Jamie Lonsdale Releases 'Footprints'
Jamie Lonsdale has released 'Footprints', an album to inspire others to follow their dreams; it is never too late. Jamie encourages his audience to shoot the gremlins and to face their greatest fears. By doing so, barriers will fade, and opportunities arise.
Jamie Lonsdale spent much of his childhood engulfed in music culture thanks to his parents who founded the ‘World Record Club’. As a result, as a young child Jamie was immersed in all genres of music and often accompanied his mother to work as she produced and commissioned music adaptations and spoken word projects set to music. His parent’s innovative idea went on to be renowned, attracting some of the biggest stars in the world to work with them such as Lawrence Olivier. As a result of their work Jamie spent his childhood in some of the most famous recording studios in the world and observed as his mother navigated the company with her hands-on record production, commissioning and working with the foremost conductors, musicians, arrangers, studio engineers and performers.
Jamie continued down a musical route, singing in choirs, but then at age 6 after wanting to sing a solo in church, he was gripped with fear and stage fright and ended up fleeing the church. The experience left him so mortified he didn’t then sing for 32 years! So, music then took a back seat until later in his life, after he had pursued two fascinating careers and along the way had background studded with top-level connections.
As a boy Jamie was often told “soon you’ll be old enough to be fitted for your military uniform”. As a descendent of the Duke of Wellington and Lord Raglan (the British commander in the Crimean War) and a further three great uncles on the battlefield at Waterloo. It was compulsory that he would ‘do his duty’. The Grenadier Guards was the family’s expectation but, not fancying the idea of spending nights in trenches, Jamie joined the Navy at 18 and trained as an officer at Dartmouth. He served for 5 years including a stint in Northern Ireland before his final commission on board the Royal Yacht Britannia.
But Britannia wasn’t his first link to the Royals. In fact, old-Plangbournian Jamie is a direct descendant of King Edward I. His father Norman infamously had a 5-year friendship with Princess Margaret in the 1980s, Queen Mary was godmother to his grandmother and Jamie’s former wife was lady in waiting to Diana, Princess of Wales who was a close family friend and godmother to their eldest child. At their wedding in 1984, guests included the Queen Mother, Princess Margaret and Diana.
Following his time in the military Jamie studied Chartered Surveying at Cirencester’s Royal Agricultural University and began his second successful career in property. He is the former owner of 17th century Grade II listed Kingston Lisle Park in Oxfordshire and it was here that he spent 20 years as a Church Warden and kick-started the Kingston Lisle Festival Choir receiving much encouragement from Bishop Peter, the retired Bishop of Norwich. Now he is concentrating all his efforts on his first love of music.
“Music for me as a child was always my hobby and now it has become my passion and a big part of my life. My first song came to my five years ago and I’ve been writing ever since. I’ve been touched by joy, blessings, and at rare moments, tragic loss. Music has supported me throughout all of this. All these experiences have triggered deep emotions and this, I feel, has empowered my song writing.”
Fast forward to 2020 and Jamie is set to release his album ‘Footprints’ and has chosen to pursue his passion for operatic singing and go down a classical crossover route. It took however a tragedy in Jamie’s life for him to find music again, after his baby son Louis, aged 11 months, died suddenly in the early hours of the morning from cot death. The grief was unimaginable and Jamie locked himself away with a CD a friend had given him of the opera ‘La Traviata’.
“I completely lost myself for two weeks and immersed myself into the music, I would listen to it over and over again. It helped unlock my grief and allowed me to have an emotional outlet and by the end I couldn’t resist singing along myself.”
At the age of 38 Jamie took a brave step and began singing lessons, he then auditioned for a part with Opera Anywhere and got the role! Over the last 12 months he has been back in the recording studio with leading classical crossover producer Robert Emery and a 60-piece live orchestra recording his album ‘Footprints’.
