or telephone 01872 246094.

If you no longer wish to receive this newsletter, you may unsubscribe here.

Development & Alumni Relations

Frank Stevens CO64

Frank attended Truro School from 1955–1964, singing in the choir throughout his time here and taking piano and organ lessons. Music became a lasting part of his life, with teachers Sammy Way, Henry Doughty and Kenneth Pelmear having a particularly strong influence on his musical development. As a primary school teacher, he shared his love of music by running the school choir, playing for daily assemblies and supporting other school events. Music continues to bring Frank enjoyment and wellbeing, as he has been a church and chapel organist for over 60 years, plays the piano almost every day and leads the St Ives Male Voice Praise Choir, which he founded around 20 years ago. Frank’s message to current students is to ‘keep up the practice, being able to play an instrument is a tremendous asset.’

Simon Jacobs CO02

Simon began his musical training as a Cathedral Choir chorister before studying organ and going on to hold Organ Scholar positions at Christ’s College, Cambridge, Salisbury Cathedral and Westminster Abbey. He moved to the USA in 2007, taking up posts at several prominent churches, most recently as Organist and Choirmaster at Grace and St. Stephen’s Episcopal Church in Colorado Springs, before returning to his hometown of Truro in 2017 as Acting Assistant Director of Music at Truro Cathedral, accompanying and directing its world-famous Cathedral Choir. He has since built a distinguished career as both a concert organist and choral accompanist, performing at prestigious venues across the UK and US, including Westminster Cathedral, Washington National Cathedral, St. Paul’s Cathedral London, and St. Thomas Church on Fifth Avenue, New York, as well as at the Aspen Music Festival, where he has performed with the Chamber Orchestra of the Springs. With an organ repertoire of over 300 works and a reputation as an accomplished improviser both liturgically and in concert, he holds Associate status with the Royal College of Organists.

Katherine Gregory CO20

Katherine a former Cathedral Choir chorister (2015-20) and is currently about the start at the Royal Academy of Music’s opera school for two years having just recently completed a master’s there. Before this she studied at University of Cambridge with a BA in Theology and Philosophy. During this time she sang with Trinity College Choir, touring internationally, recording five discs including Duruflé’s Requiem in Paris with Hyperion/Decca, in which she performed the Pie Jesu, taking on operatic roles including the Contessa in Le Nozze di Figaro, Rosalinde in Strauss’s Die Fledermaus and the Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute, and winning first prize in the Clare College Song Competition as a Pembroke Lieder Scheme scholar. Now a sought after as an oratorio soloist, she made her Royal Festival Hall debut aged 20 alongside the Bach Choir and Philharmonia Orchestra, has since performed Duruflé’s Requiem solos with them at venues including Holy Trinity Sloane Square and King’s College Chapel with the Britten Sinfonia.

Truro School Music Ambassadors

Lynette Carveth

CO84

Lynette went to the Royal Academy of Music, specialising in voice. After graduating, she moved to Madrid, where she sang with the chorus of Radiotelevisión Española, and then for 12 years with the chorus of the Teatro Real. In 2004, she started her own company, Caprici Arte y Música, bringing small-scale opera, zarzuela and choral works to a wider audience.

She continues to sing with groups such as the Diletto Ensamble baroque group in Valencia, and is a soprano for the Association of Spanish Symphonic Composers. She also gives singing workshops, facilitates team-building events, and runs two choirs.

Tom Middleton

CO89

Tom is an award-winning composer and pioneer in therapeutic sound, working across music, neuroscience and sensory science to improve sleep, reduce stress and anxiety, and support pain relief and human performance. As Co-Founder Emeritus of White Mirror, he built a multi-award-winning sensory studio creating science-based soundscapes for brands including Calm, Apple Music and Sleep Cycle, plus major hospitality, wellness and healthcare spaces reaching millions of sleepers worldwide — alongside composing for the breathwork app Breathonics and advising on the period-pain app Moonai.

His three-decade career began as a classical cellist before moving into DJing and broadcasting across 59 countries, an experience that shaped his expertise in functional soundscapes grounded in acoustic ecology, archaeoacoustics, psychoacoustics and circadian science.

He's also a vocal advocate for ethical, artist-first generative AI, and his mission centres on scaling evidence-based, human-first sound design as a form of care and connection in daily life.

Ollie Jones

CO23

Ollie has a passion for music, and has done for a long time. His first album, Images, was composed when he was 14 years old, living under the shadow of juvenile, seronegative arthritis, in his own private lockdown before the COVID-19 pandemic, unable to move without pain, confined to the house, and doing exams from home. Images comprises the pieces composed during the lead up to a total hip replacement operation in October 2019, and the recovery period thereafter, the ups and downs of his life clearly audible in the passionate fast-flowing lines of the minimalist compositions which are his hallmark. He was a music scholar at Truro School in Cornwall, UK, and this is evident in his expeditious start to professional music!

Since those early days, Ollie has gained national and international recognition from the likes of BBC Sounds, BBC music introducing and local and national radio stations (BBC Radio stations in the southwest of England, Radio 5, Radio 4 and Radio 3), as well as Ditto Music, his music distribution service.

In amongst composing is his love for musical direction for musical theatre. He has been involved in numerous productions, in numerous roles on the creative team, ranging from Intern to Musical Director, on productions such as "Les Misérables" (Associate MD, 2022), "Annie Jr." (MD, 2023) and "Beauty and the Beast" (MD, 2024). He has had rehearsal experience with "The Lion King" in London (2024) as rehearsal pianist. He will be going on to study music at Kings College London.

