What's In A Name...?

Here at Grumpy Sheep Music, we’ve never had much time for name-droppers . . .

People who talk about the celebrities they’ve known and the famous people they’ve met can be such bores.

That said, the other day, we did find ourselves chewing the fat with a certain Julian Lloyd Webber.

Just to be clear here, we’re not claiming that this is a close personal friendship or anything, the chinwag to which we refer having taken place on Twitter . . .

But still, us and Julian Lloyd Webber, eh?

During the conversation in question (and for the record, we spoke (albeit rather briefly) about musical sheep, Richard Strauss’ Don Quixote and dissonance in musical form), it struck us that we have an awful lot in common with JLW, as we like to call him here.

There’s our instrumental aptitude, for instance, and our obvious appreciation of strings (like him, Caroline Hoile, our composer-in-chief, is also a keen cellist) . . .

Then there’s the close personal connection to musicals that we can both claim to share.

In JLW’s case, this is due to his relationship with Andrew Lloyd Webber, his older brother, whose best-known compositions (Cats, Evita, The Phantom of the Opera et al), have come to define a genre that has long been close to our hearts.

In our case, we can point to a back catalogue that is brimming with excellent opuses – ours composed for children, their number including In the Beginning, The Supersonic Lamb and our latest marvellous mini-musical 'Simply Easter!'

These are a little different to ALW’s efforts, it’s true, but there are some obvious similarities between us . . .

Like him, we can claim longevity, having been in the business for quite a long time now.

Like him, we can point to sell-out shows all over the planet (his on Broadway and in London’s West End, ours in school halls, nurseries and other such venues in countries far and wide.)

Like him, we also tend to find that our work is almost always well received by our appreciative audiences.

Considered in such terms, we’re starting to wonder if Julian has spent recent days name-dropping and bragging about the time that he spent chatting to us the other afternoon!