Added poignancy for Band of HM Royal Marines after year of celebration and sadness

As director of music Capt Sam Hairsine RM says, he started this year – and indeed his career – as a member of Her Majesty's Royal Marines. He is ending the year as a member of His Majesty’s Royal Marines. It has been a year of huge joy and celebration with the Queen’s platinum jubilee but it has also been a year of great sadness and reflection with the Queen's death just a couple of months later: “It has been an important year,” Sam says. “It has been a year when we have been on the world stage even more than usual. For the platinum jubilee we were very much front and centre and it was great. It was wonderful to be part of history. It was quite surreal at times. We do our job and we do a great job and we do the best job that we can but to know that we were part of the platinum jubilee was incredible because obviously you really don't get to be part of something like that very often!”

But then came the news of the Queen's passing: “We had been rehearsing. We had a couple of concerts that week and people started getting notifications with the news. I was at home when I found out. And we changed into the band of His Majesty’s Royal Marines immediately. That happened instantly. But it felt different. It was the band of Her Majesty's Royal Marines and it was Her Majesty’s Ship Collingwood and that was just so much part of our identity. We identified with Her Majesty because she was in our title. I look at the commission that I hold and it was signed by the Queen but the great news is that the King has decided that he is going to become our Captain General. Prince Philip was before and after he died we didn't know who was going to hold that role. We certainly hoped it would be a senior royal but we didn't expect that it would be His Majesty himself but with his experience of being in the navy and working alongside the marines, it feels very right.”

But now perhaps there is a little normality to the year, with the festive season opening as it always does – or at least not in Covid times – with the Christmas concerts in Chichester: “I have done a few and it was certainly great to get back last year there to Chichester even though last year we were still very much aware of Covid but it was so lovely to be able to meet people afterwards and to hear them say just how much they enjoyed the concert and just how much a part of their Christmas celebrations it always is.”

It's a lovely concert to programme: “There is so much high quality music out there for Christmas that we can change it up a bit and keep it fresh but still keep people happy and performing alongside the cathedral choir as well is just wonderful. It means that we can change things without changing things. And also the Festival Theatre is just such a great place to work. We do always try to do really classy shows for Chichester and it gives us a lovely opportunity to some really entertaining pieces that go well alongside the cathedral choir but also perhaps pieces we would not normally do.”