First Violin Ruth Funnell: Growing up in Hackney

Ahead of performing The Exoplanets at Hackney Empire next week, first violin and Hackney local Ruth Funnell reflects on her roots:

Growing up in Hackney, the Empire was always somewhere magical to me. Its grand interior felt like stepping into another world, especially as a child. Music was woven into my life here; Hackney has always meant creativity and connection. Returning now as first violin with City of London Sinfonia — and standing on the same stage that has hosted Charlie Chaplin, Julie Andrews and Louis Armstrong — feels incredibly special.

I was born in one of the beautiful Georgian houses on Sutton Place, just a short walk from Mare Street and the Hackney Empire. On your way from there to the theatre you pass St John at Hackney Church where my Dad was a curate and where my parents married in 1970.

When I was little my Dad was head of music at Sir John Cass School in Stepney and the organist at St James Upper Clapton by Clapton Pond. My mum was helping to run a playgroup for children with disabilities in the area and wanted to find somewhere where they could build a centre to support these children and their families. St James church eventually raised enough money to convert half of the building for this purpose and it become The Huddleston Centre. Eventually my Dad took on the role of Vicar of this church and gave up his teaching job. We moved to the vicarage on Kenninghall Road, and my siblings and I all sang in the church choir.

My Dad was later offered the role of Rector at St John of Jerusalem, South Hackney, so we moved again to the Rectory near Well Street Common. Later, in 2005 I would marry my husband in this church with my Dad performing the ceremony.

It was here that my Dad began the St John of Jerusalem Festival Chorus (now called the Hackney Festival Chorus). It was originally intended as a choir to take part in a special event called Voices for Hospices, where Handel’s Messiah was performed around the country to raise money for local hospices. My dad is a keen amateur musician and was also Chaplain of St Josephs Hospice in Hackney so decided to create his own choir and perform the Messiah for this event. He gathered many local musicians, both amateur and professional, and I persuaded some of my musical friends to come along too and somehow we put an orchestra together, with everyone giving their services for free. There were no auditions or requirements to join the choir except for enthusiasm and a commitment to turn up to rehearsals. My dad conducted the choir, I led the orchestra and somehow we pulled it off.

The people who had joined the choir enjoyed it so much that they decided the choir should become a regular event, and so The Festival Chorus came to life. They went on to perform many times after this, most notably performing Bach’s St John Passion and St Matthew Passion, The Creation by Haydn, Brahms’s Requiem, and Fauré’s Requiem, Handel’s Coronation Anthems, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Stainer’s Crucifixion, to name but a few, each time with my dad’s persuasive powers and enthusiasm for music allowing him to conjure up the required soloists and orchestral players.

My Dad has since retired and left Hackney but the choir continues to perform and grow, and I think the legacy he has left behind is his passion for music and the spirit of community, and joy in the shared goal of coming together to sing and perform. Hackney was such a vibrant and diverse place to grow up and living here was a wonderful opportunity to meet people from different cultures and from many different walks of life. The choir gave people the opportunity to do this through music too.

Returning to Hackney for CLS’s New Frontiers season and especially for The Exoplanets, it feels fitting to explore new worlds here in the place that shaped my own. I can’t wait to share this extraordinary evening with a Hackney audience.