Observations: Music as memorial

by Michael Church

"Can you name a rapper without a clothing line and a record label?" asks violinist Matthew Trusler. "Or a movie star without a production company? But we musicians are supposed only to play our instruments, and let the suits do the rest." Three years ago this enterprising fiddler started his own record label, Orchid. Now he's taken life by the horns in a different way, giving a concert at Kings Place in London on 18 December with his violinist wife Maya, her pianist sister Sara, and actors Geraldine James and Andrew Wincott, to raise money for the Lenny Trusler Children's Foundation, which he and his wife have created in memory of their son Lenny, who died two hours after he was born in April last year. The music will be by Prokofiev, Debussy, and Saint-Saëns, and the readings by comic writers from Edward Lear to Spike Milligan. But beware: if you book through the box office, your money will go to Kings Place. For it to reach the charity, you must either buy tickets through its website ( www.LTCF.co.uk) or send a cheque to 19, Haringey Park, London N8 9HY.