This album is a collection of songs that helped Brindley through this universally difficult time including works such as the spiritual Deep River, He Hideth my Soul and The Lamb by William Blake.
Brindley says: “This album takes me back to my childhood as a young lad growing up in a small town on the outskirts of Manchester. It’s a thank you to my Mum and Dad, who brought me up in a joyful Salvation Army family where my Sundays started early, were very noisy, wonderfully musical, thoroughly exhausting, and above all else, fun. In April 2020 my and everyone else’s lives changed significantly. Covid caused opera houses and concert halls across the globe to close their doors. Our world was thoroughly shaken.
In this album we’ve included some of those old Salvation Army songs but given them a little 21st century shine, alongside other more recent songs that are sung in Churches the world over which we’re presenting as new arrangements from Stephen Bulla. Some are tender and others we’ve given the full-throated operatic treatment. Some you may know, many you may not. Some are quaint, some sublime but whatever you think, I hope that maybe even one line might be your comforting earworm when it’s all a bit shaky.”
Brindley was born in Lancashire and studied trumpet and singing at the Royal Academy of Music, of which he is now a Fellow and Visiting Professor. After he graduated from the Royal Academy, he began his singing career as a lay-clerk chorister in the Choir at St George’s Chapel Windsor, living in the grounds of the Castle. He then moved to the BBC Singers before moving into opera.