Soon after leaving Truro School, Ollie very kindly took time to create a stunning bespoke composition to complement a flythrough video showcasing the plans for the Music Centre at the very beginning of the project build.

Truro Cathedral Choir

Truro Cathedral Choir’s chorister programme welcomes children of all genders aged 8–13 at Truro School Prep and 13-18 at Truro School. The programme offers an exceptional musical education alongside a first-class academic education at Truro School. Rooted in a proud tradition and committed to widening opportunity, the programme develops talented young singers in a supportive and inspiring environment.

Truro Cathedral Choir has an unbroken tradition dating back to the 1880s, when services were held in a wooden shed while John Loughborough Pearson’s cathedral was under construction. Rooted in a proud tradition and committed to widening opportunity, the programme develops talented young singers in a supportive and inspiring environment.

This is a unique opportunity to train and perform at the highest level within one of the UK’s leading cathedral choirs. Alongside technical development, choristers grow in confidence, discipline, teamwork and leadership, becoming part of a close and ambitious musical community.

Truro Cathedral has had a choir in the form of boys and men since it first opened its doors in 1887.

In 2015, the Cathedral Choir welcomed the addition of a girl chorister programme for girls aged 13-18.

In 2023, seven girl choristers performed at the coronation of King Charles III and Queen Camilla on May 6, making history as part of the first female choristers to sing at a British coronation.

In 2024, the choristers performed at a live BBC Radio 3 broadcast titled Carols Across the Country from St Michael’s Mount, presented alongside host Petroc Trelawny.

In 2025, the junior chorister programme for children aged 8-13 became mixed gender, opening up this foundational stage of choral training to both boys and girls.

In 2026, the senior chorister programme introduced a parallel programme for girls and boys aged 13–18. This evolution reflected both the natural development of young voices and a shared commitment to offering high-quality, inclusive musical opportunities.

View All Images

Would you be interested in joining an Old Truronian Choir?

Are you a former chorister, choir member or simply someone who loves to sing? We’re exploring the idea of forming an Old Truronian Choir, bringing together alumni who want to reconnect through music and rediscover the joy of singing together. Whether you sang in the Chamber Choir, Cathedral Choir, or simply have fond memories of music at Truro School, we’d love to hear from you. No formal audition or experience required, just an interest in getting involved.

If this sounds like something you’d enjoy, please get in touch with the Development and Alumni Relations team to register your interest and help shape what an Old Truronian Choir could look like.

Register your Interest

Musical News

Latest

Martin Palmer Returns for a First Look at the New Music Centre

It was wonderful to welcome Mr Martin Palmer (Director of Music 2004-2022) back to view the new Music Centre where the Music Department will now be based, for the first time. Martin was toured by the Head, Mr Johnson, and the current Director of Music, Mr Osmond.

A New Purpose for Epworth House

Truro School is pleased to share plans for the transformation of Epworth House into a new, multi-functional wellbeing hub.

Ode by Arthur O’Shaughnessy

We are the music makers,
And we are the dreamers of dreams,
Wandering by lone sea-breakers,
And sitting by desolate streams; —
World-losers and world-forsakers,
On whom the pale moon gleams:
Yet we are the movers and shakers
Of the world for ever, it seems.

With wonderful deathless ditties
We build up the world’s great cities
And out of a fabulous story
We fashion an empire’s glory:
One man with a dream, at pleasure,
Shall go forth and conquer a crown;
And three with a new song’s measure
Can trample a kingdom down.

We, in the ages lying,
In the buried past of the earth,
Built Nineveh with our sighing,
And Babel itself in our mirth;
And o’erthrew them with prophesying
To the old of the new world’s worth;
For each age is a dream that is dying,
Or one that is coming to birth.

A breath of our inspiration
Is the life of each generation;
A wondrous thing of our dreaming
Unearthly, impossible seeming
The soldier, the king, and the peasant
Are working together in one,
Till our dream shall become their present,
And their work in the world be done.

They had no vision amazing
Of the goodly house they are raising;
They had no divine foreshowing
Of the land to which they are going:
But on one man’s soul it hath broken,
A light that doth not depart;
And his look, or a word he hath spoken,
Wrought flame in another man’s heart.

And therefore to-day is thrilling
With a past day’s late fulfilling;
And the multitudes are enlisted
In the faith that their fathers resisted,
And, scorning the dream of to-morrow,
Are bringing to pass, as they may,
In the world, for its joy or its sorrow,
The dream that was scorned yesterday.

But we, with our dreaming and singing,
Ceaseless and sorrowless we!
The glory about us clinging
Of the glorious futures we see,
Our souls with high music ringing:
O men! it must ever be
That we dwell, in our dreaming and singing,
A little apart from ye.

For we are afar with the dawning
And the suns that are not yet high,
And out of the infinite morning
Intrepid you hear us cry —
How, spite of your human scorning,
Once more God’s future draws nigh,
And already goes forth the warning
That ye of the past must die.

Great hail! we cry to the comers
From the dazzling unknown shore;
Bring us hither your sun and your summers;
And renew our world as of yore;
You shall teach us your song’s new numbers,
And things that we dreamed not before:
Yea, in spite of a dreamer who slumbers,
And a singer who sings no more